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It's now five years since I've installed my first laser projector, and in that time I've only had to replace two laser diode assemblies. Both were on NC1040s (specially, in the external NP-10LU01 light unit), and both were the G09 unit. A co-worker of mine has done two more of them. There appears to be a design flaw in that specific unit that causes that specific laser module to fail, and so I don't think we can infer anything from that to the reliability and longevity of laser illumination systems more generally. It's simply too early to know.
Assuming $1K (after taxes, shipping, etc.) for a set of NC1000 lamps that will last 3,000 hours, then we're looking at $7K to get to 20,000 hours (the claimed lifetime of most laser phosphor systems), meaning that it's pretty much a wash as against $8K extra for the projector; though you have to factor in lower electricity costs, too. But as Mark points out, that is dependent on the lasers actually lasting that long, and they haven't been running in the field for long enough to know that on a meaningful scale.
Assuming $1K (after taxes, shipping, etc.) for a set of NC1000 lamps that will last 3,000 hours, then we're looking at $7K to get to 20,000 hours (the claimed lifetime of most laser phosphor systems), meaning that it's pretty much a wash as against $8K extra for the projector; though you have to factor in lower electricity costs, too. But as Mark points out, that is dependent on the lasers actually lasting that long, and they haven't been running in the field for long enough to know that on a meaningful scale.
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