Gadget Weekly
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It is almost that time of the year again folks. Amazon’s annual shopping bonanza is just around the corner and I’m hoping against hope that one thing in particular goes on sale for a spectacular price.
I’m sure you’ve got a wishlist of all the coolest things you’d like to score this Prime Day because I know I’ve got one too. My list in general could go on and on, but at the top of the stuff that I really ache to possess is the brilliant XGIMI Halo+ smart projector. It’s big expensive buys like this that I save for deal seasons. Heck, if I only buy one thing this Prime Day, it would be this Android TV projector.
Big sales like this are what help hard-working people like you and me to get the most bang for our hard-earned buck. Whether you’ve just moved into a new house or are looking to upgrade your current premises, events like Prime Day do wonders for our tight wallets and big dreams.
Why this projector in particular? There are several reasons for that. See, I already own a respectable smart TV from Hisense with a Chromecast with Google TV dongle in my living room. The TV itself used to perform quite poorly, which is why I got the Google dongle to beef it up. The results made me very, very happy, and now I’d like to bring a similar Android TV experience to my bedroom. Only, there’s one major problem.
Unfortunately, my tiny two-bedroom apartment has very small bedrooms, so there isn’t really much space for another TV. My colleague Harish Jonnalagadda has been banging on about XGIMI and the brand’s fantastic smart projectors for a while here at Android Central, so it’s about darn time I listened to his sound advice. Harish has tested many XGIMI projectors and mentioned again and again that they serve wonderfully as Android TV replacements.
XGIMI’s projectors are portable and have great automatic keystone correction, so I can place them at weird angles in my bedroom to accommodate the lack of space. I want the Halo+ model specifically because it comes with a built-in battery, so I don’t even have to worry about a wall socket being nearby.
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Just like a smart Android TV, the XGIMI Halo+ comes with an HDMI port with eARC support, a 3.5mm audio jack, and a USB-A port. You get a Bluetooth remote control with a mic along with the XGIMI Halo+ and two 5W Harman Kardon speakers with Dolby Audio. The projector runs Android TV 10 out of the box and you can connect your Google Assitant to it for a hands-free experience.
As for the picture quality, the Halo+ outputs bright images that get as bright as 700 ISO Lumens. In his review, Harish said that the Halo+ delivers better picture quality than just about any other portable projector. It has HDR10 and a Full HD screen resolution of 1920×1080 pixels. You get a dedicated game mode with a 26.5ms latency.
The XGIMI Halo+ usually retails at $700. It isn’t the cheapest projector offered by the brand, but the more affordable MoGo 2 Pro and MoGo 2 models have lower display and brightness specs. Not to mention, the cheaper models lack built-in batteries. All of these factors come into play for me, because I want something portable but also reasonably powerful and affordable.
Since my budget is about $500 to $600, there’s a high possibility that a decent Prime Day deal can strike down the XGIMI Halo+ into an affordable price bracket for me. How I wish I could consider buying the more premium offerings from XGIMI’s roundup, like the Horizon or Horizon Ultra 4K projectors, but there’s no foreseeable discount that could drive down their thousand-dollar-and-over price tags to something I can afford.
The bottom line is that a smart projector is a clever solution if you’re in a predicament like me. Tight spaces don’t mean you have to forgo a TV. Just get an Android TV projector! If you get one on sale, it might even cost less than the price of a traditional TV.