First, “good sound is good sound, regardless of whether it’s home cinema or hi-fi”.

Second, “audio quality is equally as important as picture quality for home cinema”.

Third, “blasted box! To hell with you! Why won’t you fit!?”

OK you can probably ignore the final one – that's just our standard war cry when trying to repackage a product we’ve finished reviewing.

Editor’s note: it’s a very specific problem but most packaging isn’t designed to be used twice and is made of easily breakable, oddly shaped blocks of polystyrene that don’t follow a logical pattern. This is a key reason why, in my humble opinion, whoever invented the specific version of polystyrene every AV firm seems to use deserves to go to the same special hell as Astroturf's creator and people who play music through their phone's speakers on public transport.

But the first two are important, and all too easy to forget, especially if you’re yet to experience proper home cinema sound and have become used to your TV or projector’s built-in speakers.

I was reminded of this last week by an unexpected product: a UST projector.

It happened while I was running a group test of the category for the What Hi-Fi? Awards 2026. This process sees us run the units head-to-head to find out which is the best performer ahead of announcing our Best Buy winners later in the year.

Towards the end of this long process, I admit I had become shamefully jaded, and all too used to the mediocre audio most of the units provided. Check our reviews, and you’ll struggle to find a UST projector with a five-star score for audio.

For the sake of not spoiling our Awards reveal, I’m not going to tell you the UST's name – good things come to those who wait and all that – but I will confirm that everything changed when I plugged in the last unit and began playing the Sinners 4K Blu-ray.

Specifically, the demanding musical medley scene, which sees Sammy perform the blues in the dingy speakeasy. The moment Sammy plucked his first guitar string, my ears pricked up.

Then, as the scene developed and Sammy’s performance morphed into a musical medley exploring the multiple genres of black music across the decades, we suddenly found ourselves unexpectedly nodding our heads to the beat.

The reason why was simple: unlike the other projectors' sound systems, there was a hint of musicality to the audio.

Did it come close to matching a moderately capable soundbar or full-fat 5.1 multi-speaker system? Of course not. But, unlike many of the units we tested, it handled music with some finesse.

A hint of rhythmic drive, pushing us forward through the genre-crossing rooms, bringing the interlinking beats to life; a pleasing, but controlled, swell in volume as the screaming psychedelic guitar arrived, wailing over the other frequencies; just enough bass extension to make the breakdown land with some impact.

Sure, it wasn't perfect, but unlike the other UST projectors, it did just enough right to remind me what a difference good sound, with a sense of musicality, can make to the home cinema experience. Too many integrated speaker systems seem to focus their efforts on dialogue and covering up for an underpowered low end, to the detriment of everything else.

I’ve said as much before. Just a few months ago, when I had the joy of helping test the five-star KEF R Meta 5.1 Speaker System, I felt the need to remind readers why system matching is just as important in home cinema as it is in hi-fi.

Hopefully, I’m teaching you all to suck eggs. But on the off chance I’m not, heed my warning and make sure to give audio quality the importance it deserves when building your home cinema. If you don’t, you’re not going to get the full “as the director intended” experience we all yearn for, no matter how good the picture is.

Do you agree with our audio quality mantra? Let us know in the comments below.

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You should be able to position an all-in-one projector right next to your screen (or wall) to deliver as big as a 200-plus-inch rich and detailed image, without having to worry about clutter in the middle of the room.

But achieving all that in practice can be another story.

Even though the initial setup is simpler than a long-throw model, there is still a fair bit of fiddling around that has to go into getting the picture ready for a movie night.

Each brand has its own way of doing things, whether that's manually moving the image to fit the screen correctly or using the accompanying app, it always seems to take longer than you might imagine.

Editor-in-chief Alastair Stevenson certainly found this was the case in his latest UST testing for the upcoming What Hi-Fi? Awards.

Another issue with UST projectors, that we've spotted time and time again, is how they portray black depth.

They can't match the blackness of an OLED or Mini-LED TV screen as they are beaming light onto a surface instead of controlling light with pixels. But I have noticed that UST projectors tend to overcompensate by boosting up the contrast levels, which does not solve the problem at all.

At IFA, however, I got the chance to see the two newest entries to the premium UST category – and it made me hopeful that we could be seeing a change.

Both Xgimi’s Aura 3 Max and AWOL’s LuxVision are 4K UST projectors, and they are each claiming to offer something new.

Xgimi’s entry claims to be the world’s first 4k/120Hz UST. It offers 5700 ISO lumens of peak brightness and a contrast ratio of up to 8,000:1.

The LuxVision model is also claiming its own world record. The brand says it is the first 4K/120Hz UST projector with optical shift.

With both models offering this high resolution and refresh rate, they should make for a smooth experience for hardcore gamers as well as movie fans.

AWOL's optical shift is of particular interest here, as this one-touch feature should let users precisely adjust image positioning without losing that 4K resolution.

I didn't get to see the team set up the projector using the function but, if this is really the case, then it should make for a much-needed upgrade on the majority of UST projector setups.

Both offer a screen size up to 200 inches, and Google TV is on board both models. In terms of sound, AWOL and Xgimi both feature built-in speakers that support Dolby Atmos.

I got to see both of the projectors during demonstrations and, although they were far from ideal testing conditions with background noise and bright lighting, it gave me a taste of what they can offer.

The Aura 3 Max was showing off its picture chops with footage of various animals ambling around their jungle habitat (a much-needed relaxation break in the flurry of IFA). As a red panda clung to a tree, the projector delivered the texture of its fur with impressive detail without looking unnatural.

Even the darker details in the panda’s face were portrayed with clarity and reasonable black depth. That made me hopeful about its performance with blacks, although we will have to get it into the test room to challenge it with more movie scenes.

The AWOL projector’s demonstration featured Blackpink’s Pink Venom music video, displaying the projector’s punchy colours. Despite not watching in a dark room, the LuxVision managed to produce an engaging and bright overall image that immediately caught the eye thanks to its claimed 6000 lumens of peak brightness.

Detail levels were good as well, as the crinkles of the singers’ jackets were clean and sharp.

We have to get both projectors into our test room to properly see how they perform, but this first look has made me excited about the future of the category with Xgimi's promising dark detail and AWOL's fuss-free setup.

MORE:

Check out the best projectors we have tested

Here's our review of the Xgimi Titan

And these are the best Dolby Atmos soundbars

From the mainstream adoption of RGB Mini LED to cheaper OLED SE panels hitting the market, and the news of TCL essentially buying a majority stake in Sony's Bravia TV division, it's been a whirlwind.

And yet, there's been one manufacturer which has remained concerningly quiet up until now: Panasonic.

Rewind all the way to February (which feels like both a lifetime ago and strangely recent), when I flew to Munich to attend the Panasonic Experience 2026. At the event, the renowned Japanese consumer technology brand was showing off everything from air fryers, cameras and toothbrushes to Technics turntables, rice cookers and hair dryers.

TVs were also on show, and Panasonic made a huge announcement; just not the one I was expecting.

Now, it's an open secret that Panasonic's TV division has been struggling. At the lower end, it has struggled to keep up in a market now dominated by affordable 4K sets produced by the likes of Hisense and TCL. At the top, its prestigious OLED sets have seen tough competition from the likes of Sony, Samsung and LG: look at our recent lists of TV Award-winners, and it doesn't paint a pretty picture for the brand.

To rectify this, Panasonic announced that it was entering a strategic partnership with Shenzhen Skyworth, under its parent company Chuángwéi RGB, which would secure the future of its OLED, Mini LED and QLED sets in Europe.

The partnership was set to take effect on the 1st of April, and since the date came and went, Panasonic has been unnervingly quiet. Broadly speaking, its TVs have been out of stock at most retailers, and the one OLED TV it did announce, the Z86C, hasn't materialised.

