Projector News From CES 2025
January 14, 2025I just got back from the Consumer Electronics Show 2025 in Las Vegas, and here’s everything new with projectors and large format screens that you can expect to see in in 2025.
Starting with the projector company that generated the most buzz in late 2024, Valerion recently raised over 10 million dollars on Kickstarter for their VisionMaster series of standard throw projectors, and most of those orders were for the yet to be released VisionMaster MAX, which we got the first glimpse of this year at CES.
The MAX has a few big upgrades over the Pro 2, which has already been delivered to backers, including seven levels of manual iris control which trade off brightness for contrast and, according to Eason at Valerion, the minimum iris should maintain around 75% of brightness while doubling the native contrast to 4000:1 and with EBL enabled the dynamic contrast should be around 40,000:1.
The MAX also has motorized vertical lens shift for positioning the projected image onto your screen without the distortion of keystone. The MAX is supposed to have 105% vertical lens shift, but I suspect this was an early prototype on display because it looked more like 70% to me, which was in their original design, and as of now there was also no dynamic iris, but it will come to the MAX in a future firmware update along with programmable lens memory sometime after being delivered to Kickstarters in May.
Valerion also showed off the MAX’s interchangeable add-on lens system which will initially offer an optional zoom lens to extend the throw ratio from its normal max of 1.5:1 all the way to 2.1:1 so people with larger theater rooms can still mount the projector in the back of the room. Valerion is also hoping to partner with other brands to produce more add-on lenses for things like cinemascope projection.
Nexigo was also at CES with their highly anticipated 4K Aurora Pro MKII which is the first ultra short throw projector to have an ALPD 5.0 light source and dynamic dimming. According to Nexigo the Aurora Pro MKII will output 2400 ANSI lumens with a dynamic contrast ratio over 30,000:1. Nexigo was so confident in even this early version of the MKII that they prepared this demo for me using the infamous staircase scene from 1917 with the original Aurora Pro on the left and the MKII on the right, and the difference was extremely impressive. The Aurora Pro MKII was being offered at a CES pre-order price of $2199 and has an expected delivery date in April 2025.
Nexigo was also showing off a prototype 4K standard throw projector called the TriVision Ultra MKII, with an ALPD 5.0 hybrid light source, 4000 lumens, 2500:1 native contrast, and 25,000:1 dynamic contrast. But the most interesting thing was that it also featured the newest Texas Instruments 8445 controller which enables sub 1 millisecond input lag for gaming and VRR for the first time ever in a DLP projector. Unfortunately, the TriVision MKII was just a prototype to show off new tech and doesn’t have any firm pricing or release dates available.
Last in the Nexigo booth, they showed off an update to their budget PJ40 1080p single LCD projector called the PJ40 Pro, which adds built-in GoogleTV, 100 more ANSI lumens, and a bit more color accuracy for around $299 available in Q2 of 2025. They also had a new small form factor 1080p single laser DLP projector called the Nova Mini with 1200 ANSI lumens and built in GoogleTV launching in Q3 of 2025.
Aurzen also made big news with their new foldable pico projector called the Zip, which outputs 720p resolution with 90 minutes of battery playback and has auto keystone and focus in an impossibly small package. The Zip just launched on Kickstarter for $249 with deliveries in March.
Dangbei had two new projectors at their booth, a 1080p portable DLP projector called the Dangbei Freedo with 450 ISO lumens and a 2.5 hour battery that is currently on sale for $450, and their new flagship for 2025, the MP1 Max which has a hybrid light source that they say completely eliminates the laser speckle associated with triple laser projectors while maintaining 110% coverage of the BT2020 color space. The MP1 is being marketed as a lifestyle projector with a built-in gimbal, and powerful built in speakers. Pricing in the US isn’t finalized but should be around $1899 and is expected in Q2 2025.
JMGO has two new projectors for 2025. The successor to their flagship standard throw N1S Ultimate is now called the N3, and in addition to increasing in size, the 4K resolution N3 also gets a big bump in brightness to over 4000 ISO lumens from their MALC triple laser light source, and the addition of a motorized gimbal for auto screen alignment, a feature we first saw on the XGIMI Horizon Max at CES 2024, but didn’t make it to the global release. So, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens to the N3 before its global release in Q4 of 2024.
