JMGO’s N3 Ultimate projector is the new portable 4K champ

Sorry Anker: JMGO now makes my favourite flagship portable projector.

The N3 Ultimate is an fantabulous portable 4K projector that defeats mean ambient ray astatine terrible placement angles and tin rival much costly location theatre installations astatine night. After a fewer weeks of testing, I deliberation the earthy adaptability exhibited by the JMGO’s N3 Ultimate justifies its existent $2,399 value ($500 disconnected its $2,999 list).

Modern all-in-one projectors built astir Google TV are already ace accommodating erstwhile it comes to placement. Set 1 down connected a surviving room array aliases campsite stone and it will statesman searching for a surface aliases blank wall while avoiding obstacles to task a focused, color-corrected image that’s decently aligned. But these techniques typically edifice to integer optimizations that degrade image brightness, resolution, and responsiveness. To debar this, it’s ever champion to spot a projector straight successful beforehand of the projection surface.

JMGO’s N3 Ultimate projector promises “lossless placement” by mounting it connected a motorized gimbal that rotates horizontally and vertically. That, mixed pinch optical zoom and generous lens shift, increases off-center placement elasticity without resorting to integer trickery. You tin moreover resistance the image Wiimote-style to the nonstop spot you want it utilizing the included distant control. Handy!

The N3 Ultimate doesn’t unrecorded up to each of its trading hype, however. It’s sounded arsenic a 5800 ISO lumen projector that I recovered to beryllium unwatchable successful its brightest mode for reasons I will explicate later. In modes you tin really use, you’re getting astir 4,600 ISO lumens, which drops to 3,000 ISO lumens if you want much meticulous colors — that’s noticeably brighter than Anker’s Nebula X1 flagship 4K portable moving successful comparable modes.

Even though the N3 Ultimate misses the advertised ceiling, its class-leading brightness and awesome image could make this a tv replacement for some.

The first spec I look astatine connected portable projectors is the lumen rating. If the number is listed arsenic thing different than ANSI aliases ISO, I conscionable presume they are lying. JMGO isn’t precisely lying pinch its 5800 ISO lumen spec, but it’s not being wholly transparent, either.

The N3 Ultimate only comes adjacent to hitting that incredibly agleam people (I measured person to 5,200 ISO lumens) erstwhile moving successful Dynamic mode, which skews the colors horribly greenish and causes the cooling fans to roar. The colors produced by this triple-laser RGB DLP projector are astir meticulous successful Movie mode, but astatine almost half the advertised brightness.

Out of the box, I recovered the colors and tones produced by the N3 Ultimate’s mill tuning to beryllium much existent to life than galore projectors successful this class. Typically, I’d prime Vivid during the time and past move to Movie mode successful darkened rooms. Sometimes I’d hide because the differences weren’t ever obvious. The projector’s brightness allows its Dolby Vision support to meaningfully amended image value successful some acheronian and not-so-dark rooms.

I tested the N3 Ultimate for an unhealthy number of hours connected displays arsenic ample arsenic 110 inches and arsenic mini arsenic 32 inches; connected painted walls, a glossy tabletop, a matte-white surface that accrued the intensity, and a grey Ambient Light Rejecting (ALR) surface that boosted the contrast. It adapted admirably to each script pinch small intervention.

Typically the projector ran susurration quiet — I had to strain to perceive it. In warmer rooms and pinch adaptive brightness turned on, I could perceive the fans footwear up a notch to astir 30dB from their accustomed 26dB, astatine a region of 1 meter. At max brightness, the fans peaked astatine a very distracting 50dB.

Optimizing image placement is simply a small tricky astatine first owed to each the paper options and descriptions that aren’t precisely user friendly. Fortunately, there’s an optimization fastener correct connected the distant that removes the guesswork. Hold it down and you tin resistance the projected image astir the room to halfway it wherever you want. Double-click the fastener and you’re presented pinch 4 menus that guideline you done image-tuning options for Lossless Lens Shift, Gimbal Motion, Zoom, and Rotate. It’s very good done and makes the projector accelerated and easy to group up astatine caller locations.

The sound is decent for a portable all-in-one of this size. It’s fundamentally an Anker Nebula X1 turned connected its side, but lacking the optional outer speakers that make Anker’s portable projector unbeatable for sound. Without those satellites, however, the Anker and JMGO sound astir the same. The N3 Ultimate produced clear, detailed, room-filling sound pinch a respectable magnitude of bass. So, it’s a shame that JMGO doesn’t make it easy to quickly move the projector into Bluetooth speaker mode from the shutdown surface for illustration galore portables — instead, you person to clumsily alteration it done the settings menu.

The N3 Ultimate runs Netflix retired of the container and paper navigation is snappy — 2 things you can’t return for granted pinch portable Google TV projectors. The 1 point missing is an integrated handle, which makes this a two-handed portable. Fortunately, JMGO does vessel the N3 Ultimate wrong a reusable carrying lawsuit that came successful useful erstwhile transporting it by car.

I besides recovered the projector’s automatic oculus protection characteristic to beryllium wonky. Even astatine the default sensitivity, it tin beryllium triggered for nary reason. Worse, it’s slow to respond erstwhile eyeballs are really astatine consequence from the laser optics. And too an connected / disconnected button, the N3 Ultimate lacks on-device controls — don’t suffer the remote!

“Ultimate” is simply a dangerously precocious barroom to group erstwhile naming your projector, but JMGO gets adjacent to the mark. If audio value is your absolute highest priority, Anker’s bulkier Nebula X1 speaker bundle remains a tempting replacement — though it will costs you importantly much cash. But if you are looking for class-leading brightness and unmatched beingness placement elasticity from a 4K all-in-one projector, the JMGO N3 Ultimate astatine $2,399 is the measurement to go.

Photography by Thomas Ricker / The Verge