Sony Bravia VPL-VW80

The basics

This state of the art home cinema offering from Sony is the closest thing many will find to recreating the cinema in the confines of the living room. It's high 60,000:1 contrast ratio ensures some of the best colours around while Sony's own Motionflow Dark Frame tech projects a picture free of jerkiness associated with other projectors. It displays images in full 1080p high definition, no less and has two HDMI inputs, so theres always a spare slot to hook it up for cinema sized gaming sessions.

The good

Banish thoughts of financial Armageddon for a couple of hours with the help of the best eyeball massage money can buy. Over six million pixels make up the Sony’s pristine 1080p signal, with a super-fast 2.5 millisecond response time and 100Hz motion control that’s smoother than Frank Sinatra in a blender. The VW80 has the optical accuracy and power to project images up to 25 feet across, and build quality to last for years. If you like the sound of all this wonderfulness, don’t hang around – buy a VW80 before the end of 2008 and Sony will chuck in replacement lamps worth over £500.

The bad

If just one per cent of you buy a VW80 after reading this review, the UK economy will have spent its way out of the downturn. Although you might not have a house or any food. Mortgage-inducing the price-tag may be, but you can calm the bank manager by assuring him that it does include a three-year on-site warranty with the personal attention of Sony’s team of dedicated AV engineers.

The bottom line

If money makes the world go round, buying a VW80 risks slowing the Earth’s rotation so that days last approximately 36 hours. Which only gives more sweet, sweet night-time to enjoy this cinema-beating projector’s sumptuous visuals.