2022 Ultimate Portable Projector Comparison

mounting a TV on the ceiling or taking one with you while you're traveling isn't practical and in those cases a portable projector might be the answer the question is is the 400 projector just as good as an 800 one and our lasers better than LEDs let's find out in the first test we'll see which projector has the brightest picture and the best contrast then we'll test their battery life we'll also test picture quality on a purpose-built projector screen then we'll see which projector has the loudest and highest quality speakers for gamers we'll test input lag and last we'll look at built-in app compatibility and smart OS performance with a straight price of 399 dollars the least expensive projector we'll be testing is the xgme Mogo Pro the Mogo Pro has a 1080p resolution and is equipped with a 44.64 watt hour battery that xgme claims will last 2.5 hours we're going to test that the mogopro runs Android tv9 has autofocus 4-point Keystone HDMI and USB connectivity with audio out and a standard quarter 20 tripod mount the Moco Pro is made out of plastic and metal construction and feels high quality the logo Pro weighs in at 904 grams the Mogo Pro is made in China the most important feature of any projector is brightness so in the first test I used the ANSI Lumen standard to measure their actual brightness by taking a reading at nine separate points on an all-white screen averaging those measurements and multiplying by the screen size in square meters in this test the Mogo Pro had 236 measured anti-lumens on full brightness Which is less than its advertised 300 lumens and it only has 52 anti-lumens on battery saver eco mode comparing the all-white screen to the all black screen the Mogo Pro has a contrast ratio of 513 to 1. the fan noise on the Moga Pro was barely noticeable at 31.6 decibels at a price of 450 is the nebula Mars 2 Pro the Mars 2 pro has 720p resolution and a 48 watt hour battery the Mars 2 Pro is the oldest projector we'll be testing running Android 7.1 the Mars 2 pro has autofocus and auto vertical Keystone it also has HDMI and USB connectivity with audio out and a standard quarter 20 tripod mount the Mars 2 Pro is mostly made of plastic and feels less sturdy compared to the Mogo Pro the Mars 2 Pro is significantly heavier at 1 559 grams the Mars 2 Pro is made in China the Mark II pro measured in at 560 anti-lumens on full brightness which is 60 more than advertised and more than double the brightness of the Mogo Pro eco mode on the Mars 2 Pro extends the battery life significantly and still puts out 330 anti-lumens the contrast ratio on the Mars 2 Pro was about 90 less than the Mogo Pro at 428 to 1 and the fan noise of the Mars 2 Pro was much louder than the Mogo Pro at 39.1 decibels with a street price of 499 is this projector from BenQ the gv30 the gv30 has a 720p resolution and doesn't list battery capacity anywhere but after disassembling it I found three pouch style lithium batteries for the total capacity of 35.4 Watt hours which BenQ claims will last 2.5 hours of viewing the gv30 runs Android 10.0 with autofocus Auto vertical Keystone HDMI audio out and USBC connectivity which can be used to play files through an external drive or provide additional power with a battery Bank the gb30 is made out of plastic and feels very well built in addition to a standard quarter 20 tripod mount the gv30 also comes with a magnetic base for easy tilting and aiming the gv30 and bass are the heaviest yet at 1 667 grams the gb30 is made in China during brightness testing the gb30 was very close to its advertised 300 ANSI Lumen rating on full brightness and had just over 100 anti-lumens on battery saving eco mode the gb30s contrast was the highest yet at 654-1 and the fan noise was also the loudest yet at 43 decibels also with a street price of 499 is the LG PF 50ka the LG has 1080p resolution and a 44.4 watt hour battery the LG has manual focus and automatic vertical Keystone correction and it runs web OS 3.5 which is the same as LG Smart TVs the LG has the most connectivity with two HDMI ports usba USBC supporting power delivery audio out coax in and an ethernet port for a wired internet connection the LG has plastic construction and feels a bit cheap but it weighs the same as the Mogo Pro at 904 grams the LG has a standard quarter 20 tripod mount and the LG is made in Korea I measured the brightness of the LG at 295 anti-lumens Which is less than half of its claims 600 Nancy lumens and on eco mode the LG had around 90 anti-lumens the LG's contrast was 491 to 1 which puts it in third place so far the LG's fan was very noticeable at 40.7 decibels for 550 to Kodak