What's up everybody? It's Brian with ProjectorScreen.com. Now I'm excited here to help debut the brand new Hisense C1 4K triple laser lifestyle projector. This little bad boy comes in a small form factor, but it packs a big punch.
Contrast
With 1600 ANSI lumens and a contrast ratio of over 1400:1 when measured with full on, full off, which means in a relatively darkened environment you're gonna get really good contrast and shadow detail.
Color Gamut
The triple laser RGB light engine from the C1 is gonna give you an amazing color gamut coverage of over 110% making this have one of the widest color gamuts of any projector out there, whether lifestyle, UST, standard throw, or really expensive home cinema projectors.
Sharpness
One thing that we noticed in testing this projector out and comparing it to other similarly sized lifestyle projectors is that this has one of the sharpest images available. I'm not familiar with what lens they're using or what type of optical block that they've got going on, but I can certainly tell you without question that this image is razor sharp.
Image Size
Now while Hisense states that this projector supports an image size from 65 inches all the way up to 300, that's really not practical. If you were to take this at the 300 inch image size that it advertises and fully supports with a sharp focus, you're only gonna end up with about 6 foot lamberts. By all cinematic standards, that's just not enough, even in a really dark room. However, still making an incredibly large 180 inch diagonal image with this projector, you end up at close to 17 foot lamberts. Now that is more than appropriate for a darkened theater environment.
Input Lag
The C1 has relatively low input lag and was measured with a 39.3 millisecond lag time. This is more than appropriate for casual gaming, but just may not be fast enough for you. Competitive first person shooters.
HDR
This little guy right here is the only projector of its type that supports both Dolby vision and HDR10+ plus for amazing image quality.
Auto-Keystoning And Auto-Focus
One of the really cool and convenient features of the C1 is its auto-keystoning and auto-focus. What that means is you can put this projector down on a surface and even if it's not directly lined up with the wall of the screen that you wanna project on, the software will recognize what it's projecting, analyze it, geometrically, correct it, and adjust the focus to square the image up for the optimal viewing experience.
This all in one system with integrated media player and speakers, allows you to take your movie going experience anywhere. All you need is an outlet.
Smart Projector
Now this is a smart projector using Hisense’s Vida operating system that includes all of the most popular streaming apps. You've got Amazon, you've got Disney plus, you've got Hulu. And most importantly, and most rarely you've got Netflix, which seems to be absent from most of the Android TV based smart projectors out today.
Built-In Speakers
The 20W JBL integrated audio is more than loud enough for any backyard movie night at your house. Are they gonna knock the socks off of any audiophile's feet? Probably not. Regardless, considering the small compact form factor of this projector, the audio is pretty dang good, specifically considering its intended use.
Aesthetics & Design
Another interesting differentiating factor of the C1 compared to other lifestyle projectors is the design and the materials that it's made of. Most other lifestyle projectors are simply plastic and while they may look good, they certainly do not look premium. The C1 on the other hand, is made of brushed aluminum. It's got a blue color on the outside and the top, while you have a darker gray metal in the front and in the rear. While that may not be so meaningful to many people, I can certainly say having seen this next to all of the other lifestyle projectors aesthetically in design-wise, this is probably my favorite.
Watching Content On The Hisense C1
So enough of me yammering on with this first look of this particular projector.
I think y'all are ready to go and see how it looks. So I'm gonna go take it over to our staging area, blast it up against a 110 inch reference white screen with both the lights on and the lights off so we could see how it looks. Y'all ready to do it? I know I am. Let's light it up.
Alright, now we've got the C1 set up and we're projecting it up against this 110 inch reference white screen material that you generally find in a dedicated home cinema room. What you can see right now is a bright and vibrant image coming from this tiny little projector that's only putting out 1600 lumens. Yet, despite all of the ambient light we've got going on in this room, this image is still popping. Now I also wanna mention that what you're seeing on your computer screen is not as good as what we're seeing here in person because of the tricks we gotta play with the camera to make the image look accurate and keep me from looking like an orange loompa. So we're gonna let this roll for a little bit so you can kind of see how this is performing in this type of environment before we turn off the light so we can see what it would look like in the dark, which is really where this projector is gonna shine. So again, you know, we're actually seeing a surprising level of shadow detail in contrast for a projector of this type, in this type of environment, this projector does have over 1400:1 contrast ratio, which is gonna be far more apparent when we turn the lights off, but is still noticeable here in this bright environment and actually outperforms other standard throw projectors in a similar type of price range.
