XGIMI's halo has been upgraded it's called now the halo plus what's changed about it well it's
now brighter it outputs a maximum 900 nc lumens instead of the previous 800 it runs android tv 10
it's got auto keystone correction and auto focus and you can also set it up so every time you boot
it up it can automatically do that which is very handy if you tend to move this portable
projector around so very compact small size yet the runtime of it with the 59 watt hour battery
is about two and a half hours so it is running on led technology here and the lifetime of them
should be around 30 000 hours the throw ratio is 1.2 and it does have harman kardon built
in speakers which are really good considering the tiny size of this 1080p projector in the
box of the halo plus you'll find our user guide in various different languages frequently asked
questions warranty and the warranty registration card the power supply this is 90 watts it's a nice
small size our power supply cable and then the remote here which is a typical android tv remote
it takes two aaa batteries but we don't have those included so you will need to supply them
now it's almost identical to the halo but the halo plus it has one or two tiny little changes
to it the big one the brightness now 900 nc lumens instead of 800. so sound by harman kardon built in
speakers they sound really good considering the size of this the back of it you'll see
where the hot air is pushed out so there is a little fan in here like all projectors and it
does keep it cool stops it from overheating now the battery that's built into it is 59 watt hours
and it's good for two and a half up to sometimes three hours it really depends on the content that
you're watching even though their claim is just two hours if you use some of the settings on there
that aren't so bright the brightness levels you can stand it a little bit so power on button we've
got a usb 2 right here hdmi now it will accept 4k but then it down scales it to 1080p it's just
a 1080p projector headphone jack and then ldcn on the other side it's just the same thing there with
the speaker okay it's just saying harman kardon and then the front here so the key difference
and the only way to really tell this one apart from the halo plus is there's this little tiny
camera down here a sensor there that's the auto keystone correction now it does have auto focus
along the bottom of it just the solid rubber so it'll sit on a table nicely and there is a
little tiny kickstand so you can prop it up it's nice that they've got that there
and you can mount it on top of a tripod then lastly the top of it we've got a status led we
have volume controls here and then pause and stop for playback on the unit itself which is handy
the halo plus is running android tv 10 and the menu is very fast it is fluid now it does come
with netflix you can install netflix and unlike the first halo it just works straight away without
any problems now i can't play anything but i can just show you that here it is the menu it did come
up with a warning saying that it wasn't compatible with this device i'm not fully compatible but i've
not had any problems you can just download the latest apk file install that or just update it and
it's working fine okay so i've had no problems or watch content on it i'll just quickly show you a
little bit of the trailer of this just enchantment will automatically start there in the background
and it works fine and it's a 1080p so it doesn't look quite as sharp as 4k but for a projector here
when you're sitting back it still looks really quite good now the settings we do get i just go
back into home here back into that menu the settings we have so you can see that's our
battery level up here you've got all your typical settings so you've got your network connections
what not along here projector settings i'll go into so you've got your brightness
and it's on standard so you can put it onto performance and i've really noticed
no kind of difference between standard and performance in fact i prefer just keeping
it on standard the colors actually look a lot better too for me there with it so you've got
your focus settings auto keystone correction it's that's done already you can get it to auto focus
or to focus on startup so this is very handy to have this you don't
have to keep doing it just in case it's moved slightly or you put it down in a new position
it's going to do all of that automatically which is great projector placement so if you're gonna
have it upside down or facing the ceiling you can change all of that auto vertical flip to
another very handy setting so there's lots of options in there you can go through and tweak
all sorts of bits and pieces and you can download various different apps so i just wanted to point
out that it does have a widevine level one cert i have checked this out so just gone through this
all right down to see that yes then when you go to the wi-fi and modular drm for google this is
what we need level one okay so amazon prime video netflix disney plus all that will be in full hd
and the ui as i just mentioned before like it's it's very quick no problems everything loads
in fine no problems with the reception of the wireless that is all very quick
and it's a nice easy layout if you've used android tv before it's very basic very straightforward and
it just works well and now look at youtube this is a 4k clip so it is scaled down to of course 1080p
and it's looking really good here 1480p nice and sharp now i still have the same
minor complaint like the original halo that the blacks i am noticing there is just this little bit
of grain to it a little bit of noise doesn't seem maybe quite as bad as the original halo from what
i remember now get out of this and i just show you that the youtube menu here with the app is
very quick so everything loads in fine and i don't even have the fastest internet at all and it looks
good the performance excellent absolutely no lag with the ui prime video on the halo plus here
again the ui very fast everything's loading in quick it looks good i'm going to jump into a quick