JMGO also had a new 4K ultra short throw called the O2S Ultra, which has 3000 ISO lumens from a MALC triple laser light source, but the two most interesting things to me were its extremely small size and a feature JMGO called an electrical micro gimbal. The gimbal allows for automatic vertical adjustment of the screen, which could ease the difficulties associated with ultra short throw screen alignment but there was no demo of that feature happening in the booth. JMGO says we can expect the O2S Ultra to launch in Q3 of 2025.
Mini ultra short throw projectors were all the rage at CES 2025, and LG also debuted the CineBeam S, which is a portable, but not battery powered 4K Triple Laser ultra short throw projector with 500 ANSI lumens and automatic screen correction. Unfortunately, no real info about pricing or release was available and to be honest the picture was not impressive, but the environment where it was being displayed wasn’t doing it any favors.
The Cinebeam S was small, but it still wasn’t the smallest ultra short throw at CES, and that title went to the Yaber K300S which is a 1000 lumen triple laser UST shipping in February for $1000. They weren’t making a big deal about its size, but it’s less than a foot wide, 9 inches deep and only 3.3 inches tall, which is small for any projector, let alone a triple laser UST.
Hisense also had a mini UST that there was almost no info on called the Hisense Compact Laser TV with 4K resolution, 3000 ANSI lumens, and auto screen fit. But the big projector news at Hisense was their new flagship L9Q laser TV that has some absolutely ridiculous brightness specs, reaching 1500 nits by pairing the 4000 lumen projector with a 2.9 gain Fresnel screen, and those 1500 nits would make it on par or brighter than almost all the large format TVs on the market. But that highest brightness likely only applies to the 100” version, while the L9Q LaserTV will have five different projector and screen bundles ranging from 100-150 inches, but as is normal for Hisense, pricing and release dates weren’t available at CES.
Hisense also showed off a floor rising Fresnel screen that we saw last year at CES 2024, but this time paired with a flip out version of their ultra compact laser TV. Unfortunately, according to the Hisense employee at the booth, neither the floor rising Fresnel nor built-in stand are expected to ever make it to the US market.
XGIMI on the other hand does plan to release the Ascend, an ultra short throw screen and soundbar combination that they produced in collaboration with Harmon Kardon which pairs a 0.6 gain lenticular ALR screen with eight separate speakers including upward firing tweeters on the top of the unit. The Ascend is specifically designed to be paired with XGIMI’s AURA2 ultra short throw, and XGIMI is also considering releasing a black version of the AURA2 in order to fit in better with the Ascend lineup.
Another projector screen that snuck into CES under the radar was this 100” floor rising Fresnel screen in the F-Screen booth, which is really the first of its kind since the Hisense one is more of a prototype. It’s unlikely that F-Screen themselves will ever sell this model, but their factory makes the Fresnel screens for basically every projector company on the market, so I’m hoping at least one of them will offer a floor rising Fresnel by the end of 2025, and I’ll take a 120” please.
And speaking of things on my eventual wish list, microLED TVs were everywhere with both LG and Hisense promising a 136” versions in 2025, TCL teasing a 163”, but the only ones that don’t cost as much as a house are the microLED screens from AWALL that use a slightly higher pixel pitch of 0.9mm to get down into still expensive but more reasonable price ranges with the 163” coming in at $49,990 and the 135” is $37,500.
Due to their overall size, the AWALL large format microLED screens will come in panels to be assembled on site, but they’re also offering fully assembled versions that they are calling their microLED TV series, which are available in 75” cinemascope aspect ratio for $7990, and an 81” in the more common 16:9 aspect ratio for $9,990 and all the versions offer 1000 nit full field peak brightness, and 10,000:1 contrast.
And last, I’m not one to really entertain the “TVs are just so much better than projectors” argument, but the new Hisense 116UX is one of the most mind blowing TVs I’ve ever experienced. The new Trichroma UX lineup uses RGB mini LEDs to illuminate its LCD panel instead of plain white light, and the difference in color saturation and color brightness is night and day compared to a standard miniLED or QLED TV. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot of official info, but unofficially a Hisense employee in the booth gave me some ballpark insider info that the 116UX has around 20,000 individual backlight dimming zones, weighs over 200 lbs and will likely be released around July or August 2025.
With the exception of the TVs and MicroLEDs, it’s likely that I’ll be reviewing everything in this video in 2025, so get subscribed if you aren’t already, don’t forget to hit that thumbs up button and as always, thanks for watching The Hook Up.