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TOTAL: 95/100
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Grab a blanket and your s’mores-roasting sticks, and cue up KPop Demon Hunters (or NFL Sunday Ticket): Fall is prime outdoor watch party season. The one hiccup? The projector.
I’ve tested a handful over the years, and so have my family and friends, and they’re often…a little lackluster. The picture can be blurry, or hard to adjust, and you’re often waiting until it’s pitch-black outside and everyone’s already barreled through the popcorn before showtime can begin. Not ideal.
That’s why, when I heard XGIMI’s Mogo 4 projector brought a better-than-the-drive-in experience to your backyard, I had to try it out. And I’m so glad I did. It’s easily the sleekest, easiest-to-use projector I’ve tried, with hands down the best picture quality. For $499, it’s like having a big screen TV you can take anywhere, perfect for tailgate season, birthday parties and reunions (hello, nostalgia-inducing slideshow of your childhood years, blown up to the size of your living room wall), not to mention epic movie nights and “dive-in” movies at the pool.
Over the course of two months, I tested it indoors and outdoors, from early evening to well past sunset, and in rooms with the blinds and windows open and shut, to get a sense of the picture’s vibrance, clarity and quality. I also tested its portability and battery life, to see if it lives up to its claims, and tried streaming from a variety of apps, from YouTube to Netflix to Amazon Prime Video, as well as the included Google TV channels. I also checked the audio volume and clarity in all settings.
Most projectors are a boxy cube, this is like a Stanley tumbler-sized telescope—but it’s more than aesthetics. The design allows the projector to rotate 360 degrees, so you can turn any surface into a screen (even the ceiling—which is surprisingly soothing to project ASMR lo-fi videos or streams of the ocean from YouTube as you drift to sleep).
It also boasts a built-in battery with a 2.5-hour lifespan (which bumps up to 5 hours if you buy the PowerBase stand, sold separately for an extra $50) and comes with a Sunset filter that clips on magnetically, in case you just want to project a golden-hour vibe in your room. But the top two features, in my book, are the crisp-yet-powerful Harmon Kardon speakers and 450 ISO Lumens screen. Because what’s the use of a portable projector if the picture is crummy and the audio is hard to hear?
Setting it up is as simple as pressing the “on” button, as the screen easily guides you through the setup process. From that point, it’s as easy to navigate as using any smart TV.
And that leads me to the pro that makes this projector leagues above others I’ve tried: It includes ISA Technology that automatically aligns the image, so if you set the projector on uneven ground—or anywhere, really—it detects it and fixes the screen almost instantly. But, even if it’s a little off (which happened at times), it’s easy to use the remote and tweak the screen’s positioning to suit your needs.
Harman Kardon has a reputation for providing top-notch speakers, and they don’t disappoint. I was impressed by how robust the audio was; other projectors often have a tinny sound or require external speakers to fully enjoy them, but that wasn’t the case here.
Similarly, the picture quality is equally robust. Granted, it’s a projector, so in broad daylight, it will have a faded, hard-to-see appearance, but I was impressed by how clear the picture was, even as the sun was just starting to set. The colors are so rich at night that you forget you’re looking at a projection at all. It felt like I had a big screen in my backyard!
My only issue? When I tried to connect my daughter’s YouTube Kids account, I kept running into a load loop, so I wound up creating a separate YouTube account for her when I wanted to set up kid-friendly programming. That was a small thing though, as I could log in and stream from every other app (regular YouTube included) without the slightest hiccup or delay.
I’ve been trying to build a community, and this is my secret weapon. With the crisp fall air approaching, it’s been fun to invite people over for a backyard party, whether we’re catching the latest show on Netflix, a football game (Go Bulls!) or offering our sidelines commentary on an awards show red carpet (the Emmys are on Sept. 14, after all).
The picture’s so crisp, honestly, that as our bedroom TV has started to die out, my husband and I plan on simply using the XGIMI. It’s that good.