Luma 450 has 1080p resolution and a 38.8 watt hour battery the lumo 450 runs Android tv9 and has manual focus and manual horizontal and vertical Keystone the Luma 450 has HDMI audio out usb-a and USBC connectivity with support for power delivery via USBC the packaging for the Luma had a very unpleasant chemical smell the Luma has plastic and metal construction and feels very high quality the Luma is not only the smallest projector but also the lightest yet at 547 grams the Luma has a quarter 20 tripod mount and the Luma is made in China the Luma claims to have 200 anti-lumens and I measured 30 less than that at 170 anti-lumens on full brightness and 110 anti-lumens on eco mode the contrast of the Luma was 435 to 1. the fan noise on the lumo was quiet at 34.1 decibels but noticeably higher pitch than the rest of the projectors for a street price of 599 the wemax go Advance has 1080p resolution and a 39 watt hour battery the wemax runs Android tv9 and has autofocus and Auto Four Point Keystone the wemax has HDMI audio out usba and is powered by USBC power delivery at 20 volts the WiMAX is nearly all metal and looks and feels very premium weighing in at 790 grams the wemax doesn't have any on-device controls or mounting locations and it only has a small collapsible kickstand for aiming the wemax is made in China unlike the rest of the projectors so far that use LED light sources the wemax go Advanced uses a laser light source in general laser light sources are more efficient and higher brightness with greater color saturation the wemax claims to have 600 anti-lumens and I measured slightly above that at 607 putting it in first place for brightness however that high brightness is only achievable when plugged in and when running on battery power the wemax is limited to a Max brightness of 302 ANSI lumens the wemax go had the best contrast ratio so far at 799 to 1. the Wii Max Go was also very quiet at 35.2 decibels the Samsung freestyle has an MSRP of 900 but can now regularly be found for much more reasonable 499 dollars for this video I also purchased the 200 official battery base bringing the total street price to 699 the freestyle has 1080p resolution and as I mentioned does not come with a built-in battery but the optional battery base has a capacity of 115.2 Watt hours which is more than twice the capacity of the rest of the projectors the freestyle runs Samsung's tizen OS and has autofocus and Auto Four Point Keystone the freestyle has limited connectivity with only a single USBC port for power and an HDMI micro Port the freestyle is made of plastic and metal with a silicone cover and with the battery pack attached the freestyle is the largest and heaviest at 1 695 grams the freestyle has a convenient aiming solution built in but no quarter 20 tripod mount however the optional battery base does include a tripod mount the freestyle is made in Korea Samsung doesn't specify the ANSI lumens of the freestyle and instead just lists a generic 550 lumens in my measurements the freestyle have 200 156 anti-lumens which indicates that the 550 ANSI lumens on Samsung's website is something called LED lumens the freestyle doesn't have separate full brightness and battery saving modes the freestyle had the lowest contrast ratio yet at 410 to 1. the freestyles fan was also quite noticeable at 39.2 decibels at a price of 719 the nebula capsule 3 is the newest projector in this video and has 1080p resolution and a 52 watt hour battery the capsule 3 runs Android TV 11 and has automatic focus and automatic four-point Keystone the capsule 3 has a single HDMI audio out and is powered by USBC power delivery at a variety of compatible voltages the capsule 3 has all metal construction and feels very high quality the capsule 3 weighs in at 950 grams and has a quarter 20 tripod mount on the bottom the capsule 3 is made in China like the wemax the nebula capsule 3 also uses a laser light source but it advertises half as much brightness as the wemax at only 300 ISO lumens using the anti-standard I measured about 10 over that at 331 ANSI lumens on high brightness and 187 anti-lumens on battery saving mode the capsule 3 had a contrast ratio of 682-1 which is enough for second place behind the wemax and the fan noise of the castle 3 was 35.1 decibels last the most expensive projector we'll be testing today is the 810 xgme Halo Plus the Halo Plus has 1080p resolution and a 59.5 watt hour battery the Halo Plus has Android TV 10.0 automatic focus and automatic 4-point Keystone with object avoidance the Halo Plus has HDMI USB and audio out ports and includes a standard quarter 20 tripod mount as well as a small kickstand the Halo Plus has