For me though I need it to remain somewhat portable as I move between different countries relatively often, and I also just want something that disappears as much as possible when not used, hence my preference for projectors over TVs in the first place.

It’s just amazing and has revolutionized “family movie night” (which has actually been Anpanman movies on Netflix for the last month or so).

It does have features like resolution well above full HD and support for 3D though, both of which are completely lost on me. But it seems you’re right there’s not much to choose from at a lower price range without opting in for a bunch of anti-features.

I struggle to find a W1070 for sale (in general, what a mess this whole thing is - Epson uses the same product names for their projectors and their printers!), but there are some other BenQ models that look interesting.

I don’t care too much about picture quality - my old projector was more than 10 years old and more than good enough (except that it was too old for HDMI) - I just want build quality.

The Epson 3200 3LCD seems to be a popular choice throughout the responses here, but it’s on the expensive side. It also doesn’t seem to be on the market in Europe, which is another difficulty I didn’t forsee. The only affordable-ish Epson 3LCD I’ve found without Android for sale in my country so far is the EB-X49 XGA, and I’m not entirely convinced it’s great.

why?
long life, no bulbs, sharp image, lots of standard ports, no smart crap, 5k lumens, adjustable lens.