episode any episode here of the expanse this is a brilliant sci-fi tv series so these dark scenes
so straight away i can see that's gone from standard definition clipped over to
hd now so it's definitely full hd support here and really 1480p
that looks very good and really watchable at the approximate 100 inches that i'm projecting this
and what happens if you turn on some lights well this is going to happen of course you can't really
see it at all that well now i've got a reasonably powerful light on that's about 100 watts so that's
affecting it especially with a dark scene like this now if i get out of this into the menu which
is a little brighter here and just go to home you can see it you can make out what's there fine
but it's really not that pleasant to be watching it and with any ambient light you want to be in a
dark room really to view a projector like this and it does have a file browser which i'm currently
using here so you can use this to go through just a few photos and whatnot and play your media files
just off external storage so i do have a very demanding jellyfish file here that i do not expect
it to be able to play because this is 140 megabits per second 4k hevc 10 bit it's just probably not
going to work at all i might need something like hevc but i'll just give it a try i don't think
that it'll just lag out i can okay so i can't open it with their default video player or vlc but what
i'll do is just try it now with a video player and just do just once and expect this to be a mess but
hey look at that that is a big surprise to me which is great to see so it's playing that but
there we go it did lag a few times so you can play 4k files through this and even a really demanding
file like this one but expect for a few little bits of just lag and stutter there now something
else that is not as demanding here which is a 60 megabits per second and this one's an hd file
i'll use that with the video player again and you can see that that one at least that is flawless
that seems to be 30 frames per second there is no noticeable lag and starter with that at all
so for your media files everything that i've thrown at it so far actually seems to work i
just didn't think it was going to play that hevc one and so i'm surprised to see that it
does so i have it on the performance option here with this game you can set it to either graphics
to prioritize that or performance but i prefer performance here to keep it nice and smooth so
it is definitely yes showing that it's running at 1080p and 60 frames per second this is very smooth
so when i look around even really fast i'm not noticing any tearing at all now i've been playing
this game and some other ps5 games on this and i've noticed no problems whatsoever with
the input the latency and it's perfectly fine for gaming so if you intend to game on
a 1080p projector and that's one of the plans that you're going to use it for as well
i think this one definitely does check out for that for gaming performance it is really immersive
to game at like the 100 inches now screen size versus the 48 inches that i'm typically used to
onto a sample clip now just to test out our audio quality now these speakers they do sound really
good so they're harman kardon tuned ones and for the size of this projector they do put out an
excellent sound now it's not going to replace a 2.1 setup or your surround setup that you're
going to be running at home but if you're using this as a portable projector or music player
it's definitely sufficient enough i find now you don't get the great stereo separation from it but
here is a sample of some music here at 100 volume just to give you an idea of what it
sounds like which is actually really good plenty of bass good mids and some treble
and a fan noise it's always on it's constant i haven't heard it increase in rpm so it
hasn't gone any louder this is what it constantly sounds like here's a sample
so this is a fantastic little 1080p projector really do like it so they've just excuse me
given it a bit of a tweak improved it slightly the brightness ever so slightly better well a
hundred nc lumens is good as a good game there and then the image quality for 1080p does look
good now you're not going to get that definition and sharpness of the 4k projectors i have been
reviewing but for 1080p it looks very good now you want to be watching it of course in a dimly lit
room any ambient light will start to affect the quality of it which is normal for these projectors
of course and then it just tops out at 900 ansi lumens but for a portable projector that's a very
good brightness so the auto keystone correction autofocus very handy to have and you can set it
up that when it's moved or when it's powered on it will automatically do this which is great for
people that move the projector around say from room to room you put it down in a new place here
and you as soon as you put it down set it up it can correct all that for you automatically with
a little sensor there in the camera and you're up and away and it's so easy to set it all up with
android tv you can log in via your android phone so you don't even have to put all the account
details in the password it just copies it straight over and even for example netflix was already
saved the password so i just went straight into it and netflix with this one works straight away
out of the box which is great to see now those harman kardon tuned speakers for the size of it
you'd look at it you'd think oh yeah those how can that sound great you know but it does it doesn't
sound bad at all for the size of it fan noise it's not that bad from that sample i gave you it's very
minor it's always there because these are actively cooled all projectors are otherwise it will
overheat inside now the lifetime of the leds in there okay they claim that it's it's around 30 000
hours which is pretty standard so the halo plus a nice little tiny improvement it's definitely
welcomed and it is really i think one of the best 1080p portable projectors that you can get