XGIMI HORIZON Ultra: The first 4K projector with Dolby Vision

The Digitec and Galaxus editorial team reports directly from Berlin from IFA 2023. You can find all the news and background information published so far in our overview:

If I had to make a comparison, I would describe Xgimi as the "TCL of the projector industry". In other words: a Chinese manufacturer that researches, develops and produces all hardware in its own factories - and has rolled up the market from behind in recent years. This has the advantage that the projector components are perfectly harmonised with each other.

The new product that Xgimi presented for the first time at IFA is correspondingly exciting: the Horizon Ultra 4K. According to the manufacturer, this is not only the world's first 4K long-throw projector to support Dolby Vision. It is also a projector that boasts a technological world first: the combination of LED and laser projection.

But that's just the beginning.

The future: dual light technology

The combination of LED and laser projection is described by Xgimi as a "technological breakthrough". You need to know: Projectors use either LEDs or laser modules as their light source. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. I have explained RGB LEDs in detail here. Simply put:

• LEDs have a higher (better) colour fidelity and are usually more pleasing to the eye
• But they shine less brightly and are at a disadvantage compared to laser modules during the day.
• Laser modules, on the other hand, shine brightly but exhaust the eyes more quickly due to their narrow wavelength band.

By combining the two technologies, you not only get the "five in the box", but also the "one in the box". The advantages of both technologies: a bright, true-colour image that does not tire the eye after prolonged viewing. At the stand, they are even talking about a coverage of 95.5 per cent of the DCI-P3 colour space. This is the colour space in which HDR content is calibrated. In fact, the Xgimi Horizon Ultra is the first 4K DLP projector to master not only HDR10 and HLG, but even Dolby Vision.

And yes; it shines brightly too. The little wonder box achieves around 2300 ISO lumens. That's not the brightest projector I've ever seen. But bright enough for most living rooms, provided you use a screen that gets additional brightness and contrast out of every projection.

The Xgimi Horizon Ultra is not a native 4K projector. The high resolution is achieved via pixel shift technology. In simple terms, two images are projected one after the other for each frame and shifted slightly before the next frame is displayed. This all happens in a fraction of a second. For you, it looks as if the 8.3 million pixels of a UHD resolution are being projected simultaneously.

If you want to know exactly how this works, here is an exciting article I wrote on the topic:

Simple setup - within 6 seconds

As impressive as the Xgimis dual-light technology is, I found it almost more exciting how easy it is to set up the Horizon Ultra. To be honest, I'm a person with a short fuse when it comes to installation and setup. This is especially true for projectors. The test of Optoma's UST projector, for example, almost drove me crazy. If I believe the impressive demo at the Xgimi stand, that shouldn't happen here. In the video below you can see three awesome features:

• Auto Keystone Correction
• Intelligent Screen Alignment
• Intelligent Obstacle Avoidance

The first feature automatically corrects perspective distortion. For example, if the projector cannot be placed frontally in front of the screen and is therefore projecting sideways onto the surface. The sensor recognises this and deforms the image until it forms a perfect rectangle. The second feature automatically recognises how large the projection surface is and adjusts the size and zoom of the projection accordingly. The third feature, on the other hand, recognises when there are obstacles on the projection surface. A picture, for example. Or a wall lamp. The projector then automatically searches for a free area between such obstacles.

Check it out:

Another practical feature is the automatic colour calibration. However, I have also seen this on other projectors. For example Samsung's Freestyle. Here, the projector recognises the colour of the projection surface and then calibrates itself. This is particularly practical if you are not projecting onto a screen at home, but directly onto your house wall, which may not be perfectly white.

Look:

At the stand, I was unfortunately unable to find out exactly which white point is calibrated. However, when I pressed around in the projector menu, I found out that the picture mode shown to me was "Cinema". As a rule, this corresponds to a warm tone with white point D65 - or at least something similar. Nice.

And the Horizon Ultra looks beautiful too

The Horizon Ultra, which weighs around five kilos, also looks beautiful. Very much so, in my opinion. First of all, it's not huge: 265 × 224 × 170 mm (height × width × depth). The material feels slightly leathery. Except for the front, where there is an elegant fabric cover that hides two 12-watt speakers from Harman Kardon.

In addition:

• 2x HDMI inputs, one of which is eARC-capable
• 2x USB inputs
• 1x LAN input
• Wifi 6 dual-band support (2.4/5Ghz)
• Bluetooth 5.2

By the way, the fun will cost around 2000 francs/euros. The projector should be available from October, also in our shop. A test is also being planned, but I can't promise that it will be ready right at the start of sales. However, I will endeavour to do so. If you have any special requests or suggestions for the test, now would be the time to put them in the comments column 😁.