Movie Projector- Artlii Energon 2020 Home Theater Projector with HiFi Stereo and Lens Zooming, 250" Vital Outdoor Projector Support 1080P, Compatible with PS4, HDMI, USB Remote Learning

Projector manufacturer Artlii has made a return to my man cave. This time, they sent me the Energon Home Theater Projector, rated at 200 ANSI lumens, for review.A few key features of this projector are its 720p resolution with upscaling support for 1080p, strong built-in speakers, keystone correction, USB 5V power port, and - as of the time of this review - a bargain price of $169.99 on Amazon.A quick look at the front of the projector reveals the lens with its plastic, form-fit cap, along with a large and responsive infrared receiver for the remote. I find the projector to pick up signals from the remote much better than the previous Artlii unit I reviewed. On a related note, I love the more ergonomic and rounded remote itself, if for no other reason than it feels entirely different from my Amazon Fire TV Stick remote in the dark!! Neither has illuminated buttons.Above the lens, on the top of the unit, are the focus ring and keystone correction. At about 10.5 feet from my viewing surface, I was able to focus the image until it was ALMOST completely sharp, but then the already stiff ring would not turn anymore to focus the whole image. It seems like a field curvature issue, as I find the center of the image to be nicely sharp, while the edges soften considerably. I'm not sure if this is unique to my unit or if it's the same on all Energons.The keystone correction is a very welcome feature, and can correct trapezoidal projections resulting from aiming the projector at angles slightly up or down. There's no horizontal keystone correction, but this has always seemed to be an unnecessary feature to me. The vertical, which the Energon has, is all I'd ever need. Unlike the previous Artlii projector I reviewed, the keystone correction ring is also more stiff.Toward the rear of the unit on top is the control panel, which has been upgraded to touch buttons from traditional clicking buttons. These illuminate nicely and cover the gamut of functions for the projector. They are responsive, and the power button also requires confirmation, so you can't accidentally turn the projector off with a stray finger. I appreciate that feature very much with this type of button array.The back of the projector has a VGA port, 2 HDMI inputs, and 2 USB ports, one of which provides 5-volt power for any USB-powered plug-in streaming sticks, a la Fire TV or Chromecast. It's great to not have to run a wire to a power outlet, but instead just plug my Fire Stick right into the projector and be good to go. The projector also features an SD Card slot, which allows you to open photos, videos, music, or even text on screen, though I would probably choose something other than a projector for music and text. There's a 3.5mm audio out jack to connect headphones or external speakers, and finally, a composite A/V input jack, which is also 3.5mm, but accepts the included adapter that features classic red, white, and yellow RCA inputs for your old-school Nintendo Entertainment System or VCR! As a gamer, I LOVE this fact, and look forward to playing Nintendo on this big screen.The Energon has an updated and easy-to-use on-screen menu. You can adjust picture quality parameters, sound settings, and projector orientation (front, rear, and upside-down projection are possible). I'm also very happy to report that there is a sleep timer for those - like me - who have a tendency to fall asleep watching movies. Finally, a convenient "zoom" feature, which is actually just the opposite of that, is available for people who might be using the Energon in a small space, or on a smaller screen. This feature essentially shrinks the image as small as 25% of the normal size to compensate. I could imagine this being very helpful in the right situation, but I have no use for it, personally.In use, the Energon puts out an impressive picture for a sub-$200 unit. Native 720p projection is superior to many budget projectors, and the Energon reproduces 1080p content nicely. Aside from the aforementioned edge-of-frame focusing, images are crips and colorful. The tone and color adjustments in the menu really help dial in the look one might prefer, and the SRS TrueSurround XT setting and "movie" sound mode take the audio from muffled and tinny to full and impressive. I would dare say that the internal speakers are enough to create a decent theater experience without shelling out extra for an external sound system.It's also nice to see the company adopt ANSI lumens as a measure of brightness, rather than arbitrary and inflated measures. This one, rated at 200 ANSI lumens, seems slightly brighter than the previous Artlii I reviewed. Quieter, too! Turning down the sound, which I was surprised to realize isn't very convenient since the Energon has no "mute" function - an odd and disappointing omission, revealed a pretty quietly-running unit.Overall, this Artlii Energon is a great deal, featuring good performance at an easy-to-swallow price. It has a few drawbacks, like the lens adjustments and edge sharpness, but in use it's a very pleasing addition to a nice, dark, home theater room or project.

