The Optoma ZH450ST is a 1080p (1920x1080) resolution, short throw laser projector that is extremely versatile. This $3,499 (street price $1,999) DLP projector is equally at home in conference rooms, boardrooms, classrooms, multipurpose rooms, lecture halls, exhibition halls, museums, and even golf simulators.

Optoma claims 4,200 ANSI lumens for the ZH450ST (though we measured much less as reported below), and it can project up to 100-inches from only 3 feet, 7 inches away, making installation easier for smaller spaces. There is a long throw version of this projector if needed, called the Optoma ZH450, for $2,099 (street price $1,399).

The projector features Optoma's DuraCore laser light engine with a dust-resistant design, created for maintenance-free continuous operation. The ZH450ST is mercury-free, and cuts power consumption by up to 45% compared to Optoma's lamp-based projectors. The light engine has a lifespan of up to 30,000 hours in the projector's Eco power mode, making it a good choice for businesses, education institutions, events, and museums, where continuous use is the norm.

In terms of competition, there are plenty of options for laser projectors in the $1,000 to $2,000 range, with lumen claims of 4,000 to 5,000. There are more choices for long throw projectors than short throw, but there are still several decent short throw options, such as the ViewSonic LS711HD reviewed by ProjectorCentral in July. This is a competitively priced $1,299 short throw DLP projector with 1080p resolution which is also rated for 4,200 ANSI lumens. Another alternative around the same price as the Optoma ZH450ST is the $1,899 BenQ Ace AH700ST, a short throw laser projector with a claimed 4,000-lumen brightness that is designed specifically for golf simulators. It has a Golf picture mode to deliver realistic grass and sand, and is rated to deliver 95% Rec. 709 color accuracy, similar to the gamut offering on the Optoma. All three models mentioned use an external power brick in order to reduce size and achieve a compact, lightweight chassis.

Features

The Optoma ZH450ST offers a short throw design that makes it ideal for applications where it is imperative that no shadow is cast over the image, like K-12 classrooms, conference rooms, boardrooms, golf simulators, and it is even compact enough for traveling presenters, or "road warriors."

Like many (but not all) laser projectors, it has 360-degree projection and is designed for 24/7 operation, which is particularly good for museum and art installations where the projector may not be set head-on. The projector itself is compact, weighing just 6.61 pounds and measuring 10.79 x 4.49 x 8.5 inches (WHD). It has a good-sized brick power supply that must accompany or be mounted with the projector. It features Auto Power On/Off for energy saving, and an Eco power mode.

Its IP6X Certified DuraCore laser light engine is sealed and dust resistant, which prevents any dust from settling within the optics and distorting the projected image. This makes the ZH540ST virtually maintenance-free and saves a lot of money over time over traditional lamp projectors. This Optoma is typical of most of today's laser projectors, with a 20,000 hour-to-half life rating at full power or 30,000 hours in Eco. The ZH450ST is said to cut power consumption by up to 45% as compared to Optoma's own prior lamp models. Also, since laser projectors are mercury-free, they are better for the environment, and a more sustainable way to project. Optoma prides itself on reporting that the chassis for the ZH450ST is also eco-friendly, using 50% PCR (Post-Consumer Recycled) plastics, while the projector's smaller footprint results in a reduction of packaging, which in this case is nearly completely made up of recycled materials.

The ZH450ST is a native1080p projector with a DLP micromirror chip of unspecified size. A crisp, detailed image can be projected from 36 inches up to 292 inches diagonal with vibrant color in multiple color modes to meet graphic, presentation, and video needs. The projector includes a Gaming Mode (separate from its Game Mode color mode) that significantly improves latency, and the projector has full 3D.

The Optoma ZH450ST offers multiple ways to manage, monitor, and control multiple projectors within a fleet. The first is Optoma's own OMS (Optoma Management Suite) Local, an interface which can be used to look at multiple display solutions in one location to control, diagnose issues, set alerts, and broadcast emergency announcements across multiple devices. The Optoma also has an RS232 connector for old-school command-and-control, and is compatible with AMX, Crestron RoomView (monitor, manage, and control up to 250 projectors simultaneously from any computer), and Extron IPLink.

