Recently I made the jump from TV to projector. Continue reading my Xgimi Aura 2 UST projector review below to find out if it’s worth it!

Background

I’ve been a dedicated fan of 3D movies since the early 2000’s. When they came out with passive 3D TVs, I jumped on the trend and have stayed on since.

This has been difficult. The trend quickly died out despite being adopted by Hollywood titans such as James Cameron, Ang Lee, and Ridley Scott. By around 2013, the only way you could get one was on the secondhand market.

My modest 3D TV from that era, a 47” LG LCD, looks great and is still going strong. Whenever I’ve upgraded over the years, my insistence on having 3D capability restricted me to used TVs off Facebook Marketplace.

However, as screens grew larger and lighter, they also became more fragile and prone to failure. I’ve gone through two other large 3D LED TVs culminating in a 65” LG OLED. It is widely considered to be the pinnacle of the 3D experience.

So when I relocated recently, the TV did not survive the move. Just a little too much pressure on the incredibly thin panel, or having it curve just slightly under gravity when angled downwards, or even just the gentlest jostle, will precipitate the vertical lines of death, themselves a portent of pending total failure.

Sadly, my TV was toast. Did I really want to get another TV? This one would surely be the same size or even larger (the wife was getting envious of seeing friends and family with huge 85”+ behemoths on their walls). This meant more fragile screens and even more difficulty with installing, moving, etc. Not to mention even getting it home in the first place and up or down some stairs. Have you seen how big the boxes are?

The projector option

I’ve always known that the projector option was now the last bastion of home 3D technology. Although 3D TVs have ceased production, projectors still largely come 3D capable by default. I always balked at their inconvenience – having to install a mount, a screen, blackout shades, etc. Plus, I assumed they had dimmer, inferior picture quality compared to TVs. Not to mention the 3D technology was active, not passive, requiring special battery powered glasses.

Not wanting to deal with the prospect of more broken TVs in the future but still wanting to maintain access to my legacy 3D content, I decided a projector might be the way to go this time.

They have UST (ultra short throw) projectors now that can project an image onto a wall or screen from just a few inches away. You can simply place it on your media console, TV stand, or even the floor. No need to bother with a ceiling or table stand mounted across the room.

It’s also somewhat portable. You can just pack it up and bring it wherever you want – on vacation, to a friend’s house, in your backyard, etc. 

Xgimi Aura 2 UST projector review

For this Xgimi Aura 2 UST projector review, rather than blather on about specs, I’ll simply report on its real world performance. 

First of all, I paired it with a UST-specific ambient light rejecting (ALR) screen. It has microscopic ridges on the surface that reflect light coming from below straight out toward the viewer. Since UST projectors are so close to the screen and project at a sharp upward angle, on a normal screen (or wall) the light will just bounce up towards the ceiling. Not ideal.

The screen also rejects ambient light (hence the name), particularly from above, so the room doesn’t necessarily need to be totally dark.

However, I tested the Xgimi Aura 2 against the wall first. Right out of the gate, the picture looked a little warped. I panicked a little before I realized it was actually my wall that wasn’t perfectly flat. This was surprising since it’s one of those things you just assume. I tried out the wall flatness adjustment setting. You snap a picture of your wall and the projector automatically adjusts for any wall irregularities, and instantly, no distortion! 

Next, I tested out the wall color balance. The Xgimi Aura 2 scans the wall and adjusts the white balance automatically. My wall is beige, and the adjustment worked pretty well. I tested out some YouTube videos and the picture looked a lot better than I was expecting.

I was fairly satisfied with the blank wall performance, so I set up the UST ALR screen next. Putting it together was kind of a pain, but once assembled it was much lighter and easier to manage than a TV.

Projecting onto the screen looked fantastic. Getting the picture to align with the screen exactly was a bit of a challenge. But the Xgimi Aura 2 has a digital keystoning feature that lets you either automatically or manually adjust the image borders to the screen. The automatic keystoning is serviceable, but benefits from some fine tuning. Digital keystoning is supposedly technically inferior because the image needs to be downscaled and therefore loses resolution. In practice, though, it looks just fine.

In a dark room, the image quality is amazing. It really is like being in the movie theater. There are a few image presets (movie, game, etc) that look pretty good out of the box. It doesn’t actually require a lot of tinkering, unlike on most TVs these days which look terrible with their default settings until you optimize them.

In low light (dimmed overhead lighting) at night, the picture still looks very good, with hardly an noticeable loss in contrast and color. I do a lot of casual viewing in this scenario.