premium plastic and metal construction and weighs 686 grams the Halo Plus is made in China xgme claims that the Halo Plus has 900 ANSI lumens but in my testing it was around 30 percent less than that at 665 anti-lumens which is still enough to take first place from the wemax and like the wemax this maximum brightness is only possible when plugged in and the maximum brightness on battery mode was only 302 anti-lumens while the brightness on battery saving mode was just 126 ANSI lumens the xgme had a contrast ratio of 495 to 1 which puts it right in the middle of the pack and when plugged in the Halo Plus had the quietest fan measuring in at just 31.2 vegetables which is close to the noise floor of my testing room so overall the brightest projectors when plugged in were the XG Mi Halo Plus the wemax go Advanced and the nebula Mars 2 Pro but in battery saving mode the Halo Plus fell to the middle of the pack and the Mars Pro we Max Go and Samsung freestyle took the top three spots but how much battery life can you expect from these projectors and how much can they be extended by using battery saving mode for the second test I set up all the projectors streaming YouTube from their built-in YouTube app connected to my home Wi-Fi the first test was on the maximum brightness the projector would allow on battery power in this mode the BenQ gv30 really struggled lasting less than 30 minutes while the gigantic battery pack of the Samsung freestyle lasted 3 hours and 11 minutes before shutting off very impressive in the second test I turned on the battery saving features and I set the brightness into eco mode in this test all the projectors except the wemax go and nebula capsule 3 made it to the three hour mark before turning off the Kodak did have playback issues in battery saving mode and the screen went black multiple times during testing each projector also had very different brightness during these tests so I calculated something called the Lumen minutes where I multiplied the brightness displayed by the minutes of battery life achieved on high brightness this put the nebula Mars 2 Pro on top with over 57 000 Lumen minutes followed by the Samsung freestyle with 49 000 Lumen minutes and then the nebula capsule with 31 000 Lumen minutes on eco mode the nebula Mars 2 Pro was again in a league of its own with 61 000 Lumen minutes compared to the second place Samsung freestyle at 49 000 Lumen minutes and then after that was the Wii Max go with only 29 000 Lumen minutes so for a purely battery powered projector the nebula Mars 2 Pro was the clear winner followed by the Samsung freestyle in second but it's also worth considering that the inclusion of USBC ports enables the use of specific power deliver very capable power Banks to extend the battery life further for all the projectors except for the xgb Halo xgme Mogo Pro and the nebula Mars 2 Pro next let's look at image quality for this test I set up a side-by-side comparison with each projector generating a 55 inch picture on my 0.8 gain ambient light rejecting screen a 1080p 60hz signal was sent from an Amazon Fire TV Max through an HDMI splitter connected to each projector via HDMI and I rank their overall video quality from one to five by judging effective contrast color accuracy color saturation and image Clarity using the Dolby Atmos Nature's Fury test video in each round I picked a winner that I then used as a comparison for the next round the first round was the xgme Mogo Pro on the left and the nebula Mars 2 Pro on the right the flickering on the Mars 2 Pro wasn't visible in person but was caused by sending a 1080p signal to the 720p projector resulting in a message saying that the resolution was not well supported either way the Mogo Pro had significantly better contrast color saturation and Clarity moving it on to the next round versus the BenQ gv30 on the right and this round was basically equal with the Mogo Pro on the left having more saturated blues and the gv30 on the right having more saturated Reds and more accurate whites but I ultimately preferred the slightly better Clarity from having a 1080p native resolution on the Moga Pro versus 720p on the BenQ gv30 so in round 3 the Mogo Pro on the left went up against the LG pf50ka on the right which had noticeably higher brightness Focus uniformity contrast and image Clarity easily moving it on to round four so in round 4 the LG on the right went up against the Samsung freestyle on the left and again this was a very even round with both projectors performing well with reasonably high contrast and Clarity the freestyle image on the left was extremely saturated and had noticeably pumped green levels which helped