The built-in 15-watt speaker is loud enough to fill a medium-large room. The audio quality is good. It lacks any real bass, but that is to be expected. In any classroom, conference room, boardroom, golf simulator, or museum environment, it is likely that the onboard speakers will suffice. If for some reason they are found to be inadequate, wired external speakers can be connected via a 3.5mm analog audio output.

The front of the projector has an inset lens and an IR sensor to the lens' left. The lens has a manual focus ring. There is a tilt-adjustment foot on the front and feet on rear. To the lens' right is the hot air ventilation. The cool air intake vents are on the opposite side and on the back of the projector.

The control panel is located on the top of the projector at the back. It has three indicator lights for power, lamp, and temp, and eight buttons. Those are buttons for power, two for keystone correction, information, source, enter, re-sync, menu, and what would be a ninth button is an IR sensor. The two keystone buttons, the source, and re-sync buttons act as the navigational keys.

The ZH450ST has a simple connection panel on the back of the projector. Both HDMI 2.0 inputs can accept 4K content, and they are on the left side. A wired LAN connector is beneath those. On the right side, there is an RS232 connector for command and control, a USB Power Out (5V, 1.5A) port that can be used to connect a dongle like Google Chromecast, the aforementioned audio out, and the DC jack for the separate power supply.

The remote control is one of those tiny credit-card-type remotes that fit in the palm of your hand. As such, it has basic controls. The top section consists of three buttons for power, aspect ratio, and source selection. The second section has the four navigation arrows surrounding an enter key and four buttons at each corner of the arrangement. At the top left corner, there's a button with a TV icon on it to select the color mode, the Settings button is at the top right, the Back button is at the bottom left, and the Menu button at the bottom right. The bottom section has two lines of three buttons each. The top three buttons are for volume and mute, and beneath those are for image freeze (a snowflake icon), keystone correction, and AV mute. As you might expect with a small credit card remote with membrane buttons, they aren't always easy to push and sometimes require you to press a few times with more pressure than you originally thought you needed.

The Optoma ZH450ST comes with the projector, power adapter, remote control and battery, and a basic user manual that is, in reality, just a quick-start guide. Its warranty is 3-year parts and labor on the projector and five-year or 12,000 hours on the light source.

Performance

Color Modes. The Optoma ZH450ST has nine color modes, though only six will be accessible for most content. Those six are Bright, Vivid, Cinema, Game, Sport, and Reference. The others are hidden HDR, HLG, and 3D modes that appear when the projector recognizes those content types. Measurements for the visible modes are listed in the appendix of this review.

The ZH450ST also features a variety of controls for tweaking the image, including a full CMS (color management system) for adjusting hue, saturation, and gain for red, green, blue, cyan, yellow, magenta, and white. There are four standard settings for Color Temperature, and settings for Gamma to help optimize the picture for different lighting condition. Keep in mind that my findings below discuss the out-of-the-box color modes. An additional setting that may be helpful is a Wall Color menu that will adapt the color to any of six non-white projection surfaces.

Bright mode, though imbued with the typical green hue found in most projector's brightest mode, is not awful. It does make yellows and, particularly, mustard-yellow and oranges, look muddy. Green-blue and teals look a bit off, obviously leaning more toward green on the color wheel than they usually would have done, but it's not as bad as some other bright modes I've seen. Whites are a bit green-tinted, which is to be expected, but you get used to it. It's a usable mode if you need to squeeze out as many lumens as possible for presentations and don't require accurate color.

Looking at portrait photography, skin tones look fairly decent for a bright mode. Some even look natural, though in many cases, the highlights are blown out and magentas are exaggerated, so this wouldn't be a mode to choose for content featuring a lot of human subjects. It's more for text or graphic content, and, again, only if you don't need accurate color and do need as much brightness as possible. Unfortunately, our sample measured 2,948 lumens, which is 30% below its 4,200 ANSI lumen claim and well beyond the 20% tolerance accepted in the current ISO21118 standard (which follows the old ANSI measurement technique).

