AWOL Aetherion Pro

In bright SDR scenes, the Aura 3 was considerably brighter, but both were very color accurate, while in HDR the Aetherion Pro was noticeably less color accurate in addition to not being as bright. However, using the beta dynamic iris for the Aetherion Pro, the black level performance is extremely good and in general EBL laser dimming from AWOL is slightly faster than DBLE from XGIMI, which not only means it’s quicker to decide to dim, but also that it recovers faster. Based strictly on dark content, I would give the slight edge to the Aetherion Pro after the new dynamic iris update. However, the Aura 3’s considerable brightness advantage in moderately lit scenes combined with much better HDR color accuracy makes all the difference when displaying bright colorful objects where it seems like the Aetherion Pro needs to pick between being either bright, or saturated, but not both. For lights on viewing, the Aetherion Pro didn’t really stand a chance when I tested it without the brightness enhancer on, and turning it on low helped to close the gap a little bit, but at the expense of color accuracy, which is why the XGIMI Aura 3 Max is still my top pick for light and dark room viewing, but the Aeherion Pro is a strong contender for dark room viewing.