it appear brighter overall but also made the image look unnatural I'll be giving the LG and Samsung freestyle equal scores for viewing experience but I prefer the image from the LG so it's going to move on to the next round so that means in round five the Kodak Luma 450 on the left goes against the LG pf50ka on the right and this round was not particularly close with the Kodak doing the same green pump that the Samsung freestyle did in the previous round but still managing to appear dimmer than the LG even with the unnatural colors this round easily went to the LG round six then put the wemax go Advance on the left and the LG pf50ka on the right and this was the first time during this test that I was legitimately impressed by one of these projectors the wemax go Advance was bright crisp and vibrant showing excellent detail in both the highlights and the Shadows while maintaining accurate colors and good black levels but we Max Go Advance was in a completely different League here and easily took the win so round seven put the two laser projectors against each other the wemax go Advance on the left and the nebula capsule 3 on the right and this round went about how you would expect it to given that the projectors have extremely similar specs except for the nebula capsule 3 on the right being half as bright I think that the nebula capsule 3 and the LG pf50ka have very similar overall picture quality and that matchup would have been a fair fight but as it stands the wemax easily won this round so for the last round the Wii Max on the left goes up against the xgme Halo Plus on the right and this match was another toss-up with the wemax having noticeably better black levels and color accuracy but the Halo Plus had better saturation Shadow detail contrast and Peak brightness so the final scores for viewing experience put the wemax go advance and XG Mi Halo on top with a total of five points followed by the nebula capsule 3 Samsung freestyle and LG pf50ka with four points then the BenQ gv30 and xgb Pro with three points and the nebula Mars 2 Pro and Kodak Luma in last with two points picture quality is only half the overall experience though and unlike other projectors that are likely to be hooked up to a surround sound system these portable projectors need their own high quality speakers for this test I recorded the same clip at a distance of five feet behind the projector using a rode videomic Pro and I've included a frequency graph divided up into three sections the orange section is what's commonly called base or low frequencies the blue is mid-range where most vocals reside and pink is the treble which are the highest pitch frequencies to score these projectors I awarded two points for frequency response in each of the three sections a quick warning for headphone users I didn't do any post processing on these clips so the True Value with the projectors is reflected in the audio let's take a listen from least expensive to most [Music] Julio good to see you you got something for us I'm a new ally that's fine my first daughter spot Julio good to see you you got something for us and a new Airline a spy in the first order it's fine [Music] before you get to see you you got something for us I'm a new ally a spine the first order it's fine [Applause] oh yeah good to see you you got something for us I'm a new Ally first order Spike you got something for us a spy in the first order despite [Applause] oh yeah good to see you you got something for us I'm a new ally a spy in the first daughter it's five foreign [Music] [Music] all right oil good to see you you got something for us I'm a new ally a spy in the first daughter to my ear the excuse me Halo Plus was by far the best and was even through the full spectrum earning it a full six possible points the nebula capsule 3 was also very good but was slightly mid-range heavy the BenQ gb30 sounded very good as well but lacked high-end even though it definitely had the strongest base of all the projectors the Samsung freestyle also performed very well but was a little light on the low end you might have also noticed lip sync issues where the sound and image weren't quite lined up this can happen due to video input lag which is caused by a projector doing extra processing on an image an input lag can cause big problems for gamers where you need the response to a button press to be as instantaneous as possible I tested each projector using the industry standard Leo botter lag tester which generates a flashing bar which is then measured by a photo resistor on the sending unit all the input lag measurements were taken with a 1080p 60hz signal and if available I used a specific gaming