Alfawise C80UP 720p Android projector review

Hello and welcome to the review of Alfawise C80UP projector with built-in Android Marshmallow. This is an affordable projector based on LCD technology that supports up to Full HD resolution at 60 frames per second and it is available on Gearbest. How good it really is, find out in my review. This projector uses 4-inch LCD with LED backlight capable of displaying HD ready resolution of 1280x720 pixels with a maximum brightness of 2800 lumens. The manufacturer states that this is 15% brighter than a typical portable projector. Projecting distance spans from 1.2 up to 5.5 meters with projecting size from 28 up to 180 inches. According to the datasheet, the best projection size is between 60 and 100 inches from 2.2 and 3 meters away. The unit is made of black plastic with three different textures on the top to make it more interesting. Build quality is very good - plastic is thick enough so that it doesn’t bend under fingers and all edges are smooth. The power button is on the top and wheels for keystone and focus are placed on the side. All connectors are placed on the back - 2 USBs, 1 HDMI, 1 VGA, 3.5 mm headphone jack, connector for supplied RCA adapter, power input and infra-red receiver for supplied remote control. The remote control is very simple, with a plastic body and firm rubber buttons. All controls you will need are placed on it - navigation, source select, Android homepage, options menu, flipping the projection, playback and volume adjustment.

2 triple A batteries are needed for operation and they are not included in the package. On the bottom of the projector are 4 rubber pads, a flap to elevate the projector if needed and M6 thread for mounting. There is also one down-firing speaker placed there. Projector has built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, so you can easily connect it online or pair external Bluetooth speaker for a better audio experience. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are available only for Android version of this projector - the basic version is cheaper, but you need to connect devices or USB thumb drive to play content. The Android homepage is organized in three segments - Featured apps, setting and All apps. Among the featured apps are YouTube, Kodi and Netflix, so you have a ready source of diverse content as soon as you connect the projector online. You can also change the wallpaper on the homepage which is a neat function - even modern Android TVs don’t have this option. YouTube app on the homepage is actually YouTube for Android TV which is no longer supported, so you will need to install the latest version from the Google Play Store. Unfortunately, the hardware built into this projector is not powerful enough for the latest YouTube app so I had issues playing content - the interface would not load and the picture would not play as in this example. Netflix app was working fine and so was the connection with my laptop via the HDMI port. I analyzed picture quality using different patterns on Murideo Fresco SIX-G and with CalMAN 2019 calibration software. Projector has 4 picture presets - Standard, Soft, User and Vivid. In User you can adjust Contrast, Brightness, Color, Sharpness and Tint for analog inputs only. In addition, there is a Color temperature control with different presets and User option to adjust red, green and blue channels. The results of measurements are exactly what I was expecting in this price category - far from accurate and with limited controls for adjustment. There is too much green and blue and too little red in white balance, so the image lacks warmth and neutrality of original source. Gamma is too low and details in highlights are clipped so images appear overly bright and washed out. Contrast control can’t fix this. Regarding color gamut, from my measurements, it is visible that standard BT.709 was the target, but the entire triangle is moved towards green and blue - with undersaturated red. Sharpness is acceptable for watching movies and TV shows, but for PC usage image is not sharp enough. It is also recommended not to adjust keystone as that would further reduce sharpness on top or bottom side of the picture. Movie playback was good, without strong judder or variations of speed during playback. There are no options for motion interpolation, but that is perfectly normal in this price category. The image had the best colors and contrast in a dark environment. I would say that brightness this projector can achieve is ideal for a vast majority of people - I was not under the impression that the image was too dim. I was not really impressed with gaming performance - first, screen tearing was quite present, so action-packed games didn’t look good. Secondly, input lag is quite high - my measurements varied between 60 and 80 miliseconds, so lag was obvious during gaming. Adventure games such as Monkey Island are not so sensitive to mentioned limitations so the experience was good, but for other genres take into consideration mentioned limitations. Coming to sound quality, it is good enough for dialogs and basic needs - voice is clear and volume is high enough so that you don’t need external speaker at all costs. Of course, if you don’t want to hear built-in cooling fan and you want better sound quality, you have two options - you can either connect headphones or an external speaker - either wired or wireless will work. Finally, power consumption was around 58 watts during playback and between 1 and 2 watts during standby. This is according to the specification. To conclude, considering the price, features and performance, Alfawise C80UP projector is a good product if you are looking for an affordable all-in-one solution. It is compact, well built and easy to setup. You have plenty of connection options and once you get it online you can quickly watch movies and videos.

Android 6.0 is outdated and it would be nice to see an updated version available via a software update. Picture quality is not great and leaves a lot to be desired, but for the price I doubt other products perform any better. If you are interested in this projector, check out the link to Gearbest website where you can see the actual price and other details. I would like to thank Gearbest for sending me this unit for review. Let me know if you have any questions regarding this projector and stay tuned for my next video, right here on the channel. Thanks for watching!