For those who are looking for maximum portability, the GV30 will be hard to beat. Lots of portables are lighter and smaller, but they don't offer the GV30's two 4-watt tweeters and 8-watt woofer, which give it its full bodied sound, and most don't include built-in streaming. The 720p resolution is low by today's standards, as is the rated 300 ANSI lumen brightness. But the low brightness means you probably won't notice any loss of detail or sense of soft focus at the image sizes you're most likely to use.
Most mini projectors are less expensive than any room-to-room portable, and the Solar Portable is our top pick in the category. Even better, along with a low price, it fits a lot of features into a small package, including native 1080p resolution, built-in Android TV 9 for streaming over a Wi-Fi connection and for screen mirroring, and a built-in rechargeable battery that can outlast most full-length movies. Anker rates the Solar Portable at 400 ANSI lumens, which isn't as bright as most room-to-room portables, but we found it bright enough to fill a 90-inch screen in the dark and be watchable on an 80-inch screen in moderate ambient light.
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The Solar Portable will appeal to those who are either on a tight budget or want a 1080p projector that's more portable than room-to-room models. Its only important limitation for watching movies is its audio. In our tests, the dual 3-watt speakers delivered distorted sound at top volume and offered no better than serviceable quality at mid volume. But if you already have an external audio system or powered speakers you can use with it outdoors, you can still get the benefit of the budget price. If not, the cost of the Solar Portable plus speakers may not save you money over a projector with a more robust onboard sound system. However, if you also need a fully portable projector for, say, business presentations on the go, it can save you the cost of buying separate projectors for home and work.
The 1080p BenQ GS50 is the first projector we've reviewed that's billed specifically as an outdoor projector. Designed to survive mistreatment better than most, it offers an IPX2 rating for water resistance and is also rated for up to a 2.3-foot fall. That means you don't have to worry about it being destroyed by an unexpected light rain shower or by accidentally dropping it. It also offers 1080p native resolution, comes with a bundled Android TV dongle, and is bright enough to throw a watchable 90-inch image in low levels of ambient light.
The EpiqVision Mini EF12 is built around a 1,000-lumen laser-phosphor light source and a set of three 1080p LCD chips. The three-chip design is an absolute guarantee that it can't exhibit the red-green-blue flashes called rainbow artifacts that some people see easily and find unacceptable. The 1,000 lumens makes it bright enough for an 80-inch image even in backyards with unusually bright ambient light, and suitable for larger images in darker yards. Other key features include integrated Android TV and a 4.7-pound weight, which is unusually light for a laser projector. The Android TV doesn't support a reliable Netflix app at this writing, but Epson says one may be added.
Anyone who sees rainbow artifacts easily and finds them annoying should consider the EF12 a prime candidate for a 1080p outdoor projector. They may even consider it preferable to currently available 4K projectors, since no 4K models available yet are both suitable for outdoor use and also offer a guaranteed rainbow-free technology. Even if rainbow artifacts don't bother you, it's worth considering. In fact, it's our top pick among 1080p room-to-room portables, delivering good image quality and a brighter image for picture modes that you'll actually want to use, versus most of the like-priced competition.
The conventional wisdom is that 3D was a fad that has long since petered out. That's undeniably true, but some people have libraries of 3D discs that they want to watch, and a lot of current projectors still offer 3D. The Horizon is one of them. It's also one of the least expensive 1080p models that's suitable for outdoor use and also offers high enough brightness to show 3D movies at a reasonably large size. On any projector, 3D is necessarily dimmer than 2D, so you need to start with a high 2D brightness to have any chance of having a good movie-watching experience with 3D. The Horizon's 2D modes are easily bright enough for an 80-to-90-inch screen in the ambient light typical of a backyard. You may need to drop the size a bit for 3D movies, but not by much.
Although 3D aficionados will obviously want to consider the Horizon, it also offers enough to be worth a look even if you stay strictly with 2D. In addition to reasonable brightness for backyard use, the Horizon offers fully integrated Android TV and delivers out-of-box image quality that most people will consider more than acceptable as is, along with a custom mode for those who want to improve on the default settings. One shortcoming for those who see rainbow artifacts (flashes of red, green, and blue) easily and find them annoying is that it showed them a little more frequently, and more obviously, in our tests than is typical for today's projectors. But for those who don't see them easily, or don't mind them, that won't be an issue.
