Sub £1500 projector for a garden room — 1.65:1 throw needed. What would you go for?

**Room** 5.4m x 3.7m, ceiling 210cm one side / 220cm the other

North facing, one 600x600mm window and narrow patio doors, both on the same long wall. Patio doors and the end where i willl be projecting

Genuinely dark room due to facing north, blinds planned

15cm skirting, pale green walls

**Constraints** Projector must go on the **back wall** — that’s where the power and Ethernet are, and there’s no ceiling power. Shelf at \~190cm, projector \~46cm deep, so **effective throw is around 495-500cm**.

Screen wall is 370cm. With the 210cm ceiling that caps me at **300 x 169cm (135”)**. **So I need roughly 1.65:1.**

Almost everything at this budget is 1.1-1.5:1 — XGIMI, Hisense, BenQ TK series, Optoma home models. From 500cm they’d all throw 150”+ which won’t fit my wall.

**Uses, priority order** 4K films via Apple TV

TB sport (F1, cricket) — mixed 1080p and 4K

Xbox, solo play

Eye distance \~515cm, sofa against the back wall.

**Audio** Sonos Beam Gen 2 via AirPlay 2 from the Apple TV, since nothing at this price seems to have eARC. Xbox on a headset for now.

**Questions** What would you buy at £1500 or under, new or used, with a max throw ratio of 1.65:1 or higher?

Is anything other than Epson’s 3LCD line worth looking at in that throw range?

For dark-room film viewing at 5m — how much weight would you give contrast vs native 4K?

Buying used lamp-based: what would you check beyond lamp hours and a white-field photo?

Cheers. .