Since the spring of 2024, the three-color laser intelligent projection has ushered in an unprecedented outbreak of new products. Including the number of product models, price line distribution, base price and performance ceiling have been greatly strengthened and broken through. Industry insiders believe that in the 4K home projection market, three-color lasers will soon dominate; At the same time, in the intelligent projection market of more than 3,500 yuan, 4K three colors will become the core choice label.
That is, the great era of 4K three-color laser intelligent projection has arrived. In this context, there are also manufacturers who want to "take the lead" : for example, on the eve of the 618 shopping season, Zhongke Aurora announced that it will directly reduce the price of its three-color laser TV T1 to about 7199 yuan. This is also the "cheapest 4K three-color laser TV" product at present. At the same time, the product can provide 370nit 100-inch brightness.
"Is the end of 4K tri-color laser TV?" This is the face of Zhongke Aurora T1 price concessions, have to put forward the question; It is also a discussion on the next evolutionary direction of intelligent projection!
4K tri-color: brightness up, price down!
In 2024, the new product of three-color laser intelligent projection has obtained three important breakthroughs: the breakthrough of the quality ceiling, the breakthrough of the base price, and the breakthrough of the quality-price ratio.
For example, on the performance ceiling, both the Polaris RS 10 Ultra Collector Edition and the Nut N1S Ultra to Reserve Edition have a maximum brightness of 3500CVIA lumens. This is a very high "home projection brightness". Dark room enough to support 150-200 inches of large picture projection needs. From the perspective of projection application history, at the peak of the installation of teaching multimedia projectors (that is, when the LCD teaching tablet has not been popularized), the average brightness of teaching projection in ordinary classrooms of primary and secondary schools has not reached 3,500 lumens. What's more, the color rendering of the three-color laser is better, and the actual brightness will be higher than that of the traditional mercury lamp projector.
On the price bottom line, the price of two 1080p three-color laser projection models, Ji Mi RS10 MINI and Dangbei D6X pro, dropped to 3699-3999 yuan, which will Pierce the three-color laser price bottom line again. Nut N1S 4K also hit the low price of 4K three-color laser to 4999 yuan, becoming the first 4K three-color laser projector to break the threshold of 5,000 yuan.
In terms of quality/price ratio, Danbe X5S 1080P three-color laser projection, 2450VIA lumen brightness, price down to 4999 yuan; Nut N1S PRO will 4K tri-color laser 2500 VIA lumen brightness products, the price down to 5999 yuan. It is worth mentioning that in dark room conditions, 2500 lumens brightness is enough to meet the needs of 150 inch picture. 150 inches is also the general living room viewing distance, wall height (floor height) can ideally accommodate the size of the upper limit.
In addition, for a laser TV with an ultra-short focus lens, the output brightness of 2500 lumens is also enough to use an anti-light screen and color TV to appreciate a 100-inch large picture with a brightness of more than 300nit. In fact, 2,500 lumens is already in the "high-end brightness category" for home projectors. General dark room to enjoy the 100-inch picture, only need 800-1200 lumens brightness, can be satisfied.
"Lower price and better performance!" This is the biggest feature of three-color laser projection since the beginning of 2024, especially 4K products. According to data from Lotu Technology, in the first quarter of 2024, the sales share of three-color laser technology in mid-telephoto laser projection reached 65.2%, up 16.8 percentage points from the same period last year; The proportion of 618 promotion period is expected to be close to 70%; At the same time, in the first quarter of 2024, the sales share of 4K smart projection online market is 5.4%, and the share of 618 promotion period is expected to reach 10%. 4K, the popularity of three colors is expected.
The next step of innovation, intelligent projection will face the challenge
The wind direction of the home investment industry in 2024 is still dominated by new price lows. Not only the 4K three-color laser products mentioned above, but other products are no exception. For example, entering the second quarter, Epson also adjusted the price of the explosive laser projection EF-15 in the fourth quarter of last year to 2999 yuan, which was 300 yuan lower than the listed price. This is currently within 3000 yuan, brightness and light valve balance configuration of the most quality-price ratio of laser projection products.
For price trends, Lotu Technology expects that the average price of the 618 online intelligent projection market may fall by 10 percentage points or more in 2024. Among them, products above 3,000 yuan occupy 90% of the market share. Moreover, not only is the price lower, the market also contains the characteristics of "higher performance at the same price" : for example, 500 lumens 1LCD projection has entered the ranks of thousand yuan +.
