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Most portable projectors sacrifice resolution and brightness to keep their size down, but the XGIMI Horizon is different. This model drops the battery in favour of a larger body, better built-in speakers and higher brightness. If you want 4K now, the Xgimi Horizon Ultra is worth a close look. Compared with our top-choice BenQ GP500, it provides easier initial setup along with roughly equivalent streaming and auto setup tools when moving from one spot to another. It's also the only one with an Ethernet connector and, more important, Dolby Vision for sources that support it. However, it didn't handle dark scenes with HDR10 input as well as the GP500 did in our tests. A key feature with the Horizon Pro model, is the move up to 4K UHD resolution. Ultra HD 4K resolution gives you four times more detail than Full HD with over 8 million pixels. It delivers a sharper, more life-like picture with richer and more natural colour. It also lets you sit closer to the screen – making it ideal for smaller rooms, too. hours is the theoretical lifespan of the light source. The actual lifespan may vary due to differences in environmental conditions, product usage, and the mode selected. The greatest appeal of the Horizon Pro is that it's an all-in-one home cinema solution, complete with built-in speakers and onboard streaming apps. Starting off with the Harman Kardon tuned speakers, it's a pleasant surprise that they are in fact more than usable. When it comes to most projectors with built-in speakers, we often find that they sound thin and offer little in the way of dynamics, however, this isn't the case with the Horizon Pro.
Starting off with the positive picture aspects, the Horizon Pro features a mostly clean and well-defined image. Its 4K resolution is achieved through pixel-shifting, and it uses a DLP chipset that produces an impressive claimed brightness of 2200 ANSI lumens. It is a seriously bright and punchy image that impresses with the right source material. Considering this is a coffee-table-oriented projector, we believe it will fare well in a living-room scenario thanks to the high brightness.XGIMI's new flagship 4K lifestyle projector, the Horizon Pro, includes a bunch of advanced setup features that make it easy to just put it on a table, point it at a wall and start it up. Paired with the Android TV interface, it’ll have you watching in seconds. XGIMI has used a non-replaceable LED lamp in the Horizon. Offering a lamp life of 25,000 hours, it means that even if you used this projector for eight hours per day, the unit will last for around eight and a half years. That’s not bad going. Conclusion Of course, if you use a full soundbar or surround-sound system then you can get better audio and surround sound. To this end, there’s both an optical output and HDMI ARC. As with XGIMI’s other projectors, the Horizon runs Android TV natively, rather than a modified version of mobile Android. The benefit of this is a smoother interface that’s designed for use with the remote control, rather than a base OS that was built for touch use.
If you need something you can put in a bag, then there are smaller, portable projectors with batteries that make better travel companions – and higher-quality home cinema projectors for those looking for a more permanent installation. For the best viewing experience, we recommend using a projection size of 60-150 inches. Exceeding this range may affect the quality of your projected content. The display quality may vary based on product usage habits and environmental conditions. If you want to hold out for a 4K room-to-room projector that has it all—including fine image quality for HDR10 as well as for SDR and Dolby Vision—you might want to consider a 1080p model like the Epson Mini EF12 or the Xgimi Horizon to tide you over until one's available. Between those two, the EF12 is guaranteed to be free of rainbow artifacts due its three-chip design. But it doesn't include 3D support, while the Horizon supports 3D, but shows rainbows.Brightness Uniformity. Screen uniformity on the Horizon Pro is very good. On my sample it measured at 86.6%, with the bottom right being the dimmest and the middle top being the brightest. There were no visible hot spots in anything that I watched.
The Wall Color Adaption feature needs to be enabled in the system settings to take effect. Once activated, it can calibrate the picture based on wall colors with a color temperature ranging from 3000K to 15000K. However, the calibration effect may vary depending on the wall color. For optimal results, we recommend using it in dimly lit environments. Refer to the theoretical data from XGIMI laboratories: the power saving mode is calculated based on the average power consumption of HORIZON Pro (180W) and the power of a 98-inch TV (550W), viewed 8 hours every day in one year. I hope that XGimi follows suit with LG and adds eARC to one of those HDMI connections so that people can just use a speakerbar or a surround system and get ease of use (more or less) with high quality surround sound on a single cable connection. This should really be standard on all projectors at this point. The typical value of ΔE≈1 for color accuracy in the factory production of XGIMI HORIZON Ultra is obtained from the XGIMI Optical Laboratory. The calibration parameters will take effect when the high color accuracy mode is correctly activated in the system. Color accuracy may vary slightly depending on factors such as projection usage time and lab testing equipment. Please refer to your actual experience for an accurate assessment.Automatic keystone correction can be activated any time the projector senses motion. It was too sensitive for my needs as any bump would start a new hunt and override my carefully constructed rectangle. Prices valid in stores (all including VAT) until close of business on 26th November 2023. (Some of these web prices are cheaper than in-store, so please mention that you've seen these offers online.)
Generally, the 2200 lumens brightness is good enough to watch during the day, where you can get around a 60-inch picture (you need to put the projector around 5ft away). This also means you can watch outside when the full sun has gone, starting at around a 30-inch picture. When it gets fully dark, you can go as big as the projector will allow (300 inches). There’s no projector stand built in, so you’ll either need to prop up the projector to get the right angle, or you can use the thread-mount on its underside to attach it to a tripod. The latter is a good option, giving you an easy way to move and position the projector. XGlMl makes every effort at the time of publication to ensure the accuracy of product information it provides. Due to subsequent changes involving product batches, production, and supply factors, it may be necessary for XGlMl to make changes and adjustments to text and images so that they match the performance, specifications, indexes, and components of the actual product. Product information is subject to such changes and adjustments without notice.It is a bit glossed over in the review, but it is amazing how many people ask how they hook their projector up to a speaker bar. This simple setup to improve sound quality is almost always asked first: "I want to use Bluetooth" - So, it would be good to know if you can make a connection between a lifestyle projector and a BT receiver and if audio quality is decent and if there are lip sync issues as there often are. But, the fact this has digital optical audio output is something that should be standard on all home theater projectors. BenQ, Epson, and others are releasing variants with 'SMART' functionality, then not giving us any surround sound outputs from the projector. That seems crazy to me. Alongside the power buttons on top, you also get volume controls for the built-in speakers. If you want to do anything more complicated, you’ll need to use the Bluetooth remote control. It’s a slim and responsive device, offering everything you need with a minimum number of buttons. Features The menus provide seven predefined picture modes for SDR and HDR10 input, including a Custom mode, plus three additional modes for Dolby Vision—for bright rooms, for dark rooms, and a Dolby Vision custom mode. Viewing. The Horizon Pro literature has 3D support listed, and I was able to get my 3D version of Ant-Man to run and display as top-bottom 3D, but I couldn't get the projector to work with my off-the-shelf DLP-Link glasses. XGIMI says a future firmware update is planned to enable 3D on the Horizon.
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