Sony VPL-XW5000 review: "Unquestionably a fantastic projector; but demands a very high price"

The Sony VPL-XW5000 shows what the brand's projectors are all about: it makes serious projectors for gaming and entertainment, at serious prices. These aren’t casual units for idly bingeing shows while dozing on the sofa, they’re the centrepieces of home theatres. While it’s compact for the amount of tech it packs in, the size and weight really do show that this is a high-end projector to build a setup around, rather than slotting into an everyday living room.

The XW5000 is part of Sony’s 2022 range (including the XW7000, a snip at $15,000/£15,000), and marks the company’s move from lamp projection to laser sources, while continuing to draw upon the top-of-the-line tech from its Bravia TVs, adapted to projection. But is it worth its extremely high price of admission?

Design & Features

The VPL-Xw5000 is big. So big, that it won't simply fit on a shelf, and the best option is to place it on a large base unit or fit it to the ceiling. If you chose the latter, Sony advises using an authorised tradesperson for this, as you don’t want 28lb/13kg of projector falling onto whoever’s sitting below. I had to shift furniture around the living room and make apologies to my partner for the time it was with us. However, Sony claims this to be the world’s most compact native 4K HDR laser projector, which shows how much tech is required to provide the quality within.

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If the size didn’t sufficiently convey seriousness, the connections hammer it home. There’s a standard two HDMI 2.0 ports and a USB, but no audio connectivity, nor any internal speakers. Sony presumes you have an AV amp to run into and split the signal from there.

There are also no streaming options, as you’ll already have all the high-definition media sources you need. If you’re dropping $6,000/£6,000 on a projector these are not unreasonable assumptions - this is for people who demand top-of-the-line picture and performance and have setups to match.

The shift to laser projection means it runs cooler and with lower power consumption than Sony’s previous models, but most importantly it gives a superior picture. As with most Sony projectors, the images are powered by the latest Bravia tech - in this case, the X1 Ultimate chip, and there’s also their Triluminos Pro algorithm to reproduce realistic colour with excellent depth. The 0.261inch Silicon X-tal Reflective Display (SXRD) enhances brightness and contrast, to give even greater colour reproduction.

The XW5000 dispenses with the mechanical zoom and lens shift of previous Sony models, which is a slight disappointment. But they were a bit of a novelty I enjoyed playing with rather than a functional need - once this is installed and properly set up it won’t be moving so you would only need to use these once.

Performance

It took a little time for me to really get the best from the XW5000. The initial presets are good, but needed some adjustments to totally land with my setup. This increased the feeling that this projector is aimed at those who truly know what they’re doing, or at least can pay someone who does, to optimally configure it.

The 2,000-lumen output was bright enough to watch even with ambient summer sunshine coming in through my living room patio windows, although of course in the dark is when it truly shines and gives its best. The realistic colour from the Triluminos system gave beautiful pictures, although I had to resist oversaturating in a way that would have made the image less naturalistic.

While it upscales well, I did become more conscious of the input sources I was using. Streaming from the PS5 generally offers no notable issues, and while the image here was good I did really notice the XW5000 going into another level when it had a proper 4K signal to work from. The advice is like Snake yelling at Homer Simpson when he realises he’s filled up the car with regular gas: "She needs premium, dude! Premium!". Running recent games or 4K video really gave the awe-inspiring picture I expect at this price.

This is what many imaging pedants would point to as "true" 4K, as opposed the 'faux'K offered by many projectors which are stated as offering this quality. More wallet-friendly options will reach this standard through pixel-shifting technology to do a pretty passable impression of 4K imaging, but the XW5000 offers the real deal and is a proper contender for the best 4K projector of 2022. In practice, I find the difference negligible when pitched against current top-of-the-line projectors which use that tech, but if you’re swinging this kind of cash then you may well be in the camp where only the best will do for you.

For games, the stats are very impressive. The game mode offers a mere 21ms of input lag at 4K when running at 60Hz, which should be ideal as a projector for PS5 and Xbox Series X and sate all but the pickiest of competitive gamers, and can get as low as 13ms at 120Hz and 2K. 

Games look great on here, and once again I was especially impressed by the current generation of games which showed a real step up in image quality. The landscapes of the Forbidden West looked astonishing, while shooters ran smoothly even as I chaotically spun around in a panic.

Overall - should you buy it?

So is it worth it? Now, we’re not here to tell you how to spend your money, but the price of this projector and the economic climate does raise that question. If this amount of money is reasonable for you, you already have a top-of-the-line home cinema setup for this to slot into and you have to have "proper" native 4K, then this is a hearty recommendation. It’s unquestionably a fantastic projector; but it demands a very high price.

If your eyes became wide when you saw the price of this then it’s worth exploring the market further - we recent reviewed the also-4K BenQ TK700 and BenQ X3000i which are both substantially cheaper than this Sony model.

The XW5000 is around three times the price of some great projectors but for an incremental gain rather than three times the picture quality. Especially if you need change left over for other improvements to your home cinema (a screen, surround sound, blackout blinds, etc), that money can be spent in other places which would have a bigger impact on your viewing pleasure.

How we tested the Sony VPL-XW5000

I continued my adventures through Horizon: Forbidden West and loved the level of detail in the landscapes - images of this quality really help to immerse yourself in the game. Couch co-oping Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands was equally fun - the image smoothness really helped me to play in a calmer way than usual, and I noticed a drop-off in my gameplay when switching back to a projector that doesn’t run to the same specs.

Streaming to this or watching HD sources did start to show up the weaknesses in the source image. The jump from finishing Ms. Marvel streaming on Disney+ off the PS5 to a full UHD source of Birds of Prey was very noticeable. The Harley Quinn vehicle is a great test for projectors as it combines bright colours in the foreground characters with murky darkness in backgrounds and some specific settings. The level of detail in the dark areas was excellent for a projector, and it passed this examination with flying - and very clear - colours. There was a slight relief at the end of testing, given the reshuffle of furniture which was required by the sheer size of the projector. In terms of image quality and gaming specs, there was a real drop-off when returning to my normal unit.

You can read more about our holistic approach to gaming tech in our hardware policy, and read more about how we test gaming projectors at GamesRadar+ here.

If you are shopping for a projector this year, don't forget to pick up one of the best projector screens or one of the best outdoor projector screens if you're looking to embrace the last of the long evenings too.