CM – XGIMI Horizon Pro 4K Projector – Smart Entertainment

COVID-19 countermeasures have seen a surge in purchases of consumer electronics and home entertainment products, from laptops to game consoles to large televisions, over the past year. However, not everyone may have the luxury of a large living room or area to set up such a television, or they may value flexibility and portability as well as picture quality. Fortunately, today’s consumers don’t have to choose between the two and opt for something like the new XGIMI Horizon Pro 4K projector, which just adds a dash of cunning to remove the drudgery of having to set up and position the projector perfectly the time you use it move.

The design of the XGIMI Horizon Pro is an oxymoron in that it is both eye-catching and inconspicuous. To illustrate the latter, there isn’t much on either side of the projector’s faces, including the top ones, which visually detracts from its eye-catching premium design. The metal chassis of the Horizon Pro looks so good that you might not believe how much it costs.

There’s nothing on the front except the large LED light and the sensors for the smart tricks that we’ll get into later. On the sides and on the front of the projector is the speaker grille, which is unbroken except for the same lamp and the Harman Kardon logo on the left. The back has the ventilation grille and connections, but the latter are neatly arranged so that they can easily be overlooked and ignored.

The XGIMI Horizon Pro supports all types of connectivity options, including wired and wireless sources. Note that even if you choose to connect wirelessly, the projector does not contain its own battery. This means you have to keep it plugged into a power source. You need to take this into account when deciding where to place the projector permanently or temporarily.

The Horizon Pro also has a remote control that is just as visually interesting as the projector. The two-tone design directs the user’s gaze to the actual control area of ​​the remote control. Fortunately, there aren’t many buttons, but it still manages to have its own visual identity and not just ape something like an Apple TV remote control.

With 2,200 ANSI lumens, the XGIMI Horizon Pro is very bright. Of course, your mileage may vary depending on when and where you are watching, but only bright sunlight from a window will ruin the experience completely. Fortunately, precisely because of the mobility of the projector, such considerations do not have to be permanent.

Under favorable circumstances, the Horizon Pro 4 delivers bright images with vivid colors. It features 4K content expected from a 4K projector and combines some of the best video technologies possible on a projector, including HDR10 x HLG (Hybrid Log Gamma) and MEMC (Motion Estimation, Motion Compensation) ). Unfortunately, don’t expect more advanced standards like HDR10 and Dolby Vision, which are still out of reach for DLP projectors anyway.

The only crack in the Horizon Pro’s otherwise formidable armor is content under 4KB, especially HD sources and even SDR content. The projector’s upscaling algorithms could be laborious as they produce inconsistent, poor quality images from these low resolution sources, especially from film grains that randomly appear and disappear. For those who get their videos primarily from such sources, you don’t have to go far as XGIMI also has a non-Pro Horizon projector specifically for 1080p content.

Where the XGIMI Horizon Pro really shines and where it easily outperforms its more expensive competitors is in the area of ​​automatic calibration and setup. At its simplest, the projector uses AI to automatically adjust the brightness, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

More interesting is the ability to automatically adjust the orientation, keystone, angle and focus depending on what you are projecting on. The AI ​​can automatically detect the size of a projection screen, if any, and adjust the projected image to fit the size. More impressive is how it detects and avoids obstacles so that you don’t have to set up the projector perfectly to avoid doors or cabinets.

This is easily one of the most impressive features of Horizon Pro, and it works very quickly. Just move the projector and the auto calibration will start within seconds. Of course, moving it too hard will take longer to recalibrate, but it’s definitely a must-have for today’s projectors.

The XGIMI Horizon Pro 4K projector, despite its name, is not just a projector. It’s a complete package that could pretty much replace your TV because of its built-in speakers. The two 8 W 45 mm speakers are even equipped with Harman Kardon tuning.

In practice, the rather small box can surprisingly produce a loud and full sound, although of course nothing can compete with larger and more dedicated speakers. It is enough to fill a small or medium-sized room, but larger requirements require larger radiators. And while the Horizon Pro comes with DTS Studio Sound and Dolby Audio, it’s no surprise that it doesn’t advertise more advanced technologies like Dolby Atmos.

The Horizon Pro 4K projector is not just a projector, however. It’s actually a certified Android TV box, which means it has full access to Google Play Store apps and games. Or at least the ones that are compatible with Android TV. Unfortunately, it is also a bit cloudy there.

As an Android TV, the Horizon Pro has access to your staples like YouTube, Hulu, and Amazon Prime that we’ve tested to work flawlessly. Netflix would not work despite being pre-installed, claiming that it is an unsupported platform. Out of luck getting Disney up and running, removing access to two of the biggest names in the streaming market. Hopefully it’s just a software problem that an update can easily fix.
Apart from that, however, the Horizon Pro offers all the conveniences of the Android TV platform, including easy streaming of content from Android phones and a few more. An important additional feature is the ability to zoom in and out on the user interface of the screen to make navigation easier and more accessible depending on the situation.

The XGIMI Horizon Pro 4K projector is currently on a pre-order period with a retail price of $ 1,699. It looks expensive, but it is still a long way from having more premium models from competing brands. That doesn’t mean the Horizon Pro is any less powerful. On the contrary, at this price point, it has almost nothing to do with being so beautiful and feature-rich.

Sure, it has warts like upscaling and Netflix support, but hopefully some software updates can fix these. All in all, the XGIMI Horizon Pro 4K project almost feels like a bargain with its premium features at half the price of equivalent projectors.