Xiaomi Mijia HD Laser Projector | $1,100 | Amazon
Before you get to click-happy, I want to get this out of the way at the start: this is a deal on the Xiaomi Mijia HD ultra short throw laser projector, which is sometimes marketed, as far as I can tell, as a 4K TV. Games and movies projected by this thing will still be beautiful in all their lasered glory, and it can accept a 4K signal, but it won’t show a 4K resolution picture. A true 4K short throw laser projector would be quite a bit more expensive than the $1,100 Amazon is asking right now—most are up in the $3,000 range to start. Even HD short throw laser projectors don’t tend to be this cheap, typically costing a couple hundred more than this sale at least. If you know ultra short throw laser projectors, you probably know already whether you want this one. For the rest of you, read on.
The benefit of an ultra short throw laser projector is that you don’t tend to have to mount it anywhere special—you can put it right in front of the screen or the wall you’re throwing the image on, and start watching. This means you don’t have to get creative with game consoles or media players, as you can hook them up right next to the machine. Laser projectors also tend to be bright, and have better color accuracy than a typical bulb-lit projector, but you usually pay the price for this. Here’s a nice explainer of the differences between laser projectors and the main, typically cheaper, alternative to them, DLP projectors.
I couldn’t find any written reviews that I liked much, but my boy Vincent Teoh over at HDTVTest gave it a review; I didn’t have time to really watch the whole video, but the general impression I got while skipping around was that Vincent liked the projector quite a bit—here is the video if you want to check it out.