Vivid mode has much more natural looking color on the color wheel, and the issue in Bright mode with the yellows and oranges is gone with this mode, as is the one with the green-blue and teal. A new one emerges, however, when it comes to the reds. It is highly difficult to differentiate between pure red, and reds that lean toward orange, and reds that lean toward magenta, until they reach closer to either orange or magenta/pink. That is something to look out for, particularly if your content contains a lot of those colors.

Like Bright mode, Vivid also leans toward magenta on skin tones, though more so than Bright. It also pushes the highlights to be a bit blown out, though not as much as Bright mode. This will be your best mode for presentations in bright room environments where more accurate color is desired. It's the next brightest mode at 2,517 lumens.

Cinema mode is easily the best mode for video viewing, and even presentations if you have more controlled lighting in your environment. It will certainly be a better choice for art installations and exhibits. It does have a similar issue to Vivid with the reds being difficult to differentiate from each other, but less so. You can tell the difference on the color wheel if you look carefully enough. All the rest of the colors are more obvious and look rather excellent.

Indeed, when viewing portraits using Cinema mode, none of the highlights are blown out, nor are any of the different types of skin tones overly magenta—even those types that have that normally rosy or pink undertone. This mode measured 2,113 lumens, which is the lowest out of all the modes aside from Reference, but it is still enough to handle ambient light from the sides. It's the dark scenes you'll have to watch out for when it comes to ambient light, and work to keep it from shining directly onto the projection surface for best results.

Game Mode does a tad better on the reds than Cinema, and all the other colors are more vibrant. It's not a mode you'd choose for anything other than gaming, really, as it's designed specifically for that, and is described in the manual as optimized "for maximum contrast and vivid colors allowing you to see shadow detail when playing video games." As an SDR picture mode it won't be accessible when you're playing HDR games, however, which always default to the HDR mode.

Watching cutscenes of various games like Final Fantasy 7 Remake and The Last of Us in addition to viewing portrait photography, I can tell you that there are times when Game mode overdoes it on the magenta tones, while sometimes looking decently realistic. Sometimes, the highlights are blown out, too. While Cinema does a better job on skin tones, you can see more of the background detail with Game, which means you have a better chance of survival in a game like The Last of Us, or Call of Duty. It also has another 100+ lumens on Cinema, measuring at 2,275.

Those who are looking at this projector for golf simulation will be pleased to know it does reproduce golf courses well in Sport mode. It doesn't overdo the greens. Whether the grass has a bluish hue, a dark green tint, or leans toward the typical lawn-colored green, it reproduces the colors pretty accurately. It also reproduces sand pits, rock formations, water, and sky nicely.

That is where this mode shines—the greens, blues, and yellows—with the magentas, pinks, mustard-yellow, and orange looking decent. The reds are also difficult to differentiate, though that seems to be a running theme with this projector. Sport mode measured 2,315 lumens.

Reference mode is the final mode of the ZH450ST. This is the most dim mode, measuring at only 1,050 lumens. Its color is probably the most accurate, though it lacks the contrast of the other modes, and I don't like it for most content, at least not during the day. Mostly, I would just use it as its namesake—for reference.

Presentation Viewing. The Optoma ZH450ST handles presentations of all types well. I am studying Illustration with an Emphasis in Comics for my BFA and the new semester has begun, and as an online student, my classes consist of video, text and graphic content. As this projector has its uses in education, I saw this as a good opportunity to test its abilities with educational content. I consumed the first module of my Clothed Figured Drawing class utilizing the ZH450ST, and I have to say I prefer this method of viewing the content to the smaller computer screens of my desktop and laptop.