So as the buffalo roam, so are we, we're gonna kick off the lights and let this projector really show you what it's made of
And boom, obviously we're seeing a substantial difference right here. The contrast performance of this projector is really standing out when the lights are off, as one would expect, we are really noticing a surprisingly good level of shadow detail. Now, again, I hate to sound like I'm so surprised, but these types of premium lifestyle projectors are relatively new to the market. Traditionally, smaller projectors such as this have historically been really gimmicky and toy like with inadequate types of brightness, poor performance. But the RGB laser light engine of this, which is putting out over 110% of the BT 2020 color gamut and with the over 1400:1 contrast ratio is really producing a stellar image at what is a ridiculously reasonable price point for everything that this projector has to offer. Now my wife and I keep bees, so we are no stranger to honey, and this honey looks absolutely fantastic. The color is right, not only from what we see in real life, but from this reference material that I've seen many, many times with many different projectors. This projector with its 1400:1 contrast ratio does put out some decent black levels. Obviously not to the degree of much more expensive home cinema projectors, but for the lifestyle type of category it performs exceptionally well.
This particular butterfly with its red chest and its black wings really demonstrate the black levels of the projector and the vibrancy of the colors as well. The red of this field of tulips is right on with how it's intended to look on this particular piece of content, and the projector does a great job of representing it accurately with its tremendously wide color gamut. This particular scene with the four vials that demonstrates the red, blue, green and purple is done excellently well.
Alright, so what we wanna demonstrate right now is the onboard audio. Now I've gotta preface this with the fact that my little lapel mic is not gonna transmit the full fidelity to you, the viewer watching it on whatever device you're doing, but we wanna demonstrate that this thing packs a wallop when it comes to volume. So I'm right here talking pretty darn loudly. I'm sure I'm disrupting our neighbors in the building and the rest of the people in the adjoining showroom, but it's necessary for me to be able to talk over this music playing from the streamer and I wanna make sure that this is something that you guys, the viewers are able to hear. So let's take this down a little bit so that I can speak a little bit more reasonably. The 20 watt onboard audio from JBL is absolutely more than adequate for a simple casual viewing or even taking this outside into your backyard for a casual viewing night.
Alright, we're gonna put these lights back on. Hopefully I'm in the frame. I don't know, probably.
Thanks For Watching Our Review
So what we've just seen is the first look of the Hisense C1 that is just out of the box in standard mode with barely touching any of the settings. This is really gonna be representative of what you should expect as soon as you crack open the package and drop it on your table as well. But we are gonna get in depth with this projector after our calibrator has had some time to play with it and do a much more thorough in depth review.
Well, this wraps up our first look video of the Hisense C1, and I sincerely wanna thank you for watching. Please like this video and subscribe to our channel so you get notified of all of our great upcoming content. And if you have any questions about the Hisense C1 or anything else projection, hit us up at ProjectorScreen.com. Once again, this is Brian. Thank you for watching and keep on projecting.
Projector Resolution: | 4K |
Brand: | Hisense |
Product Status: | In Stock |
Lumens: | 1600 |
Projector Type: | Lifestyle |
Light Source: | Laser |
Contrast Ratio: | 2,000,000:1 |
Chipset: | DLP |
Aspect Ratio: | 16:9 [HD] |
Throw Ratio: | 1.20:1 (D:W) |
Native Resolution: | 3840x2160 |
Lens Shift: | No |
Input Lag: | 4K/60Hz: 39.3ms |
3D Support: | No |
Built-In Speaker: | Yes |
Warranty: | 1 Year |
Standard Lens Focus: | Automatic |
ARC/eARC: | eARC |
Operating System: | VIDAA |