Fast forward to IFA 2026, which took place earlier this month, and I was invited to the Panasonic TV booth to meet with Toshihiro Takagi (Product Planning, TV Business Division), Haruka Kono (TV Business Division) and Paul Williams (Press Relations) from Panasonic Corporation, as well as Paul Darch (CEO and Managing Director) and Sebastian Wegielski (General Manager Europe and Managing Director) from the newly formed SWMEU GmbH.

Reassurance, reorganising, and rebuilding

My discussion with representatives from Panasonic's new TV business centred mostly on what's happened over the past six months, and the short answer is that Panasonic has been incredibly busy behind the scenes.

It acknowledged that the April date originally planned was well behind us, but it wanted to get this partnership right, hence why it's been working hard to lay a strong foundation and hasn't rushed any TVs out to market.

The overall goal is to restore the brand's position within the European marketplace, with Panasonic eyeing up the number five spot within the pan-European market; hence why it needs to hit the ground running.

Development of the business has centred around four main pillars (which it originally shared during the Munich event): "The reference stays the reference", "Continuity you can trust", "Scaling Up" and "Innovation Pipeline". These are "the cornerstones of our strategy as we move forward", according to CEO Paul Darch.

They all seem fairly self-explanatory, but they are also key indicators as to what we can expect from Panasonic in the coming years.

The notion that Panasonic is eager to retain its position as a reference TV manufacturer is the first promising sign, and it recognises that OLED is the way to secure this legacy. It hasn't been shy in proudly proclaiming that its high-end OLED sets have been used by Hollywood editors and colourists, and it wants to keep that keep that status.

"What we mean by that is that what was once a Panasonic TV is still a Panasonic TV. The same guiding principles that govern picture, sound, design and OS continue", Darch said, which was reassuring to hear.

Doubling down on that, Darch also affirmed that "one of the key pieces of feedback that we receive is: will these Panasonic TVs really be Panasonic TVs? The answer is yes". Ultimately, based on what I've been told, the notion that future TVs will be any old set with a Panasonic badge slapped onto it can be dispelled.

Continuity is another major focus for this new partnership, hence why SWMEU GmbH has opened its head office in Wiesbaden, Germany, which is the city where Panasonic's European headquarters is located.

The innovation pipeline and scaling-up initiatives are where Panasonic really hopes to make up some ground, though. Broadening the product portfolio and bringing its TVs to market more quickly are two major priorities for the brand moving forward.

This already seems to be paying off, as Darch notes that "feedback, overwhelmingly, has been extremely positive; the market is requesting Panasonic to come back stronger as an evangelist of premium picture quality".

"OLED remains our leadership flagship"

Retaining that title means keeping the technology that Panasonic is renowned for alive. Panasonic recognises this, and that's why it's keeping OLED as a "key focus" in its lineup.

Panasonic consciously didn't replace its Z95B and Z90B OLED TVs this year, and these five-star models will continue until Panasonic launches its 2027 lineup. That said, it also recognises the importance of QD Mini LED within the current TV market, but Darch affirms that Panasonic won't be "bringing it for the sake of bringing it".

Panasonic is relying on its glare-free technology and picture processing to differentiate it from the likes of Hisense and TCL in this market, but whether it will be enough to win back market share from rival powerhouse TV manufacturers is another matter.

I quizzed Panasonic on what to expect from its 2027 TV range, but it remained tight-lipped for now, telling me it will "probably around CES time is when you'll really see the strength and the power of this new organisation".

"The objective is to ensure that both the Japanese and the overseas lineup reflect a consistent Panasonic TV identity"

What was most apparent is that Panasonic wants to remind us that this isn't a buyout, but rather a collaboration that will ensure a future for Panasonic TVs in the UK and Europe.

"This is no short-term gimmick, no short-term collaboration. We are working strongly with the partnership for 2027 and onwards," Darch affirmed, continuing "I want you to leave the room having confidence in this collaboration".

He then handed over to Mr Toshihiro Takagi to discuss how this partnership works from Panasonic Japan's perspective.

"The objective is to ensure that both the Japanese and the overseas lineup reflect a consistent Panasonic TV identity", Takagi affirmed, and he continued to explain how each component of the business will work in tandem going forward.

Particularly with the brand's premium TVs, Panasonic's established engineers will continue to take responsibility for picture tuning and the integration work required for certification programmes (Panasonic has an established partnership with the picture calibration company Calman, for example).

"As a result, Panasonic's distinctive picture quality and modes continue to be incorporated into our TVs", Takagi confirmed.

This sentiment continues with sound, as I was assured that Panasonic's microphone-assisted audio calibration system will remain, and Takagi confirmed that the team is working on a new DSP algorithm for the 2027 models, which he mentioned in relation to a new speaker configuration.

Behind the scenes, Panasonic Japan has audited the manufacturing operations against the brand's approved criteria, which essentially means that Panasonic has ensured that the scaled-up manufacturing process meets its quality standards and expectations.

Panasonic Japan is still very much involved, by the looks of things, although it seems like Panasonic's engineers will have a much more direct involvement with the brand's future premium TVs, such as the theoretical follow-ups to the Z95B and Z90B.

A few questions remain...

While I did my best to eke out some information about next year's lineup, Takagi explicitly told me that "we cannot discuss future lineups or specifications today; we look forward to sharing more when the time is right".

Therefore, my questions relating to whether we can expect to keep seeing Technics-tuned sound systems in future flagship OLED sets, or if we can expect an RGB Mini LED from the brand in the future, were shelved for now.

That said, Darch rounded out our conversation with a simple yet powerful sentiment: "Panasonic TV is back. What does back mean? Back means a stronger product offering, stronger commercial and robust distribution strategy, a stronger team and backed with real resources for what really comes next".

Ultimately, the proof is in the pudding, and we'll need to see Panasonic's 2027 TV lineup in action to see if this partnership has achieved what it set out to create; but in the short term, I get the sense that Panasonic is alive and kicking.

MORE:

Read our full Panasonic Z95B review

As well as our Panasonic Z90B 48-inch review

And check out our picks for the best OLED TVs

However, we're always interested in the opinions of our readers and the public at large, and it seems on this product we're aligned.

The Hisense AX1525H, now on offer for £199 at Amazon, is our budget soundbar system Award winner, offering stellar audio quality for surprisingly little money.

And it seems the general public agrees – it's still one of our most popular reviews nearly a year after publication and it's consistently retained the top spot in Amazon's competitive soundbar charts.

The Hisense AX5125H will be a marked improvement on your TV's sound. But as an incredible-value Dolby Atmos package, it's capable of so much more.

It's a complete 5.1.2-channel system in a box, with wireless surround speakers and a wireless subwoofer all for less than the price of most solo soundbars. Together they'll create a bigger, more immersive sound than even Dolby Atmos-enabled TVs.

We tested the AX5125H with a viewing of Civil War, and found a cohesive and enveloping presentation with a surprising ability to project effects around the room.

"As the gentle guitar track recedes and is replaced by the sounds of war, we’re surrounded by gunfire and incidental effects," our Hisense AX5125H review reads. "Bullets whizz from the front to the back of the room and even behind the listening position, helicopters hover at ceiling height, and distant explosions rumble menacingly."

The subwoofer is also impressive for the price, going loud and deep while still offering enough tonal expression to sound musical.

Music playback is respectable too, delivering some subtlety despite occasional overenthusiastic bass notes.

At £199, you won't find a similarly priced package that sounds better, and going by the Amazon charts, it seems that the secret is out. If you want Award-winning Dolby Atmos sound at a bargain price, consider the Hisense AX5125H with £50 off at Amazon.

If you do have the budget to splash out a bit more, we also recommend these soundbar systems for more refinement:

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Here are all of the best budget soundbars you can buy right now

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Check out our Sony Bravia Theatre System 6 review and Samsung HW-Q990F review

If that wasn’t enough to tempt you, it’s also the successor to a former What Hi-Fi? Award winner, the Hisense PX3 Pro, and comes loaded with a wealth of upgrades designed to improve peak brightness, colour accuracy and black level – all of which make it a very enticing piece of hardware for its target market.

