A bright, adaptable, dependable portable FHD projector that should survive a decade of non-competitive gaming or media consumption on the go. Computer Gamer's received your back Our experienced team dedicates many hours to every assessment, to actually get to the heart of what matters most to you. Find out more about how we evaluate video games and hardware. The Xgimi Halo portable projector has me wanting to look at movies within the park, or get my recreation on at the end of the garden during a barbecue, because I am completely antisocial. But you are probably wondering who the heck Xgimi is in the primary place. No, it's not Klingon slur-this is an organization that's been making Lightweight projectors for travel since 2013, with a broad vary already beneath its belt. The Halo portable projector comes in as a median throughout the Xgimi vary, as well as relative to what the market has to offer. It may not match the connectivity, decision or refresh rates a excessive-end, non-portable projector might need, but it is a worthy contender with regards to 1080p projectors of the same value. First off, the design is adorable yet sleek. It is simple to carry in a single hand, and it uses high-quality materials. The perforated aluminium shell gives it a #1 portable projector on google speaker look, and as a Bluetooth speaker alone it performs outstandingly. However the sound produced by the 2 gorgeous 5W Harman Kardon audio system belies the actual fact the Halo is a lot more than just a portable speaker. While you want to make use of the Xgimi Halo to its full potential as a projector, it takes about forty seconds in addition up and get focussed. That appears like an age when you are aching to play the latest game, however once on it is responsive and utilises the user-friendly Android 9.Zero interface. A niggling flaw is that the autofocus function, which works by means of the usage of a bit of digicam on the front, does have a habit of seemingly refocusing at random. Thankfully, you possibly can manually set the focus both by navigating the UI, or switching the plus and minus buttons on the remote from quantity to focus-there's a toggle on the bottom of the remote for that. You probably have the system at an oblique angle from the surface you're projecting onto, you can play around with each vertical and horizontal keystone settings, and it might probably calibrate itself with commendable accuracy too, which is cool. This characteristic has its limits although, and doesn't work in any respect in gaming mode sadly; you may have to seek out a superbly parallel spot to undertaking your video games from. The power to attach it to a universal mount helps, though, and it even has just a little extendable foot to prop it up on a flat floor, so you can get the angle proper. You'll be able to lay the Xgimi Halo on its back and challenge onto the ceiling if you need, thanks to its obelisk form (versus the squished look a number of competitors have gone for). It is going to rock because of its rounded edges if anybody knocks the surface, which might be disconcerting if it's perched on the edge of a table. I would not advocate it for the long run, seeing because the exhaust is on the again. The exhaust fan runs quietly sufficient, but it throws out some heat beneath full load. As soon as turned off, however, the Halo will proceed to cool itself down, which can assist prolong the 30,000 hour lamp life rating-call that just below 10 years of use, until you plan to use all of it day, each day. Not unhealthy when you consider others of the identical calibre are rated between 4,000 and 20,000 hours. The Halo's 0.33-inch DLP show shines its red, green and blue LEDs by means of the fastened lens to exact a 1.2:1 throw ratio. That'll happily achieve a picture between 30 and 300 inches (76.2-762 cm) throughout, though on the larger end of the size 1080p is going to look fairly pixelated. Still, watching on a hundred inches of wallspace means only having to position the Halo round 8.7ft (2.67m) away, so you may get a cinematic expertise in a relatively small area. The projectors colours are vibrant and do not really feel washed out, and the Halo allows you to fully alter the image settings to suit you. There are even some preset picture modes to select from, together with a 'gaming' mode that prioritises input latency. You can create customized brightness settings and rename them too, if you are thus inclined. There's even a small novelty in its capacity to play media in 3D, with photographs set facet by side, or top and backside. It might not be the brightest within the land, maxing out at 800 ANSI Lumens, however according to Xgimi its the brightest 1080p portable projector round. Whether or not that is true or not, it is nonetheless lots vibrant for outdoor viewing even in the daytime, ought to the mood take you. With a battery life of virtually three hours in standard mode (that is the brightest one), it might not offer you long sufficient to watch The Fellowship of the Ring prolonged model, but that's lengthy enough for at the least one commonplace size movie. It can go into Energy saving mode after a few hours though, where the brightness drops significantly and colours turn yellowish. As a wise Android device, the Halo can connect and stream over Wi-Fi from all sorts of companies. Which means you'll be able to pick up where you left off wherever, as long as you'll be able to nab an web connection. Sadly, the Netflix app isn't compatible yet, but because of the Halo's Chromecast means, and Kodi compatibility, the problem could be circumvented. These will not be probably the most sensible workarounds, but until Xgimi manages to acquire licensing, Netflix can be off the table natively. You can plug in USB devices as effectively, that means an Amazon Hearth Stick may even work tremendous. And there are a number of media players obtainable on the android retailer, so you possibly can watch anything you already have downloaded. You might even store some films on there, because the Halo has 16GB of storage area in its little aluminium frame. Now for a very powerful bit, as I assume you would be seeking to do a spot of gaming with the Halo, I went by means of and tested it to see whether or not input lag was going to be an issue. With gaming mode switched on, you get around 40 milliseconds of lag, which is better than its little sister, the MoGo Professional, but nonetheless not the best for online multiplayer battles, where each millisecond counts. That verdict's underlined by the Halo's baseline 60Hz refresh-you are not going to get the most out of higher-finish hardware as you will be locked in at these speeds regardless of your fps. Towards the Optoma GT1080HDR's 120Hz for the same value, it appears to be like fairly meagre. But that's not to say you can't have a stellar gaming expertise with the Xgimi Halo; it's effective for many single participant stuff, just don't expect to be doing any intense aggressive gaming. If image fidelity is your predominant concern, nevertheless, the Halo sports activities a 1080p decision. And though it does assist 4K input, the output remains to be restricted to FHD. So, regardless of how far away you place the projector, you won't get the same degree of detail as you'd with a real 4K projector. 1080p continues to be a very good decision for a portable beamer of this class, though-many don't even reach that scale. Once you examine the Halo to different portable 1080p projectors, such because the Epson Residence Cinema-which comes in at the identical price level of around $800-it turns into evident where Xgimi has focussed its design efforts: Adaptability, portability, brightness, and sturdiness. In opposition to the higher-finish Optoma UHD38's 4.2ms latency, 240Hz, and 4K resolution, you can see what another couple of hundred dollars will get you. But in spending your cash on a better spec projector, you'd be sacrificing the practical portability something like the Halo can deliver to the table. The Xgimi Halo is a superb projector for many who wish to do a little bit of mild gaming in all types of spaces, watch films from bizarre angles, or simply listen to music on a banging portable sound system. It is a brilliant and dependable little machine that may adapt as needed and will not go kaput after a 12 months or two. Sure, chances are you'll not get the speediest gaming experience, however so long as you're not looking to recreation competitively it is certainly well worth the $800 worth tag. A brilliant, adaptable, reliable portable FHD projector that ought to survive a decade of non-competitive gaming or media consumption on the go. Screw sports activities, Katie would fairly watch Intel, AMD and Nvidia go at it. Having been obsessive about computer systems and graphics for three lengthy many years, she took Game Artwork and Design up to Masters stage at uni, and has been rambling about video games, tech and science-relatively sarcastically-for four years since. She could be discovered admiring technological advancements, scrambling for scintillating Raspberry Pi initiatives, preaching cybersecurity awareness, sighing over semiconductors, and gawping at the newest GPU upgrades. Right now she's waiting patiently for her likelihood to upload her consciousness into the cloud.