If you've got the bucks, an HD projector is a cool alternative to a television. It's about as unobtrusive as it gets, turning any white wall into a screen larger than the biggest LED or plasma screen you can buy. But installing a projector is a pain—I helped a buddy hook one up, and mounting it to the ceiling required us making a custom plate for it, then dragging the ladder back and forth to find the perfect spot for it, not to mention drilling into a stamped-tin ceiling. Then came the PITA of getting cables to the thing and having to drill supports for the cables along their length. And once it's up and running, if you find you need to make physical adjustments to the thing or de-dust it after a period of months, well, time to break out the ladder again.

Sony's brilliant design solution to projector hassles is their 4K Ultra Short Throw Projector.

Aesthetically, it's gorgeous, looking for all the world like Sony first invented a time machine and then grabbed Braun's design team from fifty years ago to create it. Look how the components go together:

And technically, it's brilliant. The laser diode light source is fired in such a way as to project a rectangular image, even though it's meant to be placed super-close to, or even directly touching, the target wall; at zero inches of clearance it gives you an image from 66" to 106", user-selected, and if you back it up seven inches you can get 92" to 147".

You also don't have to worry about de-dusting the lense; the projection components are hidden away by the pop-up top when the unit's not in use.