Artlii Projector Brings Home Cinema Review on a Budget

The market in 2019 is full of “home cinema” projectors at low prices. Many of these inexpensive products promise Full HD, when in fact their native resolution is worse than VGA. It's a bit of a nightmare. Obviously, making a high quality AV kit costs money, and you should be wary of anything that promises high quality at low cost.

But are there any inexpensive projectors that give you something that you could credibly call "Home Cinema?" "

The Artlii HD Portable Projector is a low budget HD LED video projector of rugged construction. And we have a unit to offer. Read on for more details.

What is that?

In the box you will have the projector, a remote control, an HDMI cable, a power cable and a composite video adapter for the AV port.

The remote has glow-in-the-dark rubber buttons, isn't too small, and fits well in my hand. The projector body has infrared receivers on the front and back, giving you access to the controls from anywhere in the projector and screen.

The device also has control buttons on the top of the case if you can't find the remote and need to turn it off or pause a video.

The Artlii projector has a true native resolution of 1280 × 720, which is normal HD and not full HD 1080. It supports playback of 1080 but reduces it to 720 for display. The quality does not suffer too much from this process. Its brightness is 2,800 lumens, according to the documentation, so it is bright and watchable. You can see it in daylight, but it's much better in a room that's dark enough.

There is a dust cap for the lens when not in use, and behind the lens focus dial on the top is a trapezoidal wheel for adjusting the tilt of the lens to straighten the edges of the frame. Under the cabinet is an adjustable screw foot for raising the front of the projector.

The case is made of smooth white plastic and looks attractive when seated on a coffee table or shelf.

Home cinema for families

I would bet most people are ultimately not concerned with the quality of the projection and are primarily looking for HD. Most likely, they just want to take the projector and popcorn and roll the film, and this projector is suitable for this purpose. It's not a high-end projector, as it's really meant for families who want to set it up, stay in a movie, and snuggle up against each other on a sofa

This projector is not intended for high-end hobbyists who are building a dedicated room with cinema seats and a curtain above the screen. This is a projector for ordinary people who want to grab the projector and watch movies in small groups in mid-sized living rooms with little or no installation and technical hassle.

Inexpensive quality

It's easy to install, doesn't get too hot, and while the cooling fan is audible and reasonably loud (as with almost all projectors except the very high-end ones), the sound is easily muffled by cranking up the levels of the high-end ones. - internal speakers or seated a little further.

As for the internal speakers, these are surprisingly powerful, considering they only make 3W, roughly the same as a pocket bluetooth speaker. Sometimes you need to watch the volume levels because the case will vibrate, but all you have to do in this case is turn it down a bit.

The only real downside to an economical projector is the optics. The lens is adequate for the task but not very expensive, and the keystone control is mechanical rather than digital. This means that the edges of the image become blurry if you use the keystone control to skew the image plane and straighten the edges of the frame on your screen. The way to combat this is to make sure the projector is flush with the screen and to keep the keystone control as close to zero as possible.

The manual gives the minimum throw distance at 1.2m or about 4ft. At this distance you should get an image of 40 inches, and at 1.8m or 6 feet you should get an image of around 60 inches. I tested it at a distance of about 6 feet and can confirm that the image is almost exactly 60 inches diagonally.

Refreshing honesty.

In addition to displaying any HDMI and VGA computer source, the projector also has a built-in media player that plays videos in a wide variety of popular formats. Videos can be played from SD card, USB stick and even composite video devices via the AV socket and the included composite video and stereo sound adapter. This means it can be a screen for your HDMI devices or just a standalone home theater projector with just a power cable, a coffee table, and a suitable screen.

Conclusion

Priced at $ 130, this is a perfectly decent quality HD projector. It's fully watchable, as long as you have appropriate screen hardware. If you add the ability to set the projector as level as possible with this screen, you will get the best resolution this projector can muster. It's easy and fun to use, and while it has its limitations, the entertainment value it offers is good.

The Artlii HD Portable Projector is available from all good online retailers ( as well as in the UK ) and costs just $ 129 (or around £ 109). If you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the comments section below.