While Leica is a household name in the camera world, it’s not a brand we’d typically associate with the AV world. Until now, that is. For in one of those rare, slightly mad but ultimately enjoyable moments of industry crossover, Leica has decided the time is right to apply its reputation for high-quality lenses and photographic slide projectors to the home entertainment world by delivering its first home cinema video projector.
The resulting Cine 1 model is no ‘ordinary’ home cinema projector either. For starters, rather than the ‘traditional’ long-throw design we might have expected Leica to debut with, the Cine 1 is an ultra short throw (UST) design of the sort typically produced these days more as a replacement for a big-screen TV rather than a premium home cinema experience. Yet it also sports an unprecedentedly heavy-duty metallic finish, an ultra-bright triple laser lighting system, a motorised dust cover, a high-end lens and a wallet-challenging £8495 / $8995 / AU$13,999 price – all of which establishes it very much as a model targeted at the uncompromising higher-end of the home projection market.