mode on the projector presets the nebula capsule 3 came in first with an impressive 23 milliseconds of input lag followed by the Halo Plus in gaming mode which had 28 milliseconds the BenQ gv30 Samsung freestyle and logo Pro were all in the mid 40s and the LG was right around the acceptable limit at about 55 milliseconds the Mars 2 Pro we Max Go Advanced and Kodak Luma all came in over 100 milliseconds and would not be acceptable for gaming last I mentioned that these projectors all have Smart OS features and apps and normally I would advise people to not worry about the smart OS that comes on your TV or projector but in the case of a portable projector you want to minimize the number of dongles and wires that you need to carry around with you so looking at the built-in apps on each projector I tested mobile mirroring on Android and iOS and I logged into and tested the premium Services Netflix Hulu Disney plus and YouTube TV and I rated their compatibility either zero one or two with zero being completely non-functional one meaning functional with workarounds like using Mouse mode or a phone app and two meaning perfect compatibility as you would expect from an external streaming device like a Fire TV or an Apple TV for app compatibility the Samsung freestyle earned a perfect score when all the apps were fully functional without any workarounds although the onboard processor is underpowered leading to lagging navigation and slow app loading times in second was the BenQ gv30 with perfect compatibility for everything except for Netflix which didn't work at all the Halo Plus and nebula capsule 3 had at least some functionality in all the apps but required some workarounds like mobile Netflix and the Airstream app for Apple AirPlay so which portable projector is the best that really depends on how you plan to use it with an average ranking of 2.4 the xgb Halo is the clear winner with the best brightness sound and picture quality and the lowest fan noise and input lag but while you can use it on battery power the Halo Plus performs best when plugged in and if you're looking to project onto a ceiling I'd also recommend picking up a miniature tripod like this one from newer for a fully Wireless experience the Samsung freestyle with the battery base delivers good picture quality and sound with a perfect app compatibility and it comes with a mounting and aiming solution built in but with one third the brightness of the XG mihalo plus you'll definitely be more limited in when and where you can project if you can score a deal that includes the freestyle and the battery base for under 600 I do think it is absolutely worth it for business use to put in a laptop bag and project on the go I really like the wemax go Advanced which combines a bright sharp 1080p image with an ultra Compact and Sleek form factor USBC power means that you can use the same battery bank or charger for your projector and your laptop so you have one less thing to put in your bag I do wish the wemax go Advance had a tripod mount but in a pinch a mountain designed for an iPad will do the trick and last if you're looking for portability on a budget the nebula Mars 2 Pro can frequently be found on sale for under 400 and has impressive battery life with over three hours of playback over wi-fi at 330 ANSI lumens the Mars 2 Pro doesn't have the highest resolution or app compatibility but for a relatively inexpensive travel projector and speaker the value is hard to beat links to all the projectors tested in this video are down in the description and if you appreciate the time effort and money that it takes me to make a video like this I'd appreciate if you could use those links since as an Amazon affiliate I do earn a small Commission on the sale at no cost to you thank you so much to my awesome patrons over patreon for your continued support on my channel and if you're interested in supporting my Channel please check out the links down in the description if you enjoyed this video please hit that Thumbs Up Button consider subscribing and as always thanks for watching the hook up

Channel: The Hook Up

Views: 389,575

Keywords: the hook up, hookup, the hookup, best portable projector, portable projector, benq gv30, anker projector, anker nebula, laser projector, xgimi halo plus, xgimi halo+, kodak luma 450, nebula capsule 3, capsule 3, samsung freestyle, freestyle battery base, nebula mars 2 pro, xgimi mogo, xgimi mogo pro, lg pf50ka, wemax go, wemax go advanced, laser battery projector, battery projector review, portable projector review, wemax laser

Id: wFcLjrGhJZA

Length: 22min 22sec (1342 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 22 2022