Top pick
This pull-down screen has good color accuracy and better build quality than similarly priced competitors. But the material is not as smooth as that of a fixed-frame screen.
A retractable (aka pull-down) screen is a good choice if you’d rather not have a large, white screen hogging space on your wall when you aren’t watching anything — perhaps because you use the projector only on occasion, or you use it in an everyday-living space where the decor matters. All budget pull-down screens come with compromises, but the Elite Screens Manual Series is better than other low-priced models because it’s more color-neutral and has a slightly better build.
Compared with the Silver Ticket screen, this model’s material is even more color-neutral. Even when eyeballing the Manual Series next to our fixed-frame pick, the STR Series, we could see that the material on this screen had a warmer color profile, with less blue tint.
Our measurements confirmed that this ISF-certified screen came closer to our projector’s off-the-lens performance in color temperature, color saturation, and miscellaneous color comparisons than the Silver Ticket STR Series and the other two pull-down models we tested. The differences between the Elite Screens and Silver Ticket models were quite small; the differences between the Elite Screens model and the other pull-down screens were somewhat more pronounced.
All of the pull-down screens we measured performed similarly in preserving our projector’s brightness and contrast. In this respect, the Silver Ticket screen held a slight advantage over all of them — slight enough, however, that you likely couldn’t discern the difference with your eyes.
The Elite Screens Manual Series has a rated gain of 1.1. In our viewing tests, it had a wide viewing angle and did not exhibit any blatant issues with hot spots or sparkles.
This screen feels better-built than other affordable pull-down models. None of the pull-down screens we tested felt as well constructed as our fixed-frame choice. The screen material of such models feels more like thick paper, and based on owner reviews we’ve read, the quality of these screens seems to vary greatly between samples. That’s why we like that Elite Screens offers a two-year warranty and ways to contact the company directly.
Obviously, on a pull-down model you don’t get the nice black-velvet borders found on the Silver Ticket STR Series, which you wouldn’t see when the screen is retracted anyhow. But the Elite Screens Manual Series does have about 1.5 inches of black border on the sides and 2 inches at the bottom. (One of the other pull-down models we tested had no black border around the sides or bottom at all.) This border gives you some leeway in positioning the image and helps improve perceived contrast.
There’s also black backing on the other side of the screen material to minimize light pass-through and help preserve projector brightness. Many super-cheap projector screens lack this extra layer.
We ordered all our test samples from Amazon, and the Manual Series was the only one that arrived with no dents in the metal casing. The metal seemed a bit stronger and heavier.
The screen material has a pretty tight weave. When you view it up close, you can see that it’s more textured than the stretchable material of the Silver Ticket screen. But the weave is smaller than the pixel structure in a 1080p projector, so it doesn’t introduce additional texture. From a standard viewing distance, we did not see distracting imperfections with a 4K projector, either.
The pull-down mechanism has controlled retraction, so when you give the handle a tug, the screen slowly rolls back up into the case — as opposed to some others, which whip back up.
It’s available in a lot of sizes. You can get the Manual Series in sizes from 80 to 150 inches in the 16:9 shape. You can order the metal case in black or white to suit your room, and you can order certain sizes in longer lengths to accommodate higher installations. In contrast, the other budget models we looked at were often limited in size options and came only with white casings.
The installation process was pretty much identical for all of the pull-down screens. All came with the needed wall screws and anchors, but not all of them came with installation instructions. The Elite Screens package was thorough in this respect.
Flaws but not dealbreakers
This pull-down screen isn’t as taut as a fixed-frame screen. Because a pull-down screen like the Elite Screens Manual Series hangs freely and has to be flexible enough to roll up into a case — and generally remains rolled up a lot of the time — the material will never be as smooth and taut as that of a good fixed-frame model such as the Silver Ticket STR Series.
If a pull-down screen has major waves, the result will look like it has uneven brightness fluctuations when the projector shoots light at the screen. We saw some waves in all three of the pull-down screens we tested, but the Elite Screens model’s slightly thicker material looked a bit smoother than the others. On our sample, the side edges (which consist of black border) curved in slightly; this actually helped to smooth out the primary viewing area and wasn’t noticeable in a darker room. The waves we saw were not substantial enough to cause brightness fluctuations when we were watching video content. We mostly saw them in a bright room with the projector off — and that’s when the screen is likely to be retracted anyhow.
To get a smoother-looking retractable screen, you’d have to spend a lot more money on a screen with finer material and more advanced bracing techniques.
A pull-down screen is less precise in placement. It’s challenging to hit the exact same mark every time you manually pull down a screen, so you may have to adjust your projector’s image positioning for each viewing session. This can be especially challenging if your projector is wall- or ceiling-mounted and has fewer image-placement tools.