LG CineBeam Q Brings Style to Cannister Smart Projectors
The market for portable cannister pico-projectors is still niche, but as companies like XGIMI and Anker’s Nebula have collectively sold several million units over the past decade, it has attracted the attention of larger brands like Samsung and LG. These are self-contained gadgets that typically look like an oversized Coke can and include a DLP projector with auto-keystoning, LED or laser light source, integrated speaker, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. The auto-keystone feature means that you can point the projector at a blank wall and go – no screen or precise alignment necessary. While there is almost always at least some minimal on-board storage and an HDMI input to connect game consoles or DVD players, most users will rely on the Wi-Fi for streaming. To that end, portable projectors are typically based on a slightly out-of-date version of Android that supports most streaming apps, though getting Netflix to run can require jumping through some hoops. As the category matures, vendors are moving upscale, with XGIMI taking on enthusiast home theater projectors directly moving from cannisters to cubes with the Horizon Ultra.
LG’s take on the portable projector leans heavily on design, with premium specs for the category, but still aiming at plug-and-play use cases rather than full-on home theater. The CineBeam Qube HU710PB (which LG blessedly refers to as “CineBeam Q,” so I will, too) is a relatively compact rectangle with a rotating stand that doubles as a carrying handle. LG has finished the CineBeam Q entirely in polished metal, and the circles and squares esthetic gives it a modern-steampunk vibe that is unique to the category – and significantly more attractive than anything else out there.
Specs and Setup
The CineBeam Q features DLP with 4K resolution and a laser light engine that puts out 500 lumen with 450,000:1 contrast ratio. Focus is motorized but zoom is fixed – if you want the picture to be bigger or smaller, move the projector closer or farther away from the wall or screen (more on this later). LG uses webOS across its consumer video product lines. I’ve been covering consumer electronics long enough to have been featured in Palm’s original press release for the first webOS phone, and I haven’t always been a fan of its current use on TVs. webOS drives me nuts on my C2 77” OLED 4KTV because that TV is fed by multiple sources through an A/V receiver, and I just want the TV to act as a dumb monitor and webOS wants to be an entire computing and entertainment system. But on the CineBeam Q, webOS is a major positive over limited Android TV implementations: all the major streaming apps are available, including Netflix. webOS starts up quickly, too, eliminating the wait you usually have on Android TV projectors before you can get to content.
A 3 watt mono speaker is built in, and if that seems underpowered, it is. The built-in speaker does a reasonable job with clarity and tone, but it is clearly mono, there is no soundstage, and it doesn’t get all that loud. I found this to be one of the big drawbacks of the CineBeam Q. LG is bundling the XBOOM 360 XO2TBK, a 360 degree Bluetooth speaker, with the projector if you buy it directly from LG. In a demo at LG’s US headquarters, that was a great combination. In my home without the speaker, the CineBeam Q was hard to hear over its fan and my air conditioner, and provided nothing like a cinematic audio experience.
Unlike most cannister projectors, the CineBeam Q does not have an internal battery. The good news is that you’ll never have to charge it up or discover that your projector can’t make it through Oppenheimer in a single sitting. The bad news is that you need to have a power source nearby. Many people buy cannister projectors to use outdoors, and this requirement could make that difficult.
Setup requires an LG account, which requires you to give LG the ability to track and resell what you’re watching (if there is a way to get out of this, I didn’t see it). I also found setup extremely frustrating using the remote control until I realized that the infrared emitter on the remote is terribly weak; you must point the remote directly at the back of the projector rather than towards the content. Even after setup, I still encountered times when I didn’t point the remote at precisely the correct angle for my selection to register. IR emitters are a 10-cent part, and it seems that LG was willing to hurt usability to save 5-cents instead.
Performance
All projectors have fans, and manufacturers advertise how quiet they are on their lowest setting (25db according to LG’s website). When I tested it in real world conditions, I wasn’t as impressed. It’s not loud compared to actual loud things, but I measured 42.5db three feet away from the seating position. The fan noise is definitely noticeable, and I found the pitch of the sound somewhat distracting during quiet passages even after I connected the CineBeam Q to my full home theater surround sound system.
Traditional projectors have lens shift to allow you to perfectly line up your image with a fixed or retractable screen. Portable projectors are less finnicky about their placement: they use fixed lenses and automatic digital keystoning to adjust the image to whatever surface you point them at, from any angle. This process sacrifices resolution for convenience, and as these cannister projectors are typically meant for more casual use, not cinephile purists, that tradeoff is understandable. The auto keystoning on XGIMI and Nebula projectors are slightly faster and more flexible, but LG’s implementation should be good enough for how most people use smart projectors. That said, when pointed at my 100” screen off-axis, I could easily see the loss of clarity down from its full 4K resolution.
No projector works well in a brightly lit room. However, for just a 500 nit projector, I was surprised by the apparent brightness with moderate room light control. LG advertises a staggering 450,000:1 contrast ratio, and while it didn’t make blacks into true black, the CineBeam Q provides excellent shadow detail in a dark room. Colors are another highlight: in Cinema Mode, the colors are well saturated, and when watching Amazon Prime Video’s Fallout, I could tell where the action was taking place just based on the color palette.
Comparisons
I tested two other projectors alongside the LG CineBeam Q to see where it fits: my old Sony VPL-HW40ES, a 1080p SXRD projector spec’d at 1700 lumen, and XGIMIs Horizon Ultra, a dual LED/laser 4K HDR projector that puts out 2300 lumen. To give the projectors the best chance to shine (pun intended), I watched Encanto on 4K Blu-ray disc on all three. The Sony may be spec’d at 1700 lumen, and the colors are pleasing, but black levels are awful and cinema mode looked relatively dim on my 100” 1.1 gain screen. (I paid $2000 for this projector less than ten years ago. Sigh.) In comparison, the LG was shockingly good: much brighter, with greater color saturation and sharper resolution, despite being slightly off-center and the Sony having been permanently mounted and aligned on my ceiling. With some lights on, the picture looks acceptable; with lights off, the image pops like an LED TV (the CineBeam is still not quite as bright as miniLED or as contrasty as OLED). With full lights on, the image is viewable, but just barely. It is a projector, after all. Keep this in mind if you plan on using this to watch sports – some light control is necessary. The XGIMI is simply in a different class: it costs $500 more than the LG and isn’t really portable. Resolution, color fidelity, and highlights on the XGIMI Horizon Ultra are noticeably better in all lighting conditions. 4K HDR version colors become iridescent, contrast increases, and it looks like there’s significantly more detail in the image compared to the LG.
Conclusion
The CineBeam Q’s fan is a bit too loud, its speaker is not loud enough, and at $1300, it is on the pricey side for a 4K projector that only puts out 500 lumen. However, you get better-than-specs-would-suggest brightness and color from an incredibly stylish design with one of the best TV OS for streaming. There are no hoops to jump through to get Netflix running – there’s even a Netflix button on the remote. And it’s so pretty that you could leave it out on a coffee table all the time. This isn’t priced to compete against the bulk of the cannister projection market — which typically fits in the $300 - $600 range — but it does give LG a differentiated entry into the category that fits with its brand.
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