Setup and Performance

Remember when I said it's best to go through the manual? I almost fell into the trap of not doing so myself, having being so curious about what was going to be my first UST experience with the XGIMI Aura. I cleared up space on the wall, which is luckily extremely smooth and neutral in color to not warrant a screen, set up the Aura on a stand, plugged it in, and then... nothing? Ah, of course, the power button on the side was a reminder that this is a high-performance, high-power device that won't automatically turn on as with the portable projectors from before. Boot up time is slightly over 10 seconds before you see the projection, with XGIMI's rating of 12 s being accurate thus. I did the initial setup at night, and was glad to see an integrated sensor to detected an object close to the lens. As seen above, this lowers the brightness significantly, if looking right at it, and is handy for the absentmindedness we all occasionally guilty of. It obviously is not turned off, so the message may need some tweaking. Regardless, set the projector closer to the wall/screen than you think since you may be as surprised as I was with the immensely large projection courtesy the ultra short throw. With that done, use your own AAA batteries in the remote and move it close to the projector to begin the setup process; unlike TVs, no menu, or associated buttons, have been put on the projector.


That was a white lie, of sorts. There's a mobile app, XGIMI Assistant, which is supposed to work with the XGIMI projectors as a companion app for setup and use; however, it's unfortunately just not good enough. The app wasn't even detecting my Halo at times, let alone the newer Aura, which it never detected! I am not confident this app is even worth installing, so the remote is an absolute must. Setup involves a lot of steps, some of which are seen in the GIF above. The projector is treated like an Android TV system, so having an Android phone makes this a breeze in terms of connecting to your WiFi and account if you wish to make the most of it. I did just that, and then tried the "Skip" option later, after a reset, which obviously makes you manually enter your WiFi credentials or even skip this entirely to use the XGIMI Aura purely as a non-smart projector. Adopting the simplest way also means you can use Google Assistant as already set up with your account, and that the device now has access to some of your account details. If new to the Android TV system, now on version 10 of the OS, there is a brief tutorial, and suggestions to pre-install some apps from a brief list.


Once done, the home page appears, and having used Android TV systems in the past, it was quite familiar to me. It is an excellent OS for smart content consumption, and paired with Google Assistant, the remote control enhances the user experience. The home page displays apps you frequently use or have favorited, or a more generic setting if not signed in. Anyone remotely familiar with Android will also recognize elements of the tiles and app drawer, as well as settings at the top that expand to allow access to individual menu items. Some of these are seen in the two GIFs above, which I did have to cut down in size, and thus also quality, to fit them all on this page without making it chug much.


I did pause after looking at what was a very large set of photographs to talk about keystone correction. This is where some of the user experience may take a turn for the worse. The absence of any controls on the device means there is no manual or autofocus, no lens shift horizontally or vertically, or automatic keystone correction. Many of these features would be deemed useful, if not critical, on flagship-class UST projectors. However, having examined a few offerings from bigger brands for more context on where this still tiny market is today, the XGIMI Aura is one of the least expensive out there, so some of these missing features are understandable. At the same time, those willing to shell out four-digit figures for a UST projector and ALR screen combination may not have saving a few extra bucks high on their agenda anyway. Would the target customer not prefer to see some upgrades—automatic keystone correction, lens shift, true 4K projection, bigger/better speakers with Dolby Atmos, paying for Netflix certification—if pricing were more on top of an already higher barrier of entry?

On the other hand, the features we do have are fairly well executed. The DLP projector and lens put an image ~180 ° outward, and given installation is typically a one-time thing, working the feet in case the stand isn't completely flat isn't too bad a chore. Likewise, moving the Aura back and forth depending on the screen size is easier with a wall, but you need to be more precise with a smaller screen. Manual keystone correction works well once you have the projector physically set up, with the 4/8-points providing enough leeway to correct an image that is slightly off if you did not get the alignment correct. It's the part where this is not remotely portable and more of a fixed installation done once that makes it less of a hassle to the eventual purchasing decision.


The two GIFs above complete the settings available with AndroidTV 10.0 as it currently ships on the XGIMI Aura. Do go through everything since there are many handy options, including the ability to have HDMI power on the projector with the source, choosing the language and associated on-screen display or keyboard, customizing the built-in Chromecast for visibility, adding accessibility options and other optional accessories, and making use of the sleep timer. To XGIMI's credit, the laser projector is rated for a whopping 25,000 hours of operation, so it is more to do with reducing power bills than ensuring the light source does not go bad anytime soon. Make sure you have no system updates pending lest you find some apps not working well, as with a few launch-day reviews I saw.


This is also the best time to let you know that there has been a system update which allows for apps such as Netflix to now work on the device since launch, which was a couple of weeks ago owing to shipping delays. You still get a pop-up warning about it not potentially working as expected, but this is more to do with the lack of the Netflix certification done on a per-device basis than actual functionality. That aside, the usual assortment of apps in the Google Playstore comes in handy for the smart TV operation, and this is even before the rest of the I/O for local media over USB as well as HDMI to simultaneously connect multiple sources, with the remote control allowing for source selection as desired.

