Mitsubishi XL2U: Projector Lamp Extraordinaire!

Mitsubishi is the ultimate consumer electronic manufacturer; making everything from cars, to sound systems, to flat screen televisions, to yes, you guessed it, LCD projectors. They first started making LCD projectors back in the late nineties with a couple units that were more crapshoots than anything else. Since then they have improved their projectors substantially. A great example of a projector that operates at a high-level is the Mitsubishi XL2U.

The XL2U debuted in February of 2002 to a lot of media hype and fanfare, the expectations were high for this unit and it delivered. The projector has a native resolution 1024x768 and a 150W UHP projector lamp that gushes a brilliant 1500 ANSI Lumens. The projector lamp ID # for the unit is XL2LP and is available here at myprojectorlamps.com, look for it by using the search engine below.

The unit was also one of the first projectors to break the 7 pound barrier; of course since then, projectors have become lighter and lighter, with a few micro-portable projectors now breaking the 4 pound range.

The contrast ratio on this unit is unfortunately only 350:1 and this “weak link” is the only thing holding the unit back from competing with projectors released years later. However, what the Mitsubishi XL2U lacks in contrast, it makes up for with the projector lamp inside the unit.

As I mentioned earlier, the lamp inside the unit produces 1500 ANSI lumens. But, what does 1500 ANSI lumens actually mean to the performance of the XL2U? Well, a projector lamp of this stature obviously creates a brighter image, which can help out a lot when you’re watching television in the daytime. It makes the image brighter in a dark setting as well, and this means that colors pop more, which can translate to greater detail, especially amoungst dark colors. So, while a brighter projector lamp won’t improve the contrast ratio directly, indirectly it will help define darker colors better.

So, if you were to take two projectors with the same contrast ratio and one had the XL2LP projector lamp inside, and the other had one that produced 1000 ANSI lumens. Then the brighter lamp would produce better contrast to the eye, despite the fact that they have the same contrast ratio.

For this reason the Mitsubishi XL2U is an excellent pick up and well worth it if you can find a used one that is still in good shape.