As fun as it is to watch movies, play games, or catch up on your favorite shows on a big screen TV, there are also a lot of reasons why getting a good projector can help you enjoy those moments even more. For starters, you’re not tethered to one spot. Most projectors these days are portable enough that you can set them up wherever you want and the quality has gotten good enough that you can still get a great display. The best part is the often don’t cost thousands of dollars.
Heyup has some great projectors available for the community to test out, and the latest one, and I got selected to tryout the latest one, the Xming Episode One. In short, is a pretty impressive little gadget that might just convince me to sell my TV.
Hardware
If you saw the other two projectors Heyup made available for tryout, the Xming Episode One has a pretty similar design. About the size of a small box, the Episode One house a pretty respectable set of specs. The lens can display a full 1080p display at up to 120 inches in size, with a 1500:1 contrast ratio for better resolution, and autofocusing so you always get the best picture without having to do anything.
And the picture quality is pretty great as well. I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the image being projected. On other projectors I’ve used, and even on some TVs that cost several hundreds of dollars, the colors can be washed out and the images grainy.
Not so at all on the Episode One. Everything I watched was crisp and bright. It’s not 4K, but honestly, I don’t really care that much. To me, as long as what I’m watching looks great and I don’t have to strain my eyes to see what’s happening and I can get immersed in the beautiful landscapes, I don’t care if it’s not 4K.
And the Episode One delivers on that front. It’s fun getting to watch my favorite stuff on a big screen without having to sacrifice resolution. The biggest downside of such a small projector is that it can’t get very bright. It tops out at 150 lumens which means you’ll need to be in a place that’s pretty dark or wait for the sun to set completely before you can really get the full experience.
Aside from the lens, the only other thing on the front is the laser for helping with the autofocus. On either side is a cooling fan and two speakers near the top. They are 3W speakers and Dolby certified. Honestly, I was pleasantly surprised by how good the speakers are. Every other projector I’ve used with built in speakers have been just terrible. They were tinny and not very loud at all.
The speakers on the Episode One, however, are surprisingly good. They get plenty loud that I could hear them just fine in my office, even with a fan and air conditioner running. The quality was great too, no matter what I was watching. I am impressed with the speakers.
Most of the space on the back of the projector is taken up by another big fan but along the bottom are a headphone jack, full-size HDMI port, a USB-A port, and the power plug. On top is the power button and the bottom has a hole for mounting it to a tripod.
Overall, I can’t say enough good things about the Episode One. It gets all the hardware right without anything really missing for such a great price.
Software
Arguably the best part about the Episode One is the software. Since it’s a Google TV device, it offers the full Google TV experience. Just sign into your Google account and you can instantly access your favorite streaming apps like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and even Apple TV+.
It took maybe about 20-30 minutes for the initial setup but once everything was up and running, it was very easy to connect it to my Wi-Fi network and get signed into my apps. The operating systems is easy to navigate so you can quickly access your settings or just dive right into your favorite content.
You can also connect the Episode One to other devices like a phone or laptop via Bluetooth, but I don’t really recommend it because it’s more likely to lag that way, and you can access most everything you’d want from the apps anyway.
The only downside is that the software is not particularly fast. The projector only has 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage, so it’s not going to be the smoothest experience. It doesn’t really affect the usability at all, but you’ll notice some lag when navigating around, and when starting a show or movie, there’s about 10-15 seconds of buffering before it smooths out.
There’s a remote included with the projector to help getting around the operating system and it worked fine for my needs. It didn’t come with batteries which was annoying but the buttons are clicky and it’s easy to us.
While having a dedicated Google Assistant button on the remote is helpful, the software did have trouble understanding what I was asking about 50% of the time. Hopefully that’s something that can be addressed in a future software update.
Speaking of which, there’s really no knowing at all how long (or even if) the Episode One will be supported with software updates and fixes. It’s always hit or miss with things like this, but hopefully we at least get a year or 2 of software support.
Final Thoughts
Honestly, the Xming Episode One is a pretty fantastic project all around, especially considering it’s only $229. The hardware is great, the picture quality is superb, the speakers are loud and sound great, and the software is easy to use.
The few small quirks of the projector, like the slightly slower operating system and lower brightness level are certainly not deal breakers. And for just a tad of $200, you really can’t go wrong.
Thanks Heyup for letting me be a part of this tryout!
