Casio Green Slim XJ-A145U

Casio Green Slim XJ-A145U

Not many projectors offer both a 2500-lumen rating and a light source designed to last the life of the projector. In fact, the Casio Green Slim XJ-A145U ($999.99 direct) and a few closely related Casio models are the first to make that claim. The secret is Casio's innovative Green Slim hybrid light source. Not only does it last a lot longer than the traditional lamps you'll find in most projectors, it has the additional benefit of being mercury free, which makes it a much more ecologically friendly projector than most. In some ways, the XJ-A145U is a typical lightweight XGA (1,024-by-768) DLP projector, in much the same class as the Mitsubishi XD500U-ST ($1,295 street, ) that I reviewed awhile back. However, instead of producing red, green, and blue using a standard lamp and a color wheel, it produces red with LEDs, blue with lasers, and green by shining the blue laser light on a phosphor. Various optics direct the red, green, and blue light to the DLP chip, and out the front lens. One of the key advantages of the hybrid light source is its 20,000-hour expected lifetime - long enough to run the projector 8 hours a day every business day for 10 years. That's 4 to 10 times longer than the claimed lifetimes for standard lamps, which range from 2,000 to 5,000 hours.