It's the middle of autumn here in the UK, and things are getting bleak in more ways than one, with the weather and lack of sunlight making it such that projectors love the ongoing darker lighting conditions. Low light/night-time performance of this projector is amazing in so many ways, though! XGIMI has put the best display tech it currently has inside the Aura, which for all practical purposes gives you a crisp 4K display on a 16:9 aspect ratio that scales to 150" fairly well. There is HDR10 support courtesy Appotronics' ALPD laser display technology. Colors are vivid, and there is some form of supersampling to where 150" at 4K looks better than it would otherwise. Motion compensation is present, too, which may or may not be to your liking depending on whether you are the type to turn off motion smoothing in TVs. XGIMI has it as part of the so-called X-VUE 2.0 image engine system, with MEMC (Motion Estimation, Motion Compensation), used not to interpolate FPS as much as to work with any potential ghosting when putting out a 4K/60 display at HDR10. This makes for a smooth, vivid, bright, and detailed experience in low-lit conditions, although I have to say turning it off didn't really make things worse, so I left it off.


The real number to throw out is the 2400 ANSI lumens rating, which is what got me interested in covering this myself rather than having my colleague do so, who will cover projectors exclusively aside from this one-off. All the software in the world would have been futile without a bright enough display to challenge LCD and OLED displays, and the XGIMI Aura is the first projector I have ever used to even merit this discussion. It's bright enough to where I arguably had a better experience here in the worst of testing conditions, with ceiling lights on and pointing down in multiple cones. The left photo above has things somewhat over-exposed on purpose to show the projector clearly in there as well. There are no reflections to worry about thus, which is more than I could say about my fancy TV I had to place in a specific nook of the room for the best-possible viewing experience.

This does bring out some of the weaknesses that are still present. The non-native 4K display now does not look as sharp as it does on my TV even when held to nearly the same image size. The bigger the display size, the more obvious it now gets, to where the blacks seem to be more of a touch of gray, too. A dedicated screen will help mitigate some of the color reproduction issues, but there remains room for improvement. Regardless, getting to this point with a massive display size from so close to the wall already heralds a future that should make TV manufacturers nervous.


As expected, some of the color reproduction issues are tied to the operating brightness, and there is, as such, a trade-off between the two. XGIMI has a few modes that tweak the color space based on content type, with the movie mode working out best in challenging circumstances. To set a custom mode based on your liking, I still encourage you to dig deeper into the specific brightness and contrast settings, as well as local contrast, noise reduction, color temperature, and saturation. Peak brightness was measured closer to 2100 lumens using a basic light meter, so take that with a grain of salt. Also note the 3D options, and, yes, the XGIMI Aura supports active shutter 3D imaging to render 3D stills and videos that require the use of DLP-link 3D glasses. So for those who still watch 3D TV, here's a projector that will continue to appeal. For me, the only reason to even try 3D mode was to test the limits of the hardware itself, which honestly is overkill for general viewing anyway. There is no perceived lag when switching between apps and if the 2 GB RAM isn't enough somehow, you can clear apps, which also clears the memory. I had multiple apps running in the background in Android TV OS without issue, and keep in mind that the native resolution is 1080p in a 16:9 aspect ratio, so 21:9 content, such as movies, ends up having some backlighting above and below.

Gaming is.. doable.. with ~20 ms of perceived input lag. It's actually great to play something like Civilization 6 on a huge screen, as well as single-player games for fun at home. The projector screen, or your wall, is going to be important for making out differences with in-game text, even more so than for movies, which you can get quite immersed in. Do note that at the highest brightness setting, some colors can get saturated, so you may well have to turn the brightness down for the best color accuracy. Unlike the portable projectors, there is no battery life metric to talk about here.

Speaking of portable projectors, my only other XGIMI product experience to date came with the Halo, which the company also marketed as a Bluetooth speaker for music and podcasts, and the dual 5 W Harman Kardon speakers there did a commendable job in getting loud while retaining detail throughout. I had mentioned how it was not going to beat any halfway decent speaker system or even an entry-level soundbar, and the Aura with its quad 15 W speakers makes the Halo speakers seem like a toy by comparison. These are again tuned by Harman Kardon, and split to have two catering to the lows as woofers and two handling the mids and highs as tweeters. These are some of the best integrated speakers I have listened to, which includes flagship TVs with multi-channel surround support. Indeed, XGIMI has these speakers rated for DTS Studio and Dolby Audio, which by itself is not much but will be plenty, so much so that I could certainly see someone using the savings from a separate sound system for a projector screen instead. Here too more expensive offerings do better, including with what is effectively a 5.1 channel setup with Dolby Atmos support in some cases, so you need to weigh your options and wallet accordingly.