After considerable amounts of research, I narrowed the choice down to two candidates (in my price range) - this Epson 5010 and Panasonic AE7000U. Went with the Epson because of the supposedly better black levels and the split screen feature.
(Eventually purchased the 5010 e version which has wireless HDMI capability. That decision was due to our unique setup. If you can run an HDMI cable to your projector, you don't need the wireless HDMI capability.)
The projector arrives well packaged (of course). It is a big and hefty piece of equipment but not heavy as such. A single person of average strength can easily hang it upside down from the ceiling. The box does not come with a "base plate". So if you are looking at mounts that require a base plate, make sure to get one of those as well.
The projector has 4 holes in the bottom aspect to secure a ceiling mount. Following this installation was as per the mount instructions.
The projector has very very good picture quality out of the box without any tweaking at all. Black levels, like mentioned in online reviews, is great. We could not compare with Panasonic of course! The fan is very very quiet. So much so that in a quiet portion of the movie, and with projector almost right above our heads, we could not hear it at all. In effect, the projector disappears during movies, even the quiet ones. Thats exactly what you would expect from a home theater equipment. No bright LED lights, no hums, no noise. Nice!
The projector has two HDMI inputs, one PC input and a set of analog inputs. There is no USB port on this device. If you connect one player to HDMI and another to component input, you can watch the pictures side by side (split screen). You will have to figure out how to take care of audio yourself of course. In our setup, the Blu-ray player is hooked up (via an AV receiver) to the HDMI input and gets to use the main speakers. The cable box is hooked up directly to the projector by component and to the AV receiver by HDMI. In this way, split screen is possible with Blu-ray audio through main speakers and cable box audio through headphones. Panasonic does not have this feature. Is that important? Depends on whether you need the split screen function!
The lens is mounted in the center which makes alignment with the screen quite easy. Panasonic's lens is to one side. Does that make aligning more difficult? No idea! The image can be moved nearly 100% up or down vertically and 50% left or right horizontally. That makes setup very easy. You first put the projector up and make sure its square with the screen and then move the image only to align with the screen.
Just about the only con is the fact that lens movement and zoom functions are not motorized. That means, you have manually turn the dials which moves and jiggles the projector. Also, precisely focusing the PJ requires two people - one to stand close to the screen and the other to turn the focus dial. You could of course do it alone and run back and forth! Thankfully, once all set, you don't have to bother with this again.
3D performance is awesome. There are no glasses supplied. I would recommend the
MonsterVision Max 3D Eyewear System with Active Sync? - Glasses & Transmitterer Kit for Active 3D glasses. These work very well, while the NXG glasses don't work at all. You will likely read all sorts of things online about auto-iris and how Epson disables auto-iris in 3D mode. Bottom line is, you will not notice a difference. The 3D brightness is very good and picture quality remains superb.
Overall, highly recommended projector. If you've been looking for a good 3D projector which is not outrageously expensive, your search just ended.