I viewed the module in all the color modes, but Cinema and Reference mode were the best of the lot. Cinema was the clear winner, with the most natural-looking color, especially on skin tones. I found Reference to be a bit too muted, especially during the day, and skin tones were too washed out. The ZH450ST was sharp and clear on both video and text. The linework of the charcoal illustration examples was precise and, at 100-inches, easy for me to grasp the flow of the instructor's hand. The text of the module varies, from the larger font of the headings at around 16-point, to the body text at 12-point, to the captions that are at 10-point font size. All these are extremely sharp and can be read easily at a distance of twenty to thirty feet back.

Aside from my coursework, presentation slides, infographics, websites, videos with captions, all looked rather excellent. For anything that does not have skin-tones, nor a need for accurate color, Vivid mode may be a top choice. It is vibrant, bright, and good-looking on certain presentations. Perhaps a bit too intense for some colors, such as neon ones that are already quite colorful themselves, but a great choice for instances when a bit more brightness is needed.

Video Viewing. This is a 1080p projector that accepts 4K HDR signals through either HDMI port and displays them as 1080p with HDR. I was curious to see how it did with 4K HDR content downscaled by the projector, but specifically, wanted to see what my BBC Seven Worlds One Planet on 4K UHD looked like when projected by the ZH450ST. It looked gorgeous, with beautiful color and detail. The penguins, seals, and landscape of Antarctica all seemed to have a tangible texture when projected in this mode. Looking at this program in 1080p/SDR also yielded excellent results in the Cinema mode. Vivid could also theoretically be used for content like this, but it is, in my opinion, too vibrant at times, and has unrealistic color when reproducing some of the plant life or animals.

Looking at downscaled 1080p HDR from the 4K Blu-ray of the animated movie Big Hero 6, I saw fantastic color and use of texture. Watching it in 1080p/SDR, Cinema mode was again the clear winner, though I did like Reference as a second choice. Though the differentiation of reds was an issue when viewing the color wheel, it wasn't in this film, which has a lot of reds. If your application has animated content, you would likely be happy with this projector.

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I am confident in saying that aside from HDR10 mode, Cinema is very likely the only mode that will be usable for video, so you will want to make sure you have the ability to control ambient light in your environment. This held true for both Top Gun: Maverick and Jurassic World in 1080p—Cinema mode all the way. The other modes just are not natural looking enough and have those issues with pushing the highlights.

Gaming. The Optoma ZH450ST excels at gaming. In its settings, along with the available Game picture mode that affects image color and contrast, it has the option to turn on the similarly named Gaming Mode, which takes the input lag from 49.5 ms (good enough for casual gaming) to an impressive 16.2 ms (fantastic, on point for competitive gaming).

As such, the projector can be used in a variety of settings, whether that be in a golf simulator, interactive display, virtual tour, product demonstration, flight simulation, or other type of interactive experience such as what might be seen at a museum. The issue you may run into with this projector is with ambient light. You'll want to have a decent amount of lighting control, as the projector did not meet its 4,200 claim in its brightest mode, and all its modes with good color clocked in between 2,100 and 2,500 lumens and change.

You don't need a fully darkened room to use the projector for gaming, but it does need to be pretty dim. I had all my shades drawn. I have those horizontal blinds that you can control face upward or downward, and I had them in a position so that the least amount of light was let in. If the game you're playing or content you're viewing has dark scenes or environments, it's going to be washed out if there is ambient light facing the projection. If it is coming in from the side, you'll be better off.

I gamed mostly in HDR from my PlayStation 4. The color looked fairly accurate, if just a little dim. I enjoyed playing Hogwarts Legacy on it, as always. No lag, super smooth gameplay. If you game in SDR, you will be able to use Game mode instead, and you probably won't have as many issues with ambient light.

I was particularly interested in playing Ghost of Tsushima on it. This is because the game has a ton of grass and different kinds of foliage, with a broad spectrum of green. When I researched my golf simulator impact screen article, I learned about the need for projectors to reproduce the correct colors of the types of grasses that are featured in the various golf courses one might play in a golf simulator. The whole point is that it should feel as real as possible. On the ZH450ST, the foliage, in HDR mode, looked excellent. Since golf simulators use a computer that might be restricted to standard dynamic range, it is likely you would choose Sport, Game, or Cinema for a golf simulator.

