XGIMI Halo Review: Full HD for your Movie Nights
XGIMI Halo is a fantastic addition to your home theater—it’s ultraportable, versatile, and completely packed with features. If you’re looking for a screen to watch Disney+ or Amazon Prime on, or something to play Xbox One games on, the XGIMI Halo has got you covered.
XGIMI Halo has a minimalist design that’s sleek with an attractive glossy black coloring and aluminum-like frame. Weighing only 6.74 pounds, it’s one of the lightest home theater systems on the market. It comes with an integrated sound system, Wi-Fi connectivity, and a built-in Android TV OS that can turn any flat surface in your house into your private cinema within minutes.
At $799, XGIMI Halo isn’t a budget projector, but it’s definitely among the affordable native Full HD home theaters. The above-average brightness, excellent contrast ratio, sharp picture details, and accurate colors are just some of the things you will love with this product. But, is it worth the price? Let’s have a look at its features and see.
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Features of XGIMI Halo
Classy compact design, and features
XGIMI Halo is one of the tiniest home theater systems out there. The unit is unbelievably small measuring 4.46 x 5.70 x 6.75 inches and is lighter than many projectors, and it’s also surprisingly lightweight. The whole system weighs just 6.74 pounds. You can just put it in your backpack and head out to your friend’s home and enjoy.
Its color scheme and shape are very elegant, and it’s definitely a product that you can show off in your home entertainment center to friends or family. There are also quite a few connectivity options including HDM2.0, an AV port, and a USB port to connect peripherals.
Built-in battery
XGIMI Halo will allow you to project your screen anywhere in your house, and that involves quite a lot of mobility. Thankfully, XGIMI is here to save the day with the battery feature. Yes, you read correctly. This small home theater unit has a battery (59.454Wh) life of up to five hours and a few minutes when fully charged. The battery life depends on what usage it’s put through, but it’s more than enough for most users.
Integrated Pair Harman Kardon-tuned 5W sound system
Who doesn’t like to dance to the tune of good music? XGIMI Halo features two built-in stereo speakers that deliver crystal clear loud enough to fill a room; incredibly audible audio at 30dB.
Concerning connected external devices, there are no built-in video jack outputs. So, if you’re planning to connect your Xbox One S or PS4 Pro, you will need to use the RCA cable and AUX audio jack output.
The integrated 5W Harman Kardon tuner that also incorporates dual-band wireless technologies inside makes sure you can tune in to your favorite movies, TV shows, or music with the TuneIn app, or play games and stream videos using XGIMI Halo’s dedicated media apps built right into the Android TV 9.0 platform.
Runs on Android TV 9.0 platform; Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity
What makes XGIMI an even more fascinating Smart addition to your home theater is its Android platform that was built in with XGIMI’s proprietary technology (ISA) — autofocus, 4-point auto keystone — which is controlled by a dedicated remote control. It also supports Google Assistant.
Note: The remote control has soft buttons that have been strategically positioned and labeled for a smooth multi-user experience.
Google Play comes pre-installed with YouTube, Showtime, and HBO. Combined with its seamless Wi-Fi connectivity, you can download many other apps in the Google Play Store directly to it; mostly streaming apps like Amazon Prime and many more.
You’re not limited to the remote control provided by XGIMI; you can use your smartphone as a remote control or even navigate through the Android TV OS with your voice. Halo also has Chromecast which allows you to cast your content outdoors.
The Android 9.0 platform allows you to access a large collection of apps, including YouTube, Plex, Disney Plus, Hulu, and other Android TV apps, as well as YouTube TV and WatchESPN. As long as you have internet access, Android TV becomes your main source of entertainment and connection to the world.
The only downside to this great feature is that XGIMI Halo has no support for Netflix—which not only has a huge subscription base but also boasts a huge selection of movies and TV shows, both old and new.
There is also a Bluetooth feature that lets you wirelessly play music. The dual Harman-Kardon can be used as a set of high-quality Bluetooth speakers without the need for high-end external speakers or connecting wires.
Side Note: What makes Halo different from Halo+ is its Intelligent Screen Adaptation (ISA) technology. Halo provides autofocus and 4-point or 4D automatic/manual keystone correction, with the latter giving you vivid and crystal-clear image quality.
In contrast, Halo+ gives you autofocus, auto screen alignment, auto intelligent obstacle avoidance, and auto keystone correction. These features are amazing and can be a blessing in disguise, especially if you’re not savvy with technology. They simplify the setup process, and usability, and adjust the picture with the projection area based on the angle it is placed. The automatic intelligent obstacle avoidance helps align the projection screen to avoid any hindrance.
XGIMI Halo Performance:
What makes a projector particularly enjoyable is its picture quality, and how clear and vivid the picture is. Whether you’re watching movies, TV shows, playing games, or doing a presentation, it’s all about the picture quality. You want everything displayed nicely in front of you.
The images in Halo are incredibly detailed and crisp and with bright colors. They achieve this by focusing on its excellent brightness, great color reproduction, and contrast ratio. Let’s have a look.
