NexiGoPJ20 Outdoor Projector, Movie Projector with WiFi and Bluetooth, Native 1080P, Dolby_Audio Sound Support, Compatible w/TV Stick,iOS,Android,Laptop,Console

My family doesn’t watch TV, ever. But we do like to watch streaming shows during meals. Three people staring at a tablet can get old real fast. I didn’t want to hang a display in the dining room so I decided to give a projector a try. Having used several NexiGo products in the past, particularly cameras, I decided to give their budget projector, the PJ20, a try. It had a great deal for Black Friday which made it too good to pass up. This review does not touch on all of the capability of the PJ20, but it does cover my use case in detail.Unboxing the projector and getting the initial setup done is a piece of cake. I found a space at the end of the table facing a blank wall, setup both WiFi and Bluetooth, and got the keystone and focus set. First thing I found was that the image was tilted to the side. I was worried that the projector was wonked but when I pulled out a bubble level I found that the table itself had a slight tilt. Taking that slight tile and blowing it up to a 6’ across screen really exaggerates the effect. Fortunately, this could be solved with a notepad under one corner. Having a built in level and adjustable feet would have made this a bit easier (especially for people who use the projector on the road), but you can’t really expect that at this price point.Next thing I noticed was how the focus and keystone correction interact. This projector uses an optical keystone correction instead of a digital one. This has advantages and disadvantages. The advantage of optical keystone is that you don’t end up with jagged effects from pixels being stretched or compressed by the keystone correction. The disadvantage you get is that the focus is not quite consistent when correcting the keystone. Depending on how much correction is applied, it becomes impossible to have both the center and outside corners in focus at the same time. This is not something you are likely to notice with video content (as long as you focus the center of the screen), but if you are showing computer content such as text it may be noticeable. Easiest solution here was to get the projector up higher. For some quick testing, a 20” stool (on the table) was good enough and put the image high enough to be comfortable for viewing while seated. When the image is straight on you can get good focus for both the center and the sides. Speaking of focus, any time you push the focus buttons on the remote, a test pattern is displayed that helps to make the adjustments. It goes back to your regular content a couple of seconds after you stop pushing the buttons.Now that it is ready to go, time to try out some media. First attempt as having the trusty tablet feed video to the projector using a USB-C to HDMI hub that I travel with. I’ve used it with my phone many times to throw content (including movies) onto TVs at hotels. I plugged it in, switching input to HDMI 1, and there was my tablet’s screen on the wall. Looked great until I started playing a movie with Netflix and everything went black. Welcome to the wonderful world of DRM (Digital Rights Management). There are warning on the product page about major streaming services not working with wireless display on the projector. Unfortunately, even a wired display has the same issue when being fed from an Android tablet. Services that don’t impose DRM, such as YouTube, displayed fine but if you have paid services, it is likely they won’t work.Time for plan B. I took an old Chromecast (second generation), grabbed a short USB cable, and plugged it into the projector. The Chromecast is plugged into the HDMI input and one of the projector’s USB ports is providing power. Turned it on, and after a minute for the Chromecast to boot up its home screen appeared on the wall. So, next, fire up the tablet again, back into Netflix, and this time tell it to cast to the Chromecast. Success! The movie was playing on the wall big as life. And by big as life, I mean an image that was 68” across (diagonal) at 92” distance from the projector face.Let’s talk about image quality. Unfortunately, I can’t give an accurate description here due to two factors that impeded my test. First, it was daytime and there was a huge amount of ambient light. The image was still watchable, but it was very low contrast. I’m pretty sure that in the evening it will be fine in that regard. Next up was the color. Unfortunately, again, I don’t have the right setup. I haven’t picked up a screen yet and was throwing the image at a wall which is a bit of a yellowish beige color. Despite both of these encumbrances, the image was still sharp and any text on screen was easy to read. For general media consumption, I’ve never seen the need for anything more than 1080p, which this projector handles just fine.Next is sound. The built-in speaker is loud. Loud enough that it caught me off guard when the movie started and I had the volume cranked as I was expecting the same tin can speakers that most computer monitors have. I had to dial the volume back to about 30% to be comfortable. You could fill a large meeting room with the sound from the built-in speaker. The fidelity isn’t as good as you get with a separate sound system though, so this was the next area I tried out. I have a Sony portable speaker that works with either Bluetooth or wired. Tried it out with Bluetooth first. It was easy to detect and setup but the sound was out of sync with the video. Yes, I’m on 5Ghz WiFi. This is a known issue with this particular speaker and I had the same issue when using it with a tablet, so no real surprise here. Pulled out an audio cable and hooked it up to the projector that way. Sound switched from the internal speaker to the Sony as soon as the cable was plugged in and it sounded great.With that we have a working streaming video setup. I do have a few improvements planned but I need to order (or wait for deliveries) on them.First off, of course, I need a proper screen. An off-white wall just doesn’t work right. That is on me and would affect any projector. Next up, the media source. Another Black Friday deal I ran across is a new Chromecast with Google TV. It won’t be here for another week but once it is I’ll be able to stream Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, and Plex (the four sources I use for most of my content) without having to use a phone or tablet. I should be able to hook it up the same way as the current Chromecast. Last thing I’m planning to get is an adjustable projector stand so I can get the ideal height without having to worry about keystone adjustment.Of course, no product is perfect, especially at this price point. There are a few things that could be better but I won’t hold it against the PJ20 based on the price point it operates at. The biggest issue is the fan. It is loud, really loud. If you are watching a quiet show, it will be very noticeable. The case for a projector like this is mostly hollow. It wouldn’t be too hard to put a couple more fans in that run at lower speed so that one fan doesn’t have to work so hard. The fans could also be set to adjust speed based on temperature so that they don’t have to run full speed all the time. This is an improvement that wouldn’t need to add much cost to the unit.Something else that would be handy, but again isn’t expected at this price point, is a leveling system. Put a small bubble level in the top of the projector and make the feet adjustable. If someone is using the projector for a demo on the road, and the setup is ideal, being able to adjust without eyeballing and sliding stacks of paper under the feet would be much more professional.Last thing is integration with streaming. Again, probably too big of ask at this price point but still worth considering. Ideally would be to build streaming right into the projector, but I don’t see that happening except on models costing twice as much. One compromise would be to add two features. First, allow one of the USB ports to remain powered when the projector power is switched off. This would allow a streaming stick (such as a Chromecast) to stay active instead of having to boot up from cold every time the projector is turned on. The next thing, would requires the powered USB to work, is to support CEC (Consumer Electronics Control) for the HDMI ports. When my Chromecast is hooked up to a TV I can shout at the nearest Google smart device, “OK Google, turn on the kitchen TV”. The Chromecast will then tell the TV to turn on and it will be ready for use without me having to hunt down a remote. It would be great to be able to turn a projector on the same way.There you have it. For an entry-level projector you can’t ask for much more. As long as you don’t set your expectations above the price point you will be very happy with the NexiGo PJ20.

