I want to buy a HD projector. what are the important details to look for when making this decisions? Is there a particular brand that provides the best value?

Is this for home/business/theater use?

The biggest thing to look for is going to be brightness. You should be able to find a calculator online, but depending on ambient light (e.g., watching in a room with sun coming in the windows vs. a room with the lights off) you need a certain lumen per square foot on your screen for it to look good.

Quality brands I cannot speak to, I’m across the hall from the guy who picks brands, I just smile and nod.

You say you’re looking for the best value, so if you plan on using it a lot, you might consider the estimated bulb life and cost of replacing the bulb, as well as the cost of the device, because I believe they tend to be expensive.

I would recommend going to see some in action to decide what you like. Display preference can be pretty personal and subjective.

Highest lumens….... Most important hands down

Bulb lifetime, and replacement cost. Over the lifetime of the device, replacement bulbs will get more expensive as the Projector market shrinks, since LCDs are going to get cheaper and cheaper as yields increase.

Typical bulb lifetime can be as short as 500 hours, while you get up to 20,000 hours from the CCFL backlight of an ‘old school’ LCD display, and 100,000 – 1 million hours from the LED backlight in modern LCD displays.