Although BenQ lists the X1300i as a gaming projector, and includes three variations of game modes that adjust both audio and video for each of three type of games (first-person shooter, role playing, and sports), it also includes a bundled Android TV dongle with the projector. Beyond that, in our tests the X1300i delivered good color accuracy for movies, more-than-acceptable overall image quality by most people's standards, and higher brightness than most other room-to-room portables. Using the picture mode with the best image quality for movies, it was bright enough even in Eco power mode to light up a 90-inch screen in low levels of ambient light.
If you're a gamer who wants a 1080p room-to-room portable both for the backyard and for gaming, the X1300i may well be your projector of choice. In addition to the already mentioned three game modes for audio and video, it offers a button on the remote to easily switch to any of them, or to one of the picture modes for movies or video. It also offers a short lag time. We measured it at 16.3ms for 1080p/60Hz input, which is consistent with BenQ's rating of 8.33ms at 120Hz. That said, even those who aren't interested in gaming may choose it for its combination of higher brightness than most 1080p competitors (particularly helpful for outdoor and 3D viewing) and its image quality for movies and video.
When we reviewed the Horizon Pro, we were impressed by its image quality for all but the darkest scenes, thanks to its on-point color accuracy, strong contrast, and a level of detail suitable for the 4K resolution. It also offers fully integrated Android TV, though there's no easy-to-use Netflix app available, so Netflix users will need to use a workaround. Very much on the plus side, it's also brighter than most room-to-room portables. It's rated at 2,200 ANSI lumens, and even the lower-brightness picture mode we chose for the best image quality delivered a bright image at 90 inches in the dark and at 80 inches in moderate ambient light.
Anyone who wants to wants to light up a suitably large screen for 4K in a backyard with more than a minimal level of ambient light needs a bright projector. Whether the Cosmos Laser 4K is bright enough to do the job fully in your backyard will depend on how the high ambient light level is, but it's guaranteed to give you a bigger watchable picture than any projector that isn't as bright. One potential issue, if you're looking for a lightweight room-to-room portable, is that at 10.7 pounds, it's heavier than most. But it also has a handle that makes it easier to carry. Another, for those who are sensitive to rainbow artifacts (flashes of red, green, and blue), is that it showed them more frequently in our tests than is typical for today's DLP models, but that won't matter if you don't see them easily or don't find them annoying.
Any given projector offers a native resolution, which tells you the number of pixels it can put on the screen. More pixels means finer detail. For the projectors most appropriate for movies, you have three basic choices for native resolutions: 720p (1,280 by 720), also called HD; 1080p (1,920 by 1,080), also called Full HD; and 4K (3,840 by 2,160), also called UHD. In some cases the native resolution for the imaging chip may be slightly greater, as with 1,280 by 800, but when you're viewing a movie, the actual number of pixels that will light up will be 1,280 by 720 or fewer, depending on the movie's aspect ratio (the ratio of width to height). All three of the resolutions you care about have a 16:9 aspect ratio.
More and more 1080p and 4K projectors also support HDR, which can do more to improve the visual impact for movies than higher resolution does. Unfortunately, the key phrase in that sentence is "can do more." None of the projectors suitable for carrying outside for backyard movies at this writing delivers on HDR's promise of improving image quality. In fact, most put a better-looking image on the screen with the 1080p SDR versions of movies than the 4K HDR versions. So while you can count on 4K projectors giving you more detail than 1080p projectors (assuming you're using a large enough screen and watching from a close enough distance to see the difference), don't count on HDR support translating to improved image quality. Check how well the projector actually handles HDR, which is something we cover in our reviews.
You should plan on using AC power for all your equipment. Some small projectors (but few room-to-room portables) can run off of battery power, and some even claim to run for long enough to watch a movie. But they typically drop brightness significantly when using batteries, and most aren't bright enough for a backyard movie night at a suitably large size even using AC power. Beyond that, simply as a matter of convenience, the more individual battery-powered devices you're using, the more of a logistical chore it is to make sure each one is sufficiently charged before you start. 2ff7e9595c
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