Projectors are now light enough to be carried easily from room to room; educators can toggle wireless control of the projector among students during classroom discussion; many are bright enough to run in classrooms without lowering the lights; and, on higher-end models, administrators can remotely control networked projectors to save energy and extend bulb life.

Bob Guentner, product marketing manager for the Visual Systems division of NEC Solutions, said he sees prices continuing to fall in a market that had more than 40 different name brands and nearly 550 models in production as of press time. "The price of projectors is becoming much more affordable--even for elementary schools," Guentner said. "A number of new schools that are being built are putting a projector in every classroom now."

Projectors are "a fraction of the cost today" compared to "yesteryear, while the resolution and brightness continues to surpass expectations," said Steve Reynolds, marketing manager for AVPresentations Inc., which operates EducationProjectors.com. "Just a couple of years ago, a 2,000 ANSI lumen, XGA-resolution projector would cost a school about $2,000, averaging about a dollar per lumen. Today, that model is shattered." As of press time, he said, a 2,000-lumen, XGA-resolution projector costs between $800 and $1,000.

James Chan, director of product marketing for Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America, agreed that market demand and technological innovation have reached a point where the devices are now more feasible for the average school system.

"Projectors have pretty much reached the pinnacle of value in terms of brightness, weight, and price," Chan said, noting that manufacturers--including his own company--continue nonetheless to seek ways to reduce the total cost of ownership for schools by improving overall projector design and creating "brighter, more efficient projectors ... which translates to cost."

The lamp, the most expensive hardware element of a projector, averages around $350, according to Dave Dicklich, editor of ProjectorCentral.com, a site for projector information and product reviews.

"Lamp lives are all over all over the map," Dicklich said. "A good lamp half-life is probably right around 6,000 hours right now. What that means is that, after 6,000 hours, the lamp will have half the brightness it did originally. That's probably the high end. A typical lamp life is probably around 3,000 hours; some are as low as 1,500." He said educators should look for projectors with a lamp half-life of at least 2,000 hours. Another cost-saving advancement in projection technology, Reynolds said, is filterless projectors.