AE100 vs AE300 side-by-side Comparison
Tonight myself & another AVS Forum member did a side-by-side comparison of the AE100 and AE300. Both were on at the same time, each projecting onto half of a screen.
We wanted this to be a "practical" test, so each projector was configured in the same way that they they would actually be used. This meant the AE100 used the Audio Authority 9A62 transcoder, and defocused for 2.0X viewing. The AE300 was connected using the component inputs, and was sharply focused. Both were driven from the same progressive scan DVD player.
CONTRAST - IMO, by far the biggest deficiency of the AE100 is lack of contrast. The AE300 clearly improves on this, and this difference is noticeable even when not side-by-side.
COLOR - As good as the AE100's colors are, AE300 has more saturated colors that are evident throughout the color spectrum - the colors on the AE100 looks washed out by comparison. This was a surprise to me, since I don't recall anyone mentioning this before. I believe that no amount of color calibration on the AE100 will allow it to achieve this level of color saturation.
FAN NOISE - The AE300 is significantly quieter on the low speed. We did not compare the high speed.
COLOR UNIFORMITY - There was noticeable color uniformity shifts on the AE100 (especially the purple on the upper left corner). The AE300 had no such problems - with the DVD player turned off, it was a uniform grey display.
BANDING - There is still faint vertical banding, but less than on the AE100.
SCREEN DOOR - The AE300 has no screendoor and a sharper image. The AE100 when defocused and viewed at 2.0X also has no visible screendoor but the image is softer.
CEILING MOUNT - Can they use the same mount? Yes, I was able to use my AE100 ceiling bracket on the AE300 as well, even though the 300 is a larger unit.
REMOTE CONTROL - AE300 has a larger remote. Both remotes appear to operate both projectors for simple functions such as power, menu, cursor keys, etc.
THE "TEMPORARY HORIZONTAL SCREENDOOR ON VERTICAL MOTION" ARTIFACT - I am going to reserve judgement on this, since I have only used the AE300 for about 5 hours, but so far I don't find it an issue at all.
SCALING ARTIFACTS - Did not notice any on both projectors.
ZOOM & THROW DISTANCES - They appear to be identical. At maximum and minimum zooms, we got the same image heights.
BOTTOM LINE - I have used the AE100 for about 300 hours. The AE300 improves on the AE100 in almost every category, even though these improvements are more incremental than revolutionary. For viewing DVDs, the AE300 produces a picture that I much prefer over the AE100.