Above-average brightness level (800 ANSI lumens)
With a maximum brightness level of 800 ANSI lumens, you can comfortably watch movies or play Xbox One games in full 1080p HD with minimal ambient light. For even better picture quality and less strain on your eyes, you can completely turn off the lights and stream your favorite movies or play games in the dark.
However, the 800-max brightness admittedly falls to 600 when running on a battery. This might not be enough to turn on lights in your room, but we still recommend that you consider having the XGIMI Halo connected to a power supply for brighter and clear images.
Excellent contrast ratio (1,000:1)
With a massive 1,000:1 contrast ratio, this projector provides crisp images with fairly deep and accurate colors; the black is as black as possible whilst still maintaining the solid color distinction. The importance of this can’t be overstated, as having a good contrast ratio allows you to get the most out of your HD content.
It ensures that you can enjoy any movie with as much detail as possible. With more details, you will be able to see intricate details in every scene that you might have missed otherwise on a low-quality projector. If a scene is lit well, it will look great even at night with a brightness level of 800 lumens. On top of its good contrast ratio, it has an excellent color gamut. With XGIMI Halo as your home theater, you will automatically love its vivid colors, sharp picture details, and deep blacks.
HDR10 support
XGIMI Halo also supports HDR10, which is an excellent feature to have as it’s one of the visual beasts of our age. This is great as we get to see color contrast and details like we never have before. Black levels are deep with brighter highlights and darker shadows, which in turn creates more details in a scene—nothing would look dull or washed out here.
XGIMI Halo may not be very bright and may have a relatively low contrast ratio—losing some of its contrast at 100% brightness—but its average input luminance is still quite impressive so you can get more than enough light in a dark place.
Native 1080p resolution
The system uses Full HD DLP projection technology to produce high-quality images/high-definition visuals, and it produces an outstanding luminosity that’s perfect for watching movies. The native resolution is 1920 x 1080 with a 60Hz refresh rate, which means colors and details are crisp and clear from all angles, unlike standard Full HD projectors that exhibit annoying rainbow effects or have bad contrast.
It supports high-end native Full HD visuals for 3D content as well, without the need to plug in any extra accessories. 3D support is available to project 3D content from Blu-ray players and HDMI-enabled devices (laptops, desktops, etc.).
Low latency mode
The XGIMI Halo has a 35-40ms low-latency mode which is great for casual gaming or casual video streaming. If you are playing a fast-paced game, this is the mode to use, where the input lag will be minimal. This can also make your stream go smoother while gaming or watching videos.
Having looked at the features, does this projector have any shortcomings? First, let’s look at the pros.
Pros of XGIMI Halo
Good picture quality: The projector produces sharp and clear pictures from all angles; especially when in a dark room.
Great portability: The XGIMI Halo i is super light and small which is great for travel or moving from one room to another.
Complete package of features: The projector comes with all you need for an enjoyable home theater experience.
Easy to set up: You can connect the projector to a power supply and instantly use it. Its intelligent calibration feature can automatically adjust the projection screen based on your room’s orientation and size. No rainbow effect – The XGIMI Halo is free from the rainbow effect problem, which means colored dots in some angles when viewing movies or playing games.
Cons of XGIMI Halo
Extremely low brightness/Dark scene issues: With a rated brightness of 800 ANSI lumens, the XGIMI Halo isn’t bright enough to deliver a full HDR effect; it produces noticeably washed out and dull images.
No Netflix support: There is no Netflix support and this can be a touch frustrating for many users with Netflix subscriptions.
Not enough ports: There are only one HDMI and USB input, power input, and AV input, which makes connecting and disconnecting cables a hassle.
Low contrast ratio: The contrast ratio on the projector doesn’t seem to be great, but it’s still better than a lot of others.
Software letdowns: Some of the reviews noted that it does not perform as advertised with noticeable lag on the screen once connecting to a laptop.
Are you still not satisfied? Here are some alternatives to consider.
Alternatives
The best alternative to go for, for those who have a little more to spend on stronger features and better image quality, would be the XGIMI Halo+. Halo+ improves on almost every feature of Halo with better ISA technology; which means an easier setup and no aggressive autofocus as seen in the Halo version. Unlike Halo, Halo+ combines Harman Kardon Dolby and DTS technology to give you the best sound experience in your room without the need for an external high-end speaker.
If you’re on a budget, we’d recommend going for Artlii Energon 2. This projector is not only cheap ($280), but also boasts ultra-fast and stable 5G Wi-Fi connectivity for a much smoother, clearer, and lag-free online streaming from various popular streaming services. It has similar features as XGIMI Halo with 4K support, longer lamp life, better image clarity, and an overall amazing cinematic performance in a dark room.
Conclusion
Nothing beats the cinematic experience that gives a sense of scale and immersion. With XGIMI Halo, you have all the needed tools to achieve such a cinematic home theater experience; support for Android 9.0 TV platform, Google Assistant support, HDR10 technology, a native full HD resolution, 3D support, and a good contrast ratio, while still being portable enough to take it on vacation, move it from one room to another, and even throw an outdoor party for friends and family. While it’s not cheap as far as projectors go, it is still affordable for most people.