In low daytime light (non blackout shades drawn) the picture is acceptable although there is a noticeable drop in contrast. Not a problem at all for kids or casual viewing. However, I definitely wouldn’t watch a reference quality movie that way. In short, dark room performance is incredible and cinematic, but don’t expect miracles in the daytime even with the UST ALR screen.

Features

The Xgimi Aura 2 displays in 4K and decodes HDR and Dolby Vision content, which both look great. I still couldn’t resist tinkering with the display settings a bit – turning down or off all the noise reduction and other dynamic adjustments. One minor annoyance: it will save your changes to the display profile, but you can’t actually save it as a new custom profile. So if they get wiped out or edited by accident, you’ll have to manually make all the changes again instead of just pulling up a saved profile.

I don’t use the onboard Harman Kardon speakers because I have the projector hooked up to an AVR. But the built-in speakers actually sound really good. Once, my AVR didn’t turn on and the sound came out of the onboard speakers by default. They were loud, punchy, and bassy – I actually mistook them for my actual 3.1 system. It helps that the speakers are large and forward fading, unlike normal TV speakers, which tend to be small and downward (or backward) facing.

The Google TV interface works well and looks good. I don’t really use this either since I have multiple inputs connected to the AVR and primarily use a Fire Stick for streaming video. It works fine, although full remote integration doesn’t seem to be possible. Either the Xgimi or Fire remote can control volume and navigation once integrated, but the Fire remote cannot turn the projector on or off like it can with most TVs. And the Xgimi remote can’t do some of the more specific Fire functions, like Alexa, input switching on the AVR, etc. So I basically use the Xgimi remote for on/off and projector settings, and the Fire remote for everything else. Not very elegant but it works.

Note: The Fire Stick can indeed power on/off the AVR/projector if done via Alexa, either on the remote or through an assigned Alexa device like an Echo Show.

Another note: When I powered on my Nintendo Switch that was connected to my AVR, the power match feature via HDMI-CEC also did turn on the projector. So power control CAN work under certain circumstances, just not with the Fire Stick power button.

Another notable irregularity with the inputs is that sometimes the projector will stop recognizing the signal and just show a black screen. The native Google interface still works, but it will not recognize any inputs, even if you change devices or swap to a different HDMI input. I haven’t found what exactly triggers this, but it seems to happen with some regularity. The only way to resolve this as far as I can tell is to fully restart the system via the settings menu. Alternatively, you can do a full shutoff by cutting the power.

If you have a household of family members all trying to use the TV, it is definitely a nuisance to have to explain to them the specific process for turning on the TV and how to restart it if they do it “wrong.”

3D performance

Despite some chatter online to the contrary, 3D does work on the Xgimi Aura 2. It does allow frame packing, and it does play 3D Blu-ray discs, including from the PS3, which is what I use. It requires active 3D glasses (I got some generic ones on Amazon) which worked without a hitch.

Compared to OLED 3D, though, the picture is much dimmer and softer. An OLED screen is simply more capable of brighter, pixel perfect display with no light bleeding or interference. Cranking up the brightness and contrast improves things considerably, though some softness of the image remains. You’ll also have to remember to turn your settings back down when you’re done, since there is no dedicated 3D display profile.

The projector also doesn’t “auto-recognize” a 3D signal like a TV does. You’ll need to manually enable 3D in the settings menu each time. A bit of a hassle.

I’d view the Xgimi Aura 2 as a projector that can occasionally handle 3D rather than a dedicated 3D solution for a die hard enthusiast.

Summary

Pros: Great picture in dark or low light. Large projection size at a short distance. Out of the box image settings look very good. Digital keystone and wall flatness/color adjustments are easy to use and work very well. Excellent sound. 

Cons: Suffers from some input software wonkiness. Inconsistent HDMI-CEC performance. Can’t save new display profiles. 3D performance can be a little soft/dim compared to passive 3D TVs.

If you primarily use the native Google TV interface, this is probably the most low impact way to get into high (ish) end projection technology. Chances are it will drop right onto your console (or floor) in a normal room and project straight onto your wall with pretty good results. Add an optional UST ALR screen with at least somewhat controllable lighting and the results will be downright cinematic, even with the onboard speakers. Adding inputs (AVR, Fire/Roku/etc sticks, game consoles, etc) brings some annoying but not insurmountable complications. If you are willing to deal with those, and are generally in a dark or low light environment, the results are probably worth it.

The Xgimi Aura 2 UST projector can be purchased at Amazon here.

The 100″ NothingProjector ALR UST screen I’m using can be purchased here.

Have you made the jump to projectors? What did you think of our Xgimi Aura 2 UST projector review? Let us know in the comments!