Conclusion

The Optoma ZH450ST is a compact, eco-friendly short throw laser projector whose versatility makes it ideal for many environments. From K-12 classrooms to boardrooms, and museums to golf simulators, the ZH450ST offers a solid feature set that caters to the applications seen in these environments. Its IP6X certified DuraCore laser light engine has a long lifespan, reducing maintenance costs and downtime, and the projector has 24/7 operation, so you can make the most of those light source hours.

While this projector falls short of its 4,200 lumen claim, it is still nicely bright at 2,948 lumens in its brightest mode, and its best mode with good color is above 2,100 lumens, though as a laser projector it appears visually brighter. The projector has low latency in its Gaming mode at 16.2 ms, making it an excellent choice for golf simulators and other gaming applications. It also features 360-degree projection, compatibility with multiple control systems, and works with both Mac and PC. The 3-year warranty on the projector and 5-year light source warranty provide solid protection.

Overall, the ZH450ST is a competent business, education, and gaming projector wrapped into one package that was impressive in a few areas, perhaps less so in others, but still a contender if it's bright enough for your space. That is what is most important of all.

Measurements

Brightness. The Optoma ZH450ST claims 4,200 ANSI lumens in its Bright picture mode at full laser power, which is called Constant Power 100%. Constant Power allows you to adjust the light engine to your liking, to any percentage between 0% and 100%. There is also Eco mode to extend the light engine lifespan, and that, of course, affects the lumen output.

Unfortunately, the ZH450ST did not meet its claim. It is quite bright at 2,948 lumens in Bright mode, but that falls 30% below its claim. Generally, it is acceptable for projectors to fall within 20% below claim, which is the tolerance cited in the current ISO21118 measurement standard that follows the older ANSI measurement technique.

Optoma ZH450ST ANSI Lumens

Mode	Constant Brightness 100%	Eco
Bright	2,948	2,262
Vivid	2,517	2,033
Cinema	2,113	1,925
Game	2,275	1,898
Sport	2,315	1,912
Reference	1,050	915

Brightness Uniformity. The ZH450ST has a brightness uniformity of 70%. Visually, I didn't notice the incongruence between the different sectors of the projected image; there was no obvious hotspotting, which suggests that the brightness difference between the brightest sector of our 9-sector measurement (bottom center) and the least bright sector (top left) was gradual enough not to be distracting. There was also a slight amount of laser speckle visible in some images, but I had to really look for it. It wasn't distracting when watching videos or playing games.

Fan Noise. Optoma rates the ZH450ST's fan noise at 29dB in Eco mode, and 36dB at full power, using the industry standard multi-point measurement in a soundproof booth. In a quiet room, measuring five feet behind the projector, the fan noise came in a bit higher than that as follows: Eco, 35.2 dB; Normal, 37.3 dB; High Altitude, 48.6 dB.

Audibly, the fan noise wasn't noticeable. Even when I was sitting right next to the projector watching my illustration course, I wasn't bothered by the fan. The audio overpowers any noise you might hear from the projector. Even if there isn't audio, like in a presentation, the presenter will be able to speak over the sound of the projector with no problem.

Input Lag. The ZH450ST offers a Gaming Mode (not to be confused with the Game color mode) that significantly improves the projector's latency, taking the input lag from a measured 49.5 ms (1080p/60Hz) to 16.2 ms (1080p/60Hz). That is excellent, making this projector a great choice for gaming and golf simulators.

Connections

• HDMI (x2, version 2.0)
• LAN (RJ45)
• RS-232 (9 pin)
• USB Power Out (5V, 1.5A)
• Audio Out (3.5 mm analog)
• DC Power In

For more detailed specifications and connections, check out our Optoma ZH450ST projector page.

To buy this projector, use Where to Buy online, or get a price quote by email direct from Projector Central authorized dealers using our E-Z Quote tool.

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