The road map after 4K three colors: for the projector, the light source (brightness and chroma), light valve (resolution and brightness support ability), lens (projection space needs), screen (reflection imaging) is the four major components. 4K three-color laser represents the progress of light source and light valve. From the perspective of the technology path, the next step is likely to increase innovation in the lens and screen.
In fact, before the rise of 4K three-color lasers, LED intelligent projection had highlighted a number of innovative products on the ultra-short focus, and developed different experiences based on improved lens technology. The core of laser TV products is to rely on ultra-short focus and anti-light curtain to obtain the ideal picture quality effect under the "non-dark room", and then the experience of traditional color TV products. It can be said that the rise of 4K three-color laser intelligent projection, in a sense, is temporarily replacing the C-bit of lens and screen innovation products.
At present, the price of 2500 lumens 4K tricolor products is forced to 5000 yuan. It represents that this innovation path has reached a very perfect and mature level in terms of technology. At the same time, from the perspective of consumer experience, if it is only a darkroom application, the brightness of more than 2000+ is not the high performance required for the mainstream 100-120 inch picture - expensive, performance waste: in turn, if 2500 lumens are equipped with ultra-short focus, anti-light curtain, you can get rid of the darkroom restrictions and achieve color TV enjoyment. The latter is the idea and logic of Zhongke Aurora T1 product price reduction.
- That is, a projection with high price and high performance, is it necessary to compete for the mainstream color TV large-screen market of LCD TVS? Especially in the brightness upgrade above 3500 lumens, touching the LCD TV can not reach 120/150 home application color TV size, it should be the projection of the "home ceiling choice".
From a technical point of view, the lens and screen can be innovative, and the performance of high-brightness products can be played out from the demand Angle, and the lens and screen need to be more powerful. From the perspective of the healthy development of the industry, once 4K tricolor is popularized, the industry also needs to explore new priorities. Three factors superimposed, perhaps Zhongke Aurora's T1 price reduction, is the first in exploring the next round of product innovation climax of the inspiration point.
Big screen debate, how to win the high-end projection
For the continuous breakthrough of home projection innovation, the biggest market variable at present comes from external competitive products. That is, the cheap LCD screen. 5,000 yuan 85-inch, 8,000 yuan 100-inch liquid crystal products have emerged in large numbers in 2024.
When smart projectors and laser TVS were just emerging, they were the first choice for family large-screen entertainment. It can not only provide "large screen", but also "sufficient quantity" and "low price". According to statistics, in 2014, the total sales of the domestic 70+ LCD large screen market was only about 30,000 units. Until 2019, more than 70+ LCD large screens are "market rarity", "insufficient supply and expensive".
In the fourth quarter of 2023, 75 inches officially became the largest proportion of LCD color TV in the domestic market. The popularity of 85+ inch and above products is accelerating. At the same time, through lower panel reflectivity, mini backlight partition dynamic highlight technology, LCD display is also overcoming more performance experience bottlenecks.
"In 2018-2019, the best selling 75-inch screen was a laser TV, and now it's an LCD TV!" Industry insiders said that the rise of LCD screens has a very obvious role in the division of the projector market. This will also further shape the innovation direction and market layout of home projection products in the future. Among them, cheap + super large screen, is regarded as the biggest selling point of projector home, color TV, flexible crimping is an auxiliary selling point.
Therefore, for the projector market, the real high-end can not be defined by high price, but should be able to provide a richer, larger screen, more accessible differentiated immersive audiovisual options as the center. From this point of view, the rise of 4K three colors is only for the future home to play a good light valve and light source upgrade foundation, rather than the ultimate form. From the perspective of consumption choices, this judgment is even clearer:
For example, the consumption difference between the 8000 yuan Zhongke Aurora T1 laser TV and the 100-inch LCD screen at the same price is very obvious. That is, laser TV needs a shorter comfortable viewing distance, that is, it can adapt to more family living room space. The 5-meter viewing distance of 100-inch LCD TVS almost limits their popularity. For example, a thousand-lumen laser projection or LED projection with a price of 3,000 yuan can provide a 100-inch large screen under the dark room, which is an application that cannot be achieved on the cost of a large LCD screen.
Therefore, some people in the industry believe that once home entertainment forms the value cognition of "non-super large screen", the next popularization storm of projection home will inevitably come. Before that, the industry needs to do a good job of not only 4K three-color laser innovation, but also more innovation including cost, supply and service chain, lens and screen.
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