I have quite a collection of projectors at home, ranging from ultra-bright short-throw projectors to long-throw media projectors, and I'm quite happy to be adding this one to my arsenal.This is a bright, sharp, lightweight, well-built LED projector. I'm really impressed with what this projector can do, but first of all, I'm very grateful that the seller is upfront and honest and doesn't try to lie to you with overstated numbers like so many other sellers do. This is an LED projector and it never tries to tell you it is anything different, it never tries to make any ridiculous misleading claims of crazy high "lumens" like so many others here on Amazon try to do. I value honesty and transparency in marketing, so thank you Nexigo.If you are new to projector shopping, only use ANSI lumens when comparing projectors, anything else is misleading.That being said, I was pleasantly surprised with how bright this projector actually is. I have used it for multiple purposes and it has yet to disappoint. I have used it outdoors for projection mapping on Halloween and it absolutely rocked. The picture was bright and crisp. I have used it indoors for quite a few purposes, but mostly for gaming, and it has worked flawlessly each time. Gaming is an especially good test for a projector because there is often a lot of text that must be clear and sharp so the gamer can read it, and this projector does a great job, I have never had any issues with the sharpness and quality of the picture.As far as features go, it's pretty straight forward and includes all the basics you will need. It's actually a pretty short throw, which was a pleasant surprise. I haven't measured the throw, but I have it in my bedroom and it throws a really large picture from 16-18 feet away. Love that! It has a mechanical keystone nob on the back of the machine to account for vertical keystoning. It would be nice if it had a horizontal adjustment, but that's not that big of a deal, just point your projector straight at your surface and you won't have any problems. There are plenty of modern-day options for connection on the back, so you shouldn't have any problems connecting up-to-date equipment (there really isn't any need for RCA jacks anymore). The sound is actually not bad for what it is, it's loud enough to play occasional games with, but I wouldn't count on it for a long-term solution, especially since you have to account for the sound of the projector fan (which is about the same as other projectors I own), but it doesn't bother me to play it for an hour or two when winding down in the evening. I wouldn't use the onboard sound for a movie of course, unless I didn't have any other options.Perhaps an odd compliment, but one that I really do appreciate, is how quickly it powers up and down. Since it is an LED projector, there is no long warm up and cool down times. You simply hit the button to turn it on, and hit the button to turn it off! That's it! I love that I don't have to sit and wait for it to cool down if I want to move the projector somewhere after using it. Of course it's never going to get as bright as my high-powered lamp projectors, which need a lot more time to cool down, but that's ok. I don't use them for the same purposes so I'm fine with that. Right tool, right job, right?I think the only thing I would really like to see added to this projector is picture customization options. There are no options to change brightness, contrast, color, etc. That being said, the only one of those options that I actually missed was the brightness option, and even then it was only once or twice that I wished I had it. For most purposes, the brightness, color, and contrast were just fine for what I needed right out of the box.I'm very impressed with the build quality. It feels sturdy and well-built. It's about the same size as a lamp projector, but it's much lighter, so it would be easy to pack with you if you needed an option for a portable work presentation solution. It would do just fine in a conference room or classroom where you can control the room lighting.Overall, very pleased with this projector. I am actually using it more than all my other projectors because it's just so simple to use and I don't have to worry as much about the heat it creates. It's still hot, because it puts out a ton of light, but it's nowhere near as hot as a standard lamp projector, so I feel just fine having it sit on my nightstand connected to a Switch dock so I can play for a bit while chilling in bed. And when I'm done, I just turn it off with the remote and that's it! No crazy cool-down period!So if you need an easy-to-use out of the box solution that doesn't require a ton of light and that has a pretty good picture with a relatively short throw distance, you will be happy with this projector. And the fact that Nexigo is an upfront honest seller that responds quickly when needed? Bonus!