LG PF50KA Review: Portable Full HD Smart Home Theater
For some time now, LG has been a brand that stands for quality and innovative products. The PF50KA is no exception. This projector comes with a built-in battery that makes it possible to be used on the go when you’re away from your home or office. LG has ensured to provide you with a lasting battery life so you can enjoy watching your favorite movie for up to 2.5 hours.
This pocket projector delivers amazing full HD cinema effects in a light-controlled room and is a perfect device for watching movies in your room or in bed. Combined with its 100,000:1 contrast ratio, you can enjoy your favorite videos with incredible clarity and sharpness on a 13 to 100-inch screen.
It gives you access to LG’s exclusive Smart Home Theater which allows you to enjoy your videos, TV shows as well as music without any hassle. All you need is to connect to the projector with your smartphone, tablet, or PC and cast your favorite content on a larger screen.
The PF50KA is very compact and portable and is so light that you can carry it in your backpack without feeling any burden. Let’s have a look at this projector’s features to see the many more ways you can enjoy watching your favorite content on any device on the PF50KA.
Features of the LG PF50KA
Its lightweight and compact design
This projector comes with a very simple friendly design, white casing, square body, and rounded edges which make it look modern and stylish. It weighs around 3.97lbs, which makes it portable too. The projector is small enough to fit in your backpack and you can take it anywhere you like without feeling any burden or discomfort.
One of the main features of the PF50KA is that it comes with a built-in battery which helps to eliminate the hassle of carrying cables or wires all over when you’re on the go. Most projectors with built-in batteries tend to be heavier but with the PF50KA, LG has managed to remain true to its brand’s design philosophy which produces ultraportable and minimalistic-looking projectors.
As we indicated earlier, LG estimates the projector’s battery can last for up to 2.5 hours on a full charge, which makes it possible for you to enjoy your favorite content when you’re away from your home or office.
However, several reviewers dispute LG’s claim on the PF50KA built-in battery life. At maximum energy-saving mode, some reviewers estimate the battery lasts up to 45 minutes while on a minimum energy-saving mode (high brightness), it can last at least an hour or even half.
Nevertheless, the built-in battery does help in eliminating an additional power supply and gives you more flexibility while enjoying videos, TV shows, and movies wherever you are.
Still focusing on its design, the LG PF50KA has a projection lens at the front with perforated vent grilles on its sides for heat dissipation and also hosts stereo speakers. The built-in speakers aren’t very loud and incapable of filling the room.
You can consider getting dedicated external speakers such as BOSE Surround Speakers that use wireless/Bluetooth connectivity. Above the projection lens is the focus knob to fine-tune the projected image on the screen. It also features four arrow buttons surrounding the power button. At the back are multiple connectivity ports for displaying your content.
Multiple Connectivity Options
LG is very generous when it comes to the connectivity options which they have provided on the PF50KA. The projector features dual HDMI ports, a USB, LAN, Bluetooth ports, an antenna cable-in, and a headphone jack. This allows you to connect the projector to a TV, laptop, or PC and display your content on the screen.
If you possess an Xfinity digital TV cable box with Xfinity TV app, you can use the PF50KA to cast your favorite videos and TV shows from your cable or satellite TV service provider. With this, you can live stream your favorite TV shows, movies, sports, and many more.
Moreover, the projector is compatible with Miracast for wirelessly casting content from your mobile device to a projection screen. The PF50KA comes preinstalled with video streaming applications like YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Disney+.
Fortunately, this function only works when you connect a fire stick such as an Amazon fire stick to the projector. This functionality is, however, only limited to android mobile devices.
You can control the PF50KA with your smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop. This makes it even more convenient because there is no need to carry multiple devices while you’re on the go. All you need is to connect your mobile device to LG PF50KA with Bluetooth or with a cable and then cast your videos, TV shows, and music on a screen.
Using the HDMI cable or the LAN port, you can also connect the PF50KA to your gaming console and stream video games from the projector onto the screen. For example, you can connect your PS4 Pro, PS5, or Xbox One X gaming console via HDMI cable and play games on the projection screen in Full HD resolution.
Built-in LG Smart TV User Interface
With this user interface, you can access apps and content on premium subscription video streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, and other third-party apps. Once connected to the projector via Wi-Fi, these streaming applications will display on the screen in an easy-to-use and intuitive manner with a touch of a button from your phone or tablet.
Good Picture Quality
The LG50KA has an amazing picture quality. It comes with a native full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution with a typical brightness of 600 ANSI lumens which allows you to watch bright, clear, and lifelike pictures on a screen. However, with its rated brightness, the fidelity of the projected images remains only clear in dark rooms.
