Xgimi MoGo 2 Pro Android TV Projector review: Automated entertainment

If you’re the nomadic type or someone who’s rarely within casting distance of a television, you’re likely consuming media on a handheld rectangle with substandard speakers and a small screen that makes sharing difficult. Is. I’m here to tell you that there is a better way.

Xgimi’s new MoGo 2 Pro smart projector not only runs Android TV version 11.0 to stream all your favorite videos over fast Wi-Fi, but it also turns on when you turn off the appropriately bright LED lamp (and fan). Also doubles as a Bluetooth speaker. It’s got everything you need inside a compact little beamer – everything but a battery that you’ll need to provide separately for true portability.

I lived with a MoGo 2 Pro for the past month, using the little man around Europe in a campervan, in a tiny off-grid house on mud-soaked grounds, and in a surf shack battered by North Sea winds . In all respects, it proves itself to be an adaptable all-in-one source of shareable entertainment that rarely disappoints.

One of the best things about the MoGo 2 Pro is how easy it is to set up, both initially and every time you want to use it.

The MoGo 2 Pro supports Android Quick Start, which made it easy to copy my Google account and Wi-Fi settings over from my Android phone. Android TV then made it easy to log into each of my streaming services by offering QR codes that could be quickly authenticated by my Android phone without having to type in a bunch of passwords.

I’m glad the initial setup was quick as I had to factory reset the MoGo 2 Pro once after upgrading to firmware version 2.8.147. It takes about 10 minutes to enter my credentials from factory settings to six media services. Netflix must be installed via a workaround because only the media giant officially supports Handful of projectors. While simple hacks are relatively easy to do, most people won’t feel comfortable installing apps from outside the Google Play Store. There’s even an option to cast Netflix from your phone since the projector has Chromecast built-in.

The Xgimi’s little projector has otherwise been perfectly stable, if plodding, as the UX frequently presses down on the Bluetooth remote control. But it’s not often that I find a $500-ish projector with a snappy interface.

Under normal use the MoGo 2 Pro will start up from standby in less than five seconds. But reconnect the power source, and it boots from zero to Android TV in about 50 seconds, then takes another 10 seconds to do all the automatic screen adjustments (which can be disabled if you want). .

The MoGo 2 Pro has a built-in time-of-flight sensor that can find a flat, obstacle-free surface on which to project the image. It then automatically centers the image and corrects the keystones to create a properly aligned rectangle. It’s not perfect, but it usually finds the surface I’m aiming for, with only a smaller image of what I want. Fortunately, Xgimi gives you the option to quickly jump into manual adjustment mode so you can fine-tune the display if you wish – no hunting through menus.

While the Xgimi’s second generation screen optimization technology isn’t as good as the marketing hype suggests, it is an improvement over the previous version. It was so useful on the MoGo 2 Pro that I checked the setting to automatically adjust the keystone every time I moved the device — and I moved it a lot. That way, I could avoid cumbersome manual adjustments and just nudge the beamer until it produced the desired results.

Projected image is about what you’d expect at this price range: a modest 400 ANSI lumens squeezed into a 1920 x 1080 image that looks better at 30 inches (when all that light is focused) than at 200 . And while HDR10 is supported, it serves more as a bullet point on a spec sheet than anything you’ll see during viewing.

If you’re not too fussy, you can watch some casual YouTube videos in a room saturated with ambient light, but mogo 2 Pro is best viewed in the darkest of rooms. Only then can you see the bright, rich and clear image that XGimi’s latest portable projector is capable of producing.

Here’s how it looks in medium to low light:

To use as a Bluetooth speaker, it’s best to first hold down the power button on the remote control and select “Display Off” to turn off the lamp and fan. Then, it sits quietly waiting for a Bluetooth connection to transform the projection box into a passive speaker for music, with reasonably balanced sound from a pair of 8W side-firing speaker drivers.

For its size, the projected image and sound produced are reasonably good. I was impressed.

The MoGo 2 Pro always boots in Eco mode (low brightness, low loud), which can be annoying if you’re always near a power socket. When connected to the 10,000mAh (40Wh) battery, the MoGo 2 Pro was able to boot up the projector and play for the first 40 minutes babylon When set to “Bright” and “Movie” presets. When connected to a power meter, I could see that the power draw averaged around 40W in Eco mode, which climbed up to an average of around 48W when Eco mode was turned off. Xgimi lists a required power of 65W for the MoGo 2 Pro.

I find it odd that a projector designed for all-in-one portability lacks any onboard controls beyond a simple power button. More than once, I misplaced the Bluetooth remote, requiring me to grab my Apple or Android device to launch the Google Home app’s remote control. It worked fine, but I was usually sitting so close to the MoGo 2 Pro that built-in playback and volume controls would have been more convenient.

Photographer Chase Jarvis is credited with the saying “the best camera is the one you have with you”, a sentiment that can be applied to displays, speakers and media streamers. The MoGo 2 Pro may not be the brightest video projector, the best-sounding Bluetooth speaker, or the most powerful media streamer, but it’s small and compact enough that you can easily toss it in your luggage or backpack to take it with you wherever you go You can take it with you.

Yes, the MoGo 2 Pro ditched the internal battery from the original MoGo Pro in favor of better speakers. But it can still be powered from a battery pack you already have. For most people, I think Xgimi made the right decision.

At $599 / €599, the Xgimi MoGo 2 Pro undercuts Samsung’s disappointing Freestyle portable projector by almost $300. The original MoGo Pro was already one of the best portable projectors around, and the MoGo 2 Pro is an improvement on it in almost every way.

Photography by Thomas Ricker / The Verge