4.5 StarsI've had this projector for a couple of weeks now, it's a great projector for the money although it cannot be compared with other big brands like Epson and Benq. However, its good enough for my daily use.Physically, the projector is a nice, sleek, black box about 1.5 times the size of their portable version that I purchased a few months ago for another room.I set this projector up in a dark room with a brick wall for a few days until I could hang my 120 inch screen on that same wall.On just the brick wall, the picture was still visible and you could see what was going on but it was obviously going to be fuzzy, once I got the screen up though this changed instantly.The picture is very crisp for being 1280x720 native and in the dark it is very bright. This changes when you have the lights on though as the lights in my room overpower theprojector completely when I have them all on. If I turn off several of my lights in that room, they are set up on a couple of different switches, then it is still visible but notnearly as bright as the projector is in the dark. Unfortunately this is not something that can be fixed with a software update, the projector just isn't bright enoughto be used in a fully lighted room, but I never expected it to be and as it is, the projector works great for what I want, meaning movie nights with friends and family.As for features, this projector has been able to play h.264 encoded .mp4 videos from a USB drive and SD cards just fine while both were formatted to NTFS. It has 2 USB ports but I haven't tried the 5V Out for anything yetas I am running a Roku Premium+ on this projector and have access to a second power outlet for it's adapter. Having two HDMI ports on this projector has been very nice as well.I have been connecting my PC to the second HDMI port and using it for light PC gaming, Elder Scrolls Online so far but I do have other games I am planning on trying soon.I did have to adjust the keystone, which is done just like the focus is, there are two rings that are easily visible from the top of the projector that you use for that, and it wasvery easy to adjust. I did not have to adjust the focus for where I have the projector but it does feel a lot better than the loose adjustment ring of the portable model quite a bit.The projector also has stereo speakers built in, and support for surround sound systems and has a software based surround sound option as well that uses the built in speakers to "fake"the surround sound. I have not installed any surround system yet for this room so I have been using the software based surround sound and I have to admit that it is a lot better thanI thought it would be. It's definitely not 5.1 but it does make the sound louder and makes my movies and videos sound fuller than without it on by quite a bit. At 30% it sounds morelike the projector does at 50% or so without the option enabled and, in my room at least, it does sound more like I have things going on around me than if I had it off but I am stillthinking about getting an actual 5.1 system to go with this projector at some point.The screen zooming feature is nice, I was able to leave my projector in place when I hung the 120 inch screen on the wall and used the zooming to scale down the displayed screensize so it fit into the space of my projector screen. The picture still looks great so long as you don't go too far down, anything below 50% started to look a little grainy butthat could also be because of my screen. While adjusting the zoom I ran into the first quirk with this projector, 84% and 85% were the only sizes that did this but it seems that theprojector is displaying the screen in 9 sections and it became very noticeable because at those sizes the bottom 2/3 of the screen were out of order, not so it looked like just 1 rowwas out of order but there were 2 sets of rows that were out of order in different ways. I was able to send pictures to Artlii and they sent me a software update the next day whichtook care of that problem and the projector works great now at all zoom sizes. What happened though is that the new update no longer likes the HDMI cable I was using with my Roku.I tried 2 different cables before going back to the one that came with the projector and that one works great for the Roku. The cable that comes with the Roku no longer displays anything,and the cable that I had laying around that came with my Nintendo Switch flickers and has a semi snow/static effect going on. I'm sure another update will fix it as the Roku was workingfine on the cable that came with it just seconds before the update and nothing had been moved or altered other than the update.One big plus on this whole thing is that Artlii has been very quick about getting back with me on these issues and I have had 2 updates so far to try in a matter of days, which saysquite a bit about their support and dev teams. They really want you to have as flawless of an experience as can be had with their projectors and even though the cable issue is stillthere, I am still able to use the projector just fine with the cable that came with the Energon1 projector so I'm not all that worried about it. As for the software updates, they sendyou a compressed file with a single update file inside that you extract to a flash drive formatted to fat or fat32 and then plug that drive into the U1 labeled USB port on the projectorand then start up the projector, go into the menu, and choose software update from the far right menu. It takes a few seconds at most for the update to go through and then the projectorreboots and comes right back up as if it were a fresh setup so you do have to go back and change any and all settings you modified though.I'd give this projector a 5 star if the HDMI cable issue for the Roku could be fixed but honestly I don't think I'm going to worry about it much since the projector camewith a great cable that works just fine with it and for the price I don't think you can really beat it at the moment. It has a better picture and sound than the Artlii portable projectorI bought just a few months ago and is only a couple of pounds heavier. It does get a little warm when sitting on a desk or table top but once it's mounted so that there's nothing blockingairflow then it's about like any other projector. I did have to open the little cover on the bottom of the projector though and use a q-tip to clean the lens and bulb area after hanging myscreen since I was able to see that there was something on it. At first I thought it was on the outer lens but it was actually inside and was very easy to clean. There's just a single screwholding the cover on, you take it off and run the q-tip back and forth over both sides of the lens that's inside, looks like a piece of semi clear plastic from the edge you get to see, thendo the same to the bulb on the right of it, if you are behind the projector, and then cover it back up, power it back on and you are good to go. You could probably clean the inner lens with itrunning to make it a little easier to find the area to clean but I wouldn't suggest doing so to the bulb with it on.

[The Good}The projector arrived in a well padded box with a handle which will be useful for transporting it in the future. In the box there is a projector, remote control (batteries required), user guide, power cord, HDMI cable and A/V cable. The projector itself looks very elegant with its smooth black enclosure and flat touch panel.When I first plugged it in the projector was about 4ft from the wall and I was able to set focus at this distance, what a pleasant surprise. Next, I set up my 100 inches screen and placed the projector about 9ft from the screen, the image filled the screen almost completely, quality looked even better, the focus was not only achieved in the center of the screen but also the edges/corners were in focus. I am impressed. The room was not totally dark and the image quality was still excellent.I played some music videos from YouTube and some movie and the speakers sounded pretty well. If you need you can connect the projector to external receiver/speakers via audio out.The projector can zoom from 25-100% so if you have smaller screen you can zoom out.The touch panel to control settings is very nice and works well, the menus are self explanatory.The projector has a fan filter that can be removed and cleaned. On the bottom of the unit there is access door to optical elements and if needed the glass can be cleaned (I had a little dust particle and was able to remove it with ease.[Not so good]I tried to put the projector farther from the screen, around 12ft and for some reason was not able to achieve focus. At this time I emailed the seller and got a response the the recommended distance from the screen is 9-10ft. I really do not need larger screen right now but maybe in the future it would be nice to take the projector outside and have larger screen.