Note: The PF50KA uses single-chip DLP projection technology to produce the 600 ANSI lumens of brightness. This brightness, combined with the power of its relatively high contrast ratio, allows you to enjoy your favorite content at high resolution and vivid colors in full HD quality without any pixel loss.
The PF50KA is also capable of delivering very deep black levels and excellent contrast, which makes it ideal for movie watching. It has an LED bulb that handles the lighting, and the LED bulb is rated to last up to 30,000 hours.
When connected to other devices like laptops, smartphones, TV, the display offer great picture clarity and color accuracy on a 13 to 100-inch screen. On a 13-inch screen, you can stream any HD content at all brightness levels (in both darker and well-lit rooms) and still enjoy the best picture quality. In dark rooms, the images become even more bright on a 13-inch screen.
If you switch to a larger screen (100 inches in size) when in a well-lit room, the images are washed out. You can correct this by switching off the lights, drawing the curtains to display brighter images. This projector was specifically designed to display images without any pixelation on a maximum screen size of 100 inches. When you project on screens beyond 100 inches, the images become pixelated and blurry.
You can use picture mode settings to adjust picture brightness to your liking. These modes include Cinema, Sports, Expert, Vivid, and Standard. The Cinema mode offers an accurate color setting for a cinematic experience. You can also use the focus knob at the top to manually adjust the focus on your screen and lock it to ensure your images are perfectly focused on the screen.
Low power consumption
The PF50KA is energy efficient and ideal for home entertainment. Although it consumes more power when you play a game or watch a movie, it still operates efficiently, with a typical power consumption of 65W (which offers approximately 2 hours of operation at maximum brightness). It has a standby power consumption of 5W. This projector is specially designed for home entertainment and paired with built-in speakers and Smart TV capabilities, it can meet all your video streaming needs.
Having looked at the features, let’s analyze the pros and cons of this projector to see if you really should purchase it.
Pros of LG PF50KA
Easy setup: It’s very easy to set up and use. It doesn’t take more than a few minutes to complete the setup process. All you need is to connect the projector to your TV or laptop, power it on and start enjoying your favorite content. No adjustments are required for the focus of the projected images. The images stay perfectly focused on the screen even when you move around in front of it.
Very portable: LG PF50KA is only 1.8kg and measures only 8.8 x 8.35 x 4.7″ which makes it very portable and easy to move from one place to another. If you travel frequently and need a small projector for your travels, then this projector is a perfect choice for you.
Wireless screen Share connection: The wireless screen Share feature is very useful when it comes to sharing the screen in split-screen mode. You can easily display one of your favorite TV shows or videos on your smartphone, tablet, or laptop and then view it on the large screen at home.
Built-in Bluetooth: The PF50KA has built-in Bluetooth technology which makes it easy to connect with any kind of device that supports Bluetooth technology. This is a great feature for using the projector to stream your music from an MP3 player, smartphone, or tablet.
Sufficient brightness level: 600 ANSI lumens brightness is good enough to display images on a screen of up to 100 inches in size in dark rooms.
Affordable price: At a price of around $649.99, the LG PF50KA is very affordable and offers great value of features for your money.
Cons of LG PF50KA
Poor Audio quality: The speaker produces low volume sound. It would have been better if the audio quality was better.
The wireless screen Share feature is a little difficult to set up: The wireless screen share function is a great feature, but it’s difficult to set up. Wireless Screen Share only works on select LG devices, which means that it’s not compatible with any other device unless you have an LG phone or tablet.
Has no zoom feature: It doesn’t have any zoom feature which is a little disappointing.
No 4K input: The PF50KA does not have a 4K resolution for the images.
Limited to darker rooms only: when watching content on larger screens or else the image diminishes in well-lit rooms.
If you’re still not convinced that this projector is for you, here are some alternatives worth considering.
Alternatives
At a much cheaper price point (that is, $279.99), consider purchasing Artlii Energon 2 which offers an exceptional image quality with sharp, vibrant colors, and impressive brightness in darker rooms. It’s got a great response time for film and casual gaming, but the lag is a bit too high for competitive gaming.
The second-best alternative to consider is Optoma UHD50X. This ultra 4K projector is designed for optimal gaming and cinema experience. It is brighter than the PF50KA (3400 ANSI lumens), and has a low input lag for the optimal competitive gaming experience, although it fetches triple the price of PF50KA ($1,599).
Conclusion
LG PF50KA is easily one of the best LED-powered projectors that you can find on the market. It is very affordable yet offers a set of features that makes it a great buy. The ease of setup and use is one major feature that makes it stand out in the crowd. It comes with all the necessary accessories that you need to set up and use it. It doesn’t have some of the advanced viewing features like zoom, but it offers great picture quality, brightness, and clarity when viewing videos on a screen of 100 inches in size in a dark room. The focus feature on the projector also makes it easy to use for any screen size up to 100 inches in size.