[Editor's note: this review is excerpted from John's write-up of the 2004 Projector Expo.]

Since almost everyone there agreed that these were the best two sub-$12000 projectors at the show, we did an extensive comparison between the two as our finale Sunday night. Unfortunately, after 2 days of solid comparisons, we only had about 12 people left in the room to see it! Hopefully one or more of them will comment here as to what they thought.

Our source was once again the JVC D-VHS deck feeding both projectors via component video, using the TI DLP 1080i Demo Tape as source material. We paired each projector with what we felt to be its best match in regard to screen - the 7205 was matched with the 110" Firehawk, the Sharp with the 110" Carada Brilliant White. The Sharp was run in high contrast mode for most of the comparison; the 7205 was always left at the lower power bulb setting.

The pictures were far more alike than they were different, appearing almost identical in regard to detail and sharpness. In terms of brightness, the 7205 was distinctly but not overwhelmingly brighter, even though it was on a grey screen and the Sharp was on a white. The blacks were slightly deeper on the Sharp (here the Infocus had the assistance of the Firehawk screen material; I would say that the blacks would have been distinctly deeper on the Sharp had they both been shown on the same white screen). In terms of contrast, the Sharp had the advantage in high contrast mode due to the deeper blacks. Interestingly, the visible contrast advantage went to the Infocus when we switched the Sharp to the medium or high brightness modes.