The question is, with a barrage of fresh competition from the likes of Xgimi and AWOL, has Hisense done enough to retain its lead in the UST space? After running a UST battle royale in our viewing rooms, here’s what we found.

Price

The PX4 Pro launched at a price of £2499 / $3999 / AU$4499 and, by and large, that’s currently what you’ll pay for it. That’s the same price its predecessor, the PX3 Pro, launched at in the UK and Australia, but $500 higher in the US.

This pricing puts the PX4 Pro in a slightly awkward position in the UST market, with accomplished, five-star rivals costing not much more, and solid, slightly older alternatives costing quite a lot less.

Above it, you’ll find our current recommended UST, the five-star AWOL Vision Aetherion Max, which launched at a hefty £3499 / $4499 / AU$5999 but has recently dropped to £3199 / $3799 in the UK and US, respectively (the price in Australia is yet to change).

If you want to go even further, the Hisense L9Q UST that sits above it in the firm’s line is even more premium, costing £3999 / $5999 / AU$8995. Its other, untested, main rival, the newly launched Xgimi Aura 3 Max, is set to retail for $2399 (around £1775 / AU$3365).

For non-gamers, you can also buy the new, four-star, step-down Hisense PT1 for £1599 / $2199 / AU$2295, which shares common DNA with the PX4 Pro.

And, as a final spanner in the works, if you aren’t committed to getting a latest-generation UST, some stock of the PX3 Pro is still available, with most shops in the UK selling it for around £1599.

Design

Hisense’s PX line of USTs has never been known for its subtlety. Because of Hisense's traditional focus on selling PX projectors’ gaming credentials as much as their home cinema prowess, they tend to have striking angular designs with big metal grilles and garish flourishes.

This largely remains the case with the PX4 Pro, which eschews the classy, understated design of the step-down PT1 in favour of an angular, eye-catching metal box with a curved, amphitheatre-shaped metal speaker grille on its top. One of our reviewers described it as “what would happen if architect Frank Gehry designed a UST”.

The only UST we’ve seen that’s more ostentatious is the step-up L9Q, which has the same design, but with gold/brass metal and a fake wood finish and a larger chassis.

Thankfully, there is a reason for the atypical grille; it houses the new 66-watt, 4.0.2-channel sound system, which features six integrated drivers that have been tuned by French audio brand Devialet – which is responsible for the Phantom line of high-end speakers. A step up (at least on paper) on the PX3’s Harman-tuned system.

Outside of its aesthetics, the UST is fairly by the numbers, measuring in at 54 x 29 x 14cm, which is just about compact enough to fit onto most stands, or even small cabinets, without much hassle.

The 0.2:1 throw ratio also means you can project a giant 100-120-inch diagonal image from less than a foot away from the screen (or wall, if you’re a philistine). If you have the space to place it a little further away (around 35in / 89cm), Hisense has also extended its max projection size to a staggering 200 inches – a 50-inch improvement on the PX3 Pro.

Weighing 8.3kg, the PX4 Pro is fairly easy to move, though its fiddly set-up process means we’d recommend leaving it in place once you’ve got it running.

This set-up process remains unchanged from previous Hisense USTs. You have to place it on the stand and then awkwardly adjust the height of the feet and the position of the projector to make the image fit your screen. The trouble is that after that, as with other Hisense USTs, the auto-correction process (which forces you to take a photo of an image and upload it onto a Hisense website) does not work.

A dozen attempts, more swears than we can count and the same failure message every time. Once again, our reviewers had to manually tweak the focus and projected screen dimensions to get usable results.

The remote remains functional and, thankfully, once again supports USB-C and solar charging. On the other hand, the remote is also a little long and button-heavy, and it’s still not backlit, making use in a dark room a little trickier. A more streamlined, modernised zapper would be welcome.

Features

The PX4 Pro doesn’t radically change the line’s core offering. As well as a big-screen 4K (via pixel shifting) home cinema experience, Hisense is once again making a big deal about the fact that its projector can deliver a 1080p/240Hz performance for gamers.

The only changes are that Hisense has added yet more features and tech designed to improve everything from colour accuracy to peak brightness, black level and light control.

For starters, though it runs on the same core RGB Triple Laser tech as its predecessor, the PX4 Pro features newer Digital Laser Engine 3.0 tech, which Hisense claims lets it deliver 3500 Lumens peak brightness. That’s 500 Lumens more than the PX3 Pro and 200 more than the AWOL Vision Aetherion Max.

A custom, seven-level adjustable iris lens system and “Hisense-exclusive” CineBlack Pro tech then work in tandem to boost black levels, colour accuracy and contrast. This is apparently the key reason it has a quoted 6500:1 contrast ratio. To put that in context, the PX3 Pro has an also-claimed 3000:1 contrast ratio.

The combination of technologies additionally helps the PX4 Pro deliver a quoted 118 per cent coverage of the demanding BT.2020 colour gamut favoured by creative professionals. So quite the upgrade all around – at least on paper.

The projector’s feature set remains excellent elsewhere, too. It supports Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10 and HLG. If you’re turning your nose up, asking “what about Dolby Vision 2”, don’t – this is only just starting to roll out for TVs, and we’re yet to see it on any projector.

There is also a dedicated Filmmaker Mode, IMAX Enhanced certification and Active 3D content picture modes. IMAX is a nice touch, given its recent support by certain big-name directors and growing catalogue of supported content on Disney+.

We’re less convinced by Active 3D right now. If you haven’t heard of this, it’s a 3D TV technology that uses special DLP Link 3D glasses to create a 3D depth effect. The PX4 Pro doesn’t come with glasses bundled. To take advantage of the feature, you’ll need to invest in a pair. Prices vary depending on the make, ranging from £20-£60 per pair – though usually they come in bundles of two.

Given how well 3D, and its reliance on specialist glasses, went the first time around in the early noughties, we don’t yet see this 3D feature as anything to get too excited about at this point, but there are still those burning a candle for 3D, and with some 3D movies in their collections. To them, the PX4 Pro’s Active 3D support will be welcome.

The use of Hisense’s Vidaa OS, instead of Google TV, may put off some potential buyers, but the OS is more than good enough, coming loaded with nearly all the apps you need. These include Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV. In the UK, Freely is also supported, which means you can easily catch up on local UK shows and use it as a straight-up TV, should you so choose.

The only missing apps are specialist ones, including Shudder, Hidive, and GeForce Now. Not a deal breaker, but an annoyance if you’re a dedicated fan of the genres they cover, or a PC gamer.

Hisense has also loaded the PX4 Pro with two HDMI 2.1 inputs, just like the PX3 Pro before it, and there’s support for ALLM and VRR.

There are two HDMI 2.0 sockets, too, taking the total complement of HDMIs to four. The PX3 Pro had two HDMI 2.1 sockets and a single HDMI 2.0, so this is a handy upgrade for those with lots of sources.

Interestingly, the eARC socket is one of the HDMI 2.0 ports, so you don’t lose one of the valuable HDMI 2.1 ports should you choose to add a soundbar or AVR to your projector.

Our only word of warning is to gamers. Yes, the projector can do 1080p/240Hz if a powerful enough PC is connected. And yes, that is awesome for online gaming, where the higher framerate and very low input lag (in gaming mode) can make the difference between (virtual) life and death.

But, despite the presence of so-called HDMI 2.1 sockets, the PX4 Pro is limited to 60Hz at 4K resolution, so 4K/120Hz gaming is off the menu. This won’t be a huge deal to all gamers, but it is worth noting that USTs with support for native 4K/120Hz are beginning to appear.

Picture quality

So how does the PX4 Pro perform? Starting with our standard Civil War 4K Blu-ray, the projector is initially a little too bombastic. Colours are overbaked, and the motion smoothing makes every one of the characters look as though they’re floating.

Thankfully, it doesn’t take much to fix the issue. A few button pushes gets us into Filmmaker Mode, which fixes all of our motion issues. Colours are improved, too, but they’re still not quite perfect, being noticeably too warm. Eventually, with some back-and-forth experimentation, we settle on Filmmaker Mode with the Warm 2 colour profile, Dynamic Tone Mapping switched on and the motion setting on Film.

Once done, the work Hisense has done improving its PX line over the past two years is immediately apparent, and the PX4 Pro leaves a strong impression. Characters' faces look more realistic, featuring more natural highlights and deeper shadows. As they move through a burning forest, the extra brightness helps the PX4 shine; the flames possess hues of red and orange that are entirely missing on the PX3. Blacks are deeper, but retain much more detail, giving silhouetted trees in the woods a much more defined presence, and the entire scene an added element of three-dimensionality.

The improvements continue as we switch gears to our F1: The Movie disc. The PX4 Pro demonstrates a wonderful level of control, handling very bright elements over dark segments, with the fireworks raging over the race track offering a wonderfully crisp, controlled burn that makes the PX3 and most of the cheaper USTs we’ve tested look flat by comparison.

To our surprise, the jagged, slightly jerky motion handling we’ve come to expect from Hisense USTs is also gone. Instead, the cars weave and zoom forward with pleasing heft and smoothness, without ever feeling artificial. A big achievement for Hisense considering how past models have struggled here.

But as we continue watching, there are a few minor flies in the ointment. As the F1 scene continues, our reviewers wince in unison as the rainbow effect rears its ugly head more than once.

Moving to Sinners, a demanding test disc due to its incredibly warm mastering and dim presentation, the PX4’s picture looks slightly off. That’s partly because there’s very minor black crush, with parts of gangster Stack’s jawline and beard that are visible on the more premium AWOL Vision Aetherion Max showing as flat black. But it’s mainly the colours, which look both overbaked and overly yellow, giving characters a slightly jaundiced look.

The issue briefly appears again as we switch to Blade Runner 2049, where during the difficult, dim opening scene, the projector occasionally struggles with colours not looking quite right. Though it is intermittent and generally limited to dark scenes, sadly, we don’t find a way to fix it, with the cooler Standard and Cool colour profiles pushing too far in the other direction. To be clear, overall, it’s still far from a terrible performance, but it’s just not quite as finessed as that which you’ll experience one step up in the flagship UST space. Sometimes you get what you pay for.

The projector’s upscaling is also much improved, but still middling. Tasked with our SDR True Grit Blu-ray disc, the PX4 does a decent job with the opening dark snowy scene, with only a few artefacts creeping in. But as the film goes on, the spaghetti western-style grainy tone occasionally looks a bit fizzy.

Sound quality

Hisense has made impressive strides, for the most part, with the PX4 Pro’s audio.

Despite its humble size, the Devialet-tuned system manages to do a surprising job throwing audio around the room. A flight of jets don’t scream overhead during Civil War in quite the same way they do on a capable soundbar, but they come with a sense of height that’s missing from most rival USTs.

The movements of cars in F1: The Movie traverse effectively from left to right, and then forward with enough dynamic heft to make it fun to watch – albeit still not quite bone-rumbling enough to do it true cinematic justice.

Switching to Sinners, the system offers an unusual (for inbuilt speaker systems) sense of musicality, with the medley of tracks racing around the speakeasy having a rhythmic drive that makes you feel like you're being pulled forward with the camera to the beat of the music.

But it’s still far from perfect. The Devialet tuning frequently pushes too hard and overestimates its capabilities. During scene two of Blade Runner 2049, it all but falls apart, speaker rattle creeps in, and the booming synth – which is meant to exude a sense of doom – comes out as a loud, flabby warble that drowns out most of the mid and higher frequencies.

Transitioning to the interview scene, voices are nicely separated and projected, but they have a harsh character, with sibilant hisses and a hard edge to the dialogue.

Overall, this is still a very solid sound performance by prevailing UST standards, but images this cinematic demand equally cinematic sound, and we'd advise you to budget for a dedicated sound system if at all possible.

Verdict

The PX4 Pro is a worthy improvement to Hisense’s line of mid-tier UST projectors, offering deeper blacks, more colour volume and a holistically improved, more three-dimensional-looking image.

It also sits in a space between entry-level and flagship USTs, a currently underserved segment of the market. That makes it a great option for movie fans looking for a big-screen UST, who can’t quite stretch their budget to accommodate the five-star AWOL Vision Aetherion Max.

Our only quibbles are that its gaming features are slightly less impressive than they first appear, with 4K/120Hz being beyond the projector; and that it occasionally lacks finesse with its handling of colours, especially during dark scenes.

SCORES

• Picture 5
• Sound 4
• Features 4

MORE:

Read our review of the AWOL Vision Aetherion Max

Also consider the Hisense PT1

Read our Xgimi Aura 2 review

Best home cinema projectors: the best options tested by our home cinema experts

That’s right, after years of testing the waters elsewhere, Haier is hoping to break into the TV market in the UK and Europe. It may be the newest player in a crowded and competitive market, but the brand has both huge aspirations and a plan to carve out an identity among its fellow super successful Chinese technology giants.

I sat down with Haier’s TV Business Director, Steve Macdonald, at IFA 2026 in Berlin to discuss where the brand wants to go next after launching its first QLED TV range in the UK earlier this year.

Competing with TCL and Hisense, or aiming higher?

The biggest takeaway from our conversation is that Haier knows it needs something special to differentiate itself from TCL and Hisense, which are currently dominating the market.

Haier is also well aware it is launching into a tough market, which is why it’s setting its sights on the premium segment. It is testing the waters with a fairly affordable QLED range at the moment, but I was reliably informed that this is just the first step for the brand.

Macdonald confirmed that Haier is open to adopting more advanced panel technology. Mini LED TVs are apparently already in the works, and I spotted an RGB Mini LED model on the show floor at Haier’s humongous stand at the Berlin Messe.

OLED is also on the table according to Macdonald. And that’s an interesting distinction, considering TCL and Hisense are both almost completely OLED-avoidant.

In fact, Macdonald says that Haier isn’t looking to tussle with the kings of budget TVs. Instead, it is looking to build a more premium reputation akin to those of Samsung and LG.

“I think the mindset we have is that what we would like to be is a more premium brand – and that will take time – but more akin to what the Korean brands are doing than some of the other brands,” says Macdonald.

He then clarifies that Haier isn’t looking to “become the new TCL or Hisense” when pressed on the matter.

Macdonald follows this by conceding this is a big aspiration and that the brand needs to have “an edge, otherwise we’re not going to survive in that area”.

Premium panels, KEF sound systems and accessibility upgrades…

To sharpen that edge, Haier is working hard to establish its own premium features, including a more powerful chipset to appeal to gamers, adding more potent accessibility features through its partnership with Amazon’s Fire TV platform (including visual and audio enhancement modes and easier navigation settings), and enhancing its anti-glare display coating.

Haier also wants to win over the hearts of serious AV fans (such as ourselves). And what better way to do that than to partner with one of the biggest names in audio?

For Haier’s latest TV range sports speakers tuned by legendary British hi-fi manufacturer KEF, a fact that inevitably piqued our interest almost immediately.

There was a pretty big emphasis on this partnership at IFA, with Haier hosting a dedicated sound-room experience with a KEF-branded TV and soundbar system, but Haier isn’t the first brand to get a big name in hi-fi on board for its TV sound systems.

Hisense has recently partnered with Devialet, TCL TVs sport Bang & Olufsen sound systems, Philips has a Bowers & Wilkins-equipped TV in its lineup, and Panasonic continues to leverage its Technics division for premium sound systems. So Haier can’t rely on this partnership alone to make its TVs appeal to home cinema enthusiasts.

But, unlike Hisense and TCL, Haier is open to exploring OLED panel technologies. Given What Hi-Fi?’s experience with even the most premium of backlit TVs, including the new RGB Mini LED variants, this could be a unique selling point for the brand.

An OLED TV with a KEF sound system sounds pretty good, after all. Especially if it has a similar sonic character to the five-star KEF XIO.

Making big strides, but also taking things one step at a time…

Haier’s wider strategy to gain some ground in the UK also involves a huge sports partnership with the Champions League and appealing to UK retailers by taking a specialised approach.

Macdonald notes that the KEF partnership will be a vital tool in appealing to home cinema retailers such as Richer Sounds, whereas Haier will take a different approach to its broader retail partners.

Most importantly, Macdonald confirms that Haier is constantly re-evaluating its position and direction, and it won’t be going all guns blazing quite yet. He says that “every couple of months, we have to reset what we’re doing and understand, and it’s not going to be an easy journey.”

Haier is unquestionably launching into the UK TV market at a turbulent time. But with its sights set high and a major audio partnership already in place, it could be the next brand to challenge the likes of Samsung, LG and TCL.

MORE:

Check out our picks for the best Mini LED TVs

As well as our TCL C7L hands on review

And our picks for the best OLED TVs

While we always review as a team, each Awards category has one lead tester; and this year, once again, one of my categories is ultra-short-throw (UST) projectors.

Did I get a pang of jealousy as our senior staff writer, Lewis Empson, pulled the surround sound packages card out of the hat we use to sort our testing plan (joking)? A bit, but truthfully I was also quite happy to take this category.

I have reviewed, or at least been one of the team testing, most of the recent USTs to pass through our test rooms, and I understand their appeal at a personal and professional level.

An ultra-short-throw projector is an impressive piece of equipment: a single-box beamer, usually with an inbuilt sound system, it can throw a giant home cinema picture while sitting right next to the screen or wall it’s projecting onto.

So in theory, you have a home cinema in a box that can stream an 80- or even 200-plus-inch screen into even the smallest of living spaces as long as the projection area is big enough.

Done right, it can be a very compelling option for people like me, who are forced to use their narrow home office or a spare bedroom as their hobby/home cinema room. I have a Hisense PX3 connected to a JBL Bar 1300 in my attic AV cave/office for this reason.

I chose this specific combination, because the PX3 supports high-refresh-rate gaming. And, despite my best efforts, my room can’t accommodate the proper 5.2 system I yearn for, so the JBL Bar 1300 soundbar system is a nice middle ground between a full system and a basic soundbar.

Back to this year’s UST shootout, and as I descended into the darkness and began running the contenders head to head, from the moment I plugged the first UST in, I had a sense of déjà vu, as two old issues immediately reared their ugly heads.

The first is that, despite the marketing suggesting that these are a plug-and-play, simple option for home cinema fans, there is nothing simple about setting up a UST projector.

For yet another year, the process, regardless of manufacturer, remains the same: place the unit on a stand by your intended projection surface; turn it on and then adjust the feet and distance to make the projected guide image fit roughly on it; then run the autocorrection process, or manually make the necessary tweaks.

Neither option is good for your zen.

The ‘autocorrection’ process asks you to take a photo of a projected grid, then upload it to a site owned by the company. From there, it’s meant to tweak the settings to perfect the image. Except it doesn’t.

I make a point to always try the autocorrection at least half a dozen times before giving up. That remained the case this year, and I still have a batting average of zero successful runs. At least some things in life are consistent…

That would be fine, were it not for the fact that the manual correction process is outright painful too. You have to try to optimise the angle and height of the UST using the adjustable feet first: it’s a process that is the home cinema equivalent of trying to get a three-seater, L-shaped sofa up a spiral staircase.

Then, to add insult to injury, you have to adjust the projection area using manual corner controls. And these, inevitably, seem hell-bent on never quite being finessed enough to make the image perfectly square.

As a final annoyance, even minor movements can undo all your hard work. So if you have playful pets or a curious toddler, guard the UST with your life, or be prepared to start the process all over again.

Ask any of the team, and they would, I hope, tell you that I am normally an even-tempered sort of fella – the type you’d probably see chilling at a Grateful Dead concert. But during this year’s testing, the combination of frustrations meant that, once again, Lewis was subjected to a tirade of grumbles that would make a sailor blush during the set-up process.

The second issue, thankfully, isn’t as infuriating. If anything, to be fair, it is actually less pronounced this year.

Still, as I moved to the picture-testing part of our shootout, the moment I put our first 4K Blu-ray into our reference player, I spotted some issues with the USTs’ black levels.

Of course, no projector can match the perfect blacks of an OLED TV and its pixel-level light control. A UST, like any projector, produces images by projecting light onto a surface. And, unless a clever new technology comes out that somehow miraculously changes this, it won’t ever be able to create perfect blacks.

But as I went through the list of this year’s contenders, they still seem to fall into two camps in their attempts to overcome this inherent weakness.

On one side, we have what I like to call the grey beards.

These are the USTs that have decided not to hide the weakness and accept they can’t deliver perfect blacks. This can be a blessing, or a curse depending on how the strategy is implemented. But generally the compromise here is that, while dark scenes can look a little washed out and flat, they retain a decent amount of dark detail.

Then there’s the “Just For UST” camp.

These are the models that, like some men of a certain age (mine), are obsessed with trying to hide their greys. USTs in this camp tend to crank their contrast, making films look like a Frank Miller comic, offering an added level of punch but at the expense of detail. I particularly hate this approach.

Despite steps in the right direction, with blacks on some of the units I tested going deeper than I have seen on past USTs, all of the models at least partially fell into one of these camps, and couldn't quite nail dark scenes as a result.

Which is why, for the third year running, I find myself typing this feature, offering a minor word of warning to potential UST buyers: these devices can be magical for their intended market, and they are improving every year, but they still have a couple of niggling flaws to overcome as a category, compared with both TVs and full-fat long-throw projectors.

So, think hard about whether a UST really is right for your specific circumstances before investing in one.

If ease of use is your main priority, a home cinema-in-a-box coffee-table projector may be a better fit. If you want a proper home cinema, there is nothing like a decent long-throw unit. And if you’re not so bothered about screen size and just want a quality home movie experience, there are excellent OLED TVs available at the same price as most USTs.

USTs are designed and marketed to a specific type of home cinema fan for a reason.

MORE:

These are the best projectors we have reviewed

We rank the best Dolby Atmos soundbars

Our picks of the best surround sound systems

While it might have been released way back in 2019, Sennheiser’s big and burly ‘bar continues to leave a lasting impression on us, and it’s now on the receiving end of a monster AU$2,650 discount via the company’s own eBay store when using the code SEP15OFF.

Or, while you might not get the additional AU$150 saving, if you prefer to shop on Amazon you can grab the Ambeo Soundbar Max for AU$1,499.

Finally, you could head to Sennheiser directly and score the Ambeo Soundbar Max and the Ambeo Subwoofer for AU$1,898 — a total saving of AU$3,221.90.

Key to the Ambeo Max’s success is its use of larger speaker drivers than what you’ll traditionally find in other soundbars – six 10cm woofers, five 25mm tweeters and two 9cm full-range drivers firing upwards, to be precise. While their use does mean the Ambeo Max is max by nature (it weighs 18.5kg), the extra heft allows it to produce a sound with incredible scale.

Even at full price, we said in our review it was “well worth the money and effort”, adding “In using bigger, higher-quality drivers, the Ambeo Soundbar can produce audio with natural tonality, cohesion and solidity, and the 3D audio processing is some of the best we've heard in a product of this type.”

Indeed, you might think the lack of rear speakers means it won’t be all that effective at creating a surround sound effect, but our testing found the opposite to be true. Dialogue is delivered with great clarity too, and the companion app gives access to a number of adjustable EQ presets to fine tune the sound even further. A microphone is also included for calibration to ensure the soundbar performs to its best in your individual room.

It’s certainly a sizable investment, but when you factor in how much you’re saving, it does make the Sennheiser Ambeo Max incredibly good value.

MORE:

Read our full Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar Max review

And check out the best soundbars with options for every need

Back in June, Sony pushed a software update to its current lineup of TVs that, for many, seems to have caused fundamental problems with eARC.

The issues include Dolby Vision content refusing to play, sound gradually desyncing, and audio dropouts, with most users experiencing some but not others. I’m a Bravia 8 II owner, and it’s the audio dropouts that I got.

The common factor is that it only affects content being played from an external source that is being routed through the TV to an external sound system.

For most people, including me, it has meant having to stop using their system as intended – I’ve been unable to use my Apple TV 4K, for example – and while the Dolby Vision problems were seemingly fixed by a further software update last month, the audio problems have remained.

Sony has been frustratingly quiet about the whole issue, with the only public acknowledgement coming from Sony Japan just last week.

Once translated, that Sony Japan post states that “the issue of audio being out of sync with the video (lip-sync discrepancy) will be addressed in a software update scheduled for September 2026”.

It's worth noting that Sony Japan's statement specifically refers to the lip-sync issue; it doesn't explicitly say that the audio dropout problems experienced by some owners will also be addressed by the same update.

But, in fact, it seems that the software update referenced may already be available – at least in some regions.

Software update 114.603.100.1 launched yesterday in the US, and early reports from some Sony Bravia owners suggest the audio sync and dropout issues might have been resolved.

To be clear, this software update is not yet available in the UK, so I haven’t been able to test it myself. It’s only a handful of owners in the US who are so far reporting positive news, too, so it’s a little too early to assume everything is hunky-dory.

I have contacted Sony UK for clarification, as well as a date for the software release over here, and I’ll report back if I hear anything.

Still, if the early reports are correct, this already feels like positive movement, and I, for one, am excited for the presumably imminent release of this new software in the UK.

I love my Bravia 8 II, and I would really like to go back to using it as intended.

MORE:

Here are the best TVs and best Dolby Atmos soundbars you can buy right now

LG, however, has a solution – it offers a soundbar bundled with its latest flagship OLED, completely free of charge.

The flagship OLED in question is the LG C6, a punchy, premium TV to which we awarded five stars. It has just hit a new lowest price of £2564 at Smart Home Sounds for the wall-mount version, thanks to the promo code TRADE250.

That’s not all: you also get the LG S70TY Dolby Atmos soundbar and subwoofer included at no extra charge if you have both items in your basket at checkout.

We awarded the soundbar package four stars in our LG S70TY review, and it will certainly blow the TV into the weeds when it comes to sound quality. Given that the S70TY is retailing for £229 at Amazon, that’s quite the saving you will be making.

We retested the LG G6 following a major software update, which included a side by side comparison with its predecessor, the C5. It didn’t take long during a viewing of Civil War to start noticing the improvements.

“The flames in a burning night-time forest continue to offer an enthralling amount of extra detail as well as higher peaks, but, more crucially, characters’ skin tones look nicely realistic, retaining reds far better, to the point that the G5’s picture makes them look slightly jaundiced by comparison.”

Moving to a daytime scene in a military camp, “balanced” quickly becomes the word that best describes the G6. As a helicopter swoops into the camp over a forest, it’s clear that LG has backed away from its previous focus on aggressively pushing its TVs’ peak brightness at all costs.”

The G6 is particularly notable as one of the few TVs with a Primary RGB Tandem OLED panel, which uses a ‘four-stack’ panel structure to help the OLED TV achieve higher peak and operating brightness levels while retaining colour volume and accuracy.

It also features a new Alpha 11 Gen 3 AI processor and Hyper Radiant Colour Technology, enabling higher peak brightness than the already dazzling LG G5.

HDR is well catered for, with Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG all on board and only HDR10+ missing. WebOS 26 is similarly well equipped, with Now, Apple TV, Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, and pretty much every app you can think of available.

As with most LG TVs, the G6’s gaming chops are particularly strong. All four HDMI 2.1 inputs support up to 4K/165Hz gameplay with VRR, ALLM, and Dolby Vision Gaming HDR.

The G6’s sound system is a step in the right direction, with a fuller, more robust sound than its predecessors. The nicely balanced S70TY soundbar is a clear upgrade, however, so we certainly recommend taking up the freebie instead of relying on the built-in speakers.

If you are looking for a new flagship OLED and need a sound system also, then this LG G6 package is the best value you’ll find right now. £2564 at Smart Home Sounds is the lowest price we have yet seen on this nuanced, accurate and immersive OLED – and a free four-star soundbar is the icing on the cake.

MORE:

Here’s our pick of the best TVs for every budget

Want a cheaper LG OLED? Check out our LG C6 review

For last year’s model, head over to our LG G5 review

In the original video, YouTube channel Gamers Nexus claimed that LG TVs are capable of recording private conversations even when no wake word has been spoken. It also accused the company of collecting sensitive data such as IP addresses, the geographic location of the TV, and details of nearby wi-fi networks and the names of devices connected to them (even if they’re not connected to the TV).

The report includes demonstrations of the claims made, and was conducted in conjunction with tech site Level1 Techs and independent cybersecurity researchers.

LG’s statement says that such reporting has led to “misconceptions about how LG smart TVs work”. The company claims that “LG smart TVs do not continuously record or transmit users’ conversations,” though some commenters have noted the use of the word “continuously”.

“Speech-to-text processing begins only if a user activates a voice interaction through a supported wake-word feature or by pressing the voice (or AI) button on the remote control,” LG goes on. While the TVs must always be listening in order to detect a wake word, the statement says that this audio is “processed locally on the TV” and if no wake word is detected, “audio is not converted to text, stored, or transmitted”.

“Voice-recognition results and related technical logs may be generated as part of processing a voice command,” it adds. “These records are associated with specific voice interactions and do not indicate continuous recording of conversations occurring outside an active voice recognition session.”

While “speech-recognition results may be used to support voice-related features,” they are “not uploaded later when the TV is offline or when connectivity is restored.”

The statement notes that the automatic content recognition (ACR) feature is optional and not enabled by default. ACR has proved controversial, as it detects what’s on screen in order to improve recommendations or sell that information to advertisers.

LG’s statement then goes on to detail how various features of its smart TVs work. It notes that “No connected product is ever completely immune from security vulnerabilities.” Some of Gamers Nexus’s claims would rely on a bad actor hacking the TV to gain control over it.

But that’s not the end of the story. Gamers Nexus has since responded with a bullish follow-up video, claiming that LG’s statement contradicts itself and that its denials are not evidence-based.

We have contacted LG to see if it has a response to that response.

The report has caused a storm in the TV world, and – judging from some of the comments – consumers aren’t happy about how invasive smart TVs are capable of being. LG executives saying it “owns the glass” and “owns the TV” in an attempt to attract advertisers isn’t a good look, especially for anyone who has just shelled out thousands of pounds for a new C6.

MORE:

Read our LG C6 review

Also consider the Samsung S95F

Best TVs: flagship OLEDs and budget Mini LED sets tried and tested

But arguably the most influential vampire to have shaped how we see the infernal creature today is from the 1958 film Dracula starring Christopher Lee. His take on the character introduced Dracula as a more suave, fanged version of the vampire.

And now, there’s good news for classic horror fans: a restoration of the film is coming to 4K Blu-ray and is being released in cinemas. It includes around three minutes of missing scenes that were originally shown only in Japan when the film was released.

The 4K restored edition was handled by Silver Salt Restoration, and I got the chance to get a taste of the process in its London studio, and to speak to the team behind the curtain.

Hope for the market

The state of physical media is a contentious topic, but Anthony Badger, Head of Restoration, has hope for the future. “It’s certainly the end of the day of buying a film in DVD at Tesco. But I think there will always be a place for it,” he says.

He adds that people seem to value the tangibility of holding a physical disc in your hands.

“I think it’s been fascinating that a lot of the more obscure Hammer stuff that isn’t horror, has actually sold really well too. When’s the last time anyone’s seen that? Like 10 pm on BBC Two in 1997. So it’s fascinating – the wealth of stuff. And there is a hunger for that.”

The editions that originally appeared, he explains, would often have been a “horrific” transfer. “I think with a lot of the older transfers, it is a barrier to enjoying it because you can’t quite hear the sound properly and the image is all blurry.”

Badger says he hopes this prompts people to look more into their archives.

4K editions, the team agrees, have more of a draw for collectors too. Mark Stanborough, Head of Restoration at Hammer, says that “when you look at some of the Hammer titles that we’ve done, they could have been filmed last week.

“They look so sharp and it’s amazing,” he smiles.

A trip to the pictures

As well as being released on 4K UHD and Blu-ray, Dracula will be shown in UK cinemas in October.

When it was first shown at the pictures, people were shocked at the graphic nature of the grizzly killings – and it still makes for tense viewing today.

Stanborough says that it was important for Dracula to get a release on the big screen. He adds: “We did Curse of Frankenstein, and I think that went into 150 cinemas and was very popular. And obviously, Dracula is the bigger film, the one that everybody knows.”

Badger says that Dracula presented the challenge of removing sudden colour changes and fringing, especially in the cut elements: “In the cut elements that were preservation elements, you tend to often get issues with it when you recombine the colour channels together from monochromatic film.”

This results in, he says, the different colours often not lining up perfectly so the combined image will be one colour, and then it will “slowly or abruptly change to a different colour”.

He continues: “We had to lock the colours even in the original negative, which had age related fading and degradation, because it is a lot harder [to colour grade] if it’s not the same colour from frame to frame.”

The Dracula 4K Limited Collector’s Edition is available for pre-order now from the Hammer website – and I can’t wait to get it into our test room to challenge the best home cinema products out there.

MORE:

I saw the 4K restoration of a classic horror movie – and I will never take the process for granted again

These are the best 4K Blu-ray players

Check out the best Dolby Atmos soundbars

In fact, it’s kind of refreshing to hang out with such a fuss-free, unpretentious projector – especially when that projector retains a more serious set of specifications than today’s portable projectors typically provide.

Add to this a couple of significant eco-friendly features in the shape of a nifty hybrid laser/LED lighting system and a chassis made from 50 per cent recycled plastics, and the unassuming-looking HL6810ATV has the potential to teach some of the new flash Harrys on the projector block a trick or two.

Price

At £1499 (around $2025 / AU$2825), the HL6810ATV sits at the affordable end of the 4K projector market. Take into account its built-in smarts, eco-friendly laser/LED hybrid lighting system, 240Hz refresh rate support and 4000 lumens of claimed peak brightness, and it has the potential to be a pretty serious bargain. Though, as we’ll see, you do have to accept a few compromises along the way.

Rivals for the HL6810ATV would be the Hisense PT1 if an ultra short throw projector would work for you, or Hisense’s What Hi-Fi? Award-winning M2 Pro if you’re looking for a more ‘lifestyle’ coffee table model with a convenience-focused design.

Design

The Acer HL6810ATV might not have the glamour or distinctiveness of many of today’s living room projectors, but it’s cute enough in its own throwback way.

Its small footprint and much lower stance than you get with the en vogue cubic designs currently dominating the living room projection market mean it scarcely makes any impact – positive or negative – on your decor, while its white finish is crisp and clean.

Its rounded-off corners give it a domesticated feel, and it’s nice to find it partnered with a remote control that also sports a white finish in harmony with the projector.

A full set of control buttons is provided on the HL6810ATV’s top edge for when you can’t find the remote, and a ‘window’ cut into the top edge above the lens barrel provides access to manual adjustments for zoom, focus and vertical optical image shifting.

Screw-down feet under the projector’s bottom edge help you get images in the right place on your wall or screen and, finally, the lens can be protected in transit by a little plastic lens cover attached by string to the projector’s underside.

Features

The Acer HL6810ATV is matter-of-factly described by Acer as a “4K UHD smart projector”, where the ‘smart’ bit refers to mini dongle-delivered Android TV support. Integrating a smart TV system proves right away that the HL6810ATV is aimed at the domestic rather than business market.

This position is backed up by such features as a Football Mode that exaggerates colours for more spectacular ‘big game’ nights, and gaming features that include support for 120Hz and 240Hz refresh rates and a Low Input Lag setting that gets input lag down to just 17ms at 60Hz. This lag pretty much halves each time as the projector moves through its 120Hz and 240Hz gears, too. These are all excellent numbers for a projector.

The HL6810ATV is built on a DLP optical system illuminated by hybrid laser and LED lighting. This relatively rare lighting approach has apparently been chosen by Acer because it delivers a longer lifespan (up to 30,000 hours is claimed if you stick with its Eco image setting) and uses less energy than other lighting systems.

The HL6810ATV adds playback of the HDR10 and HLG HDR formats to its 4K playback. There’s no support for the premium HDR10+ or Dolby Vision formats, with their extra scene-by-scene image data, but such support is relatively rare at this level, so that's no huge surprise.

Peak brightness from the HL6810ATV is claimed to be 4000 lumens, while contrast is claimed to be a very respectable 50,000:1. It’s highly unlikely you’ll experience either of these figures in the real world, but they’re still good numbers for the projector to build its picture performance on, hinting as they do at images capable of looking decent in both dark and bright room settings.

Also impressive for its money is how easy to set up the HL6810ATV is. The manual focus and zoom adjustment rings deliver a handy 1.3x level of zoom, while a little wheel adjustment above the lens and focus rings provides a degree of optical vertical image shift. There are options in the projector’s menus, too, to compensate for keystone errors and even the colour of your wall.

There’s no significant automated image set-up system of the sort we’re starting to see on many projectors, but given how many of those don’t work particularly well, we actually find the hands-on simplicity of the HL6810ATV’s all-manual picture set-up surprisingly welcome.

It helps on paper, too, that the HL6810ATV carries a built-in 10W speaker, to save you the trouble of having to find an external audio source wherever you’ve set the projector up. Though as we’ll get into later, this ostensibly helpful feature doesn’t quite pan out as hoped.

Being easy to set up adds weight to the HL6810ATV’s status as an unusually portable projector for anyone looking for a model that’s easy to move between different rooms or houses. Acer supplies a carry bag with the projector to further bolster its ‘go anywhere’ credentials.

The HL6810ATV’s connections include two HDMI ports (both 2.0b-specified, so there’s no support for 4K at any higher frame rates than 60Hz, or VRR); a 3.5mm mini jack audio output; an RS-232 control jack; and a 5V-out USB port that’s otherwise just for service use.

Unfortunately, we need to finish on a couple of significant limitations.

First, as well as being a bit buggy, the HL6810ATV’s Android TV smart system doesn’t carry any of the catch-up services for the main terrestrial UK broadcasters.

Second, while the Acer provides a pretty wide array of picture presets for SDR viewing, with HDR it frustratingly only offers a single preset mode, which you then have to manually adjust yourself in areas such as your preferred EOTF setting and Dynamic Black preference (there’s no true HDR tone mapping here, in case you were wondering).

Picture

The HL6810ATV can be really engaging to watch – so long as you’re not trying to do so in a bright room. It just isn’t bright enough with HDR or SDR, even in its brightest settings (which here means choosing the High setting of the ‘EOTF' feature), to punch through ambient light with enough conviction to keep colours looking bold, black levels looking solid and details looking defined. Quite where those 4000 claimed lumens have ended up is anyone’s guess.

While this lack of bright-room potency though will be enough to put off some buyers looking for an all-conditions all-rounder, the HL6810ATV is a more assured dark room watch than many projectors that try harder to punch through ambient light.

In particular, in a dark room, the projector delivers deeper and more convincing blacks and dark scenes than we had expected. This is particularly true if you use the Mid EOTF setting, which really does look startlingly cinematic for such a ‘casual’ projector.

Black levels are still decent, though, even if you switch the EOTF setting to High – which, in the end, you kind of have to, especially with HDR, if you want to stop significant amounts of faint detail in dark areas disappearing from view.

The High EOTF setting is also the only one where the HL6810ATV manages to give a sense that you’re watching HDR, as it enables the projector to deliver its highest ‘baseline’ HDR brightness level while still finding an extra gear to imbue the brightest HDR highlights with that sense of gleam and glimmer that’s so beyond what SDR can do.

The HL6810ATV handles colour very well for its money, too. Every now and then, a very bright shade, especially if it leans towards a secondary rather than primary colour, can become slightly washed out – as if the projector’s colour palette isn’t quite expansive enough to keep up with its brightness extremes (even though they’re not actually very extreme).

For the most part, though, colours look natural, nicely balanced against each other, and devoid of the sort of noise or lack of shading subtlety that can trouble some HDR displays (both TVs and projectors).

There’s no noise in dark parts of the picture either, and both HD and 4K sources look crisp and detailed without that detail being impaired by grittiness or moiré noise.

Judder, even with 24p movie sources, looks clean and natural enough to retain the clarity for most of the time as well, with only small movements of very detailed content sometimes looking a bit tweaky for a frame or two.

The HL6810ATV’s straightforward but natural and immersive presentation extends for the most part to its game performance. In fact, the relative starkness of graphics versus video sources makes them an even better fit for the projector’s engagingly no-nonsense approach.

The only rider is that for some reason graphics look noticeably coarser at 60Hz refresh rates than they do at 120Hz, even if the 60Hz images are 4K while the 120Hz images are (as they have to be) HD. Because of this, where the choice is available, we much prefer gaming at 1080p/120Hz than 4K/60Hz.

Sound

There isn’t really much to say here for the simple reason that there isn’t much sound to listen to. The speaker struggles to produce any volume worthy of the name, leaving the projector’s big, engaging pictures sounding like they’re being partnered with the audio equivalent of a peashooter.

There’s no bass, either, leaving action scenes sounding thin as well as quiet.

The only things stopping the sound from registering a single-star score, in fact, are the way the sound projects a little forward from the projector’s body to make it sound slightly more connected with the onscreen images, and the fact that dialogue always sounds surprisingly clear.

The reality is, though, that anyone wanting a sound experience that’s anywhere close to matching the impact of the HL6810ATV’s pictures is going to have to find some sort of external audio solution.

Verdict

The HL6810ATV’s lack of brightness limits its usage scenarios a little more than we’d like for a projector at this level. Its Android TV system is a bit dated, too.

You can always add a cheap HDMI streaming stick, though, and if you don’t mind using it in a pretty consistently dark environment and can pair it up easily enough with an external sound system, this Acer is actually surprisingly fun to use regardless of whether you’re watching a film or playing a game.

SCORES

• Picture 4
• Sound 2
• Features 3

MORE:

Read our Hisense M2 Pro review

Also give our BenQ TK705i review a look

And don't forget our Xgimi Horizon 20 Pro review

Our pick of the best projectors you can buy for every budget

In that case, you’ll want a seriously good AVR – and we can’t deny the outstanding sonic performance of the JBL Synthesis SDR-38, which also boasts a stylish build and extensive feature set.

In our five-star review, one of our few gripes was the substantial £7300 price. That, though, is less of a problem now, thanks to a new low of £3499 at Richer Sounds.

To get this whopping 52 per cent discount, you’ll have to sign up for the (completely free) Richer Sounds VIP club to bring the price down to £3999. Add in our exclusive promo code WHFJBL500 at checkout to save an extra £500, and you’ve got yourself a five-star AVR with £3801 off.

The JBL Synthesis SDR-38 is aimed squarely at audiophiles, as shown by its enthusiast-leaning setup and operation, but we think even the pickiest will be won over.

There’s no shortage of features: the SDR-38 delivers 180W of Class G amplification with all seven channels driven, and seven HDMI 2.1 sockets which feature the full 48Gbps bandwidth. Dolby Atmos and DTS:X are also on board for immersive home cinema sound.

There’s also quite the list of wireless connectivity options, with hi-res and MQA support via Roon, as well as Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect, Google Chromecast, Apple AirPlay 2 and Bluetooth with the aptX HD codec supported.

All of which is contained within a rather stylish and premium chassis, complete with an OLED display, on-device controls and an appropriately premium volume wheel.

However, what really won us over about the SDR-38 was its incredible sound performance, as demonstrated during a test viewing of Dune in Dolby Atmos.

“The spacious, echoey environment of the aircraft hangar is reproduced with a grand and expansive sense of scale, while the conversation that takes place regarding the Stillsuits is packed with a tangible low-level dynamic flair that incorporates warmth, subtlety and (most importantly) character to each voice,” our JBL Synthesis SDR-38 review reads.

Testing further with the car chase scene in The Batman and everything is delivered with excellent detail and clarity, digging out all the finer details we would expect for an AVR at this price level and leaving no gaps between speakers.

There were certainly no issues with the sound performance in our five-star review – the SDR-38 excels at everything from large dynamic shifts to hushed conversations, making it an excellent choice for dedicated home cinemas.

It may still be pricey, but the SDR-38’s performance justifies the cost even at full price. So home cinema aficionados will not want to miss out on the chance to get this fine-sounding home cinema amplifier with a massive £3801 off at Richer Sounds.

MORE:

Read our full JBL Synthesis SDR-38 review

As well as our Denon AVC-X6800H review

And check out our picks for the best AV receivers

Two Japanese AV titans are going head-to-head today, and more is at stake than you might think.

Sony’s TA-AN1000 AV amplifier turned our Awards list on its head in 2023, dethroning both the Denon AVR-X2800H and Denon AVC-X3800H in one fell swoop.

Ever since, Denon has been working tirelessly to reinstate its AV amplifiers as the top choice for home cinema fans – and that brings us to its most recent launch.

After almost four years of anticipation, Denon launched the AVR-X2900H earlier this year, alongside its step-up sibling, the AVC-X3900H.

The X2900H was developed as a direct response to the TA-AN1000, and Denon’s goal was to knock Sony off the top spot after spending multiple years virtually unchallenged.

So, has Denon succeeded? Or are you better off sticking with the Sony? We tested these sub-£1000 AVRs side by side to answer that very question…

Sony TA-AN1000 vs Denon AVR-X2900H: Price

Both the Denon and Sony amplifiers occupy the more affordable end of the mid-range AVR market, though the Denon technically launched at a slightly lower price.

The AVR-X2900H launched at £899 / $1349 / AU$1799 earlier this year, whereas the TA-AN1000 cost £999 (around $1240 / AU$1850) when it was released back in 2022.

However, the Sony’s age becomes an unexpected advantage, as we find that it is practically always subject to heavily discounted prices.

The TA-A1000 seems to have widely adopted the £699 price tag that was once reserved for Black Friday and Amazon Prime Day, making it the cheaper of the two amplifiers.

**Winner: Sony TA-AN1000**

Sony TA-AN1000 vs Denon AVR-X2900H: Design

Neither of these home cinema amplifiers will make you swoon, but they’re also by no means unpleasant to look at.

We think that they both look practical and understated, which is a nice way of saying that they’re black aluminium cuboids with a smattering of buttons and knobs on the front, and a heavy helping of ports and connections on the rear.

The Sony looks almost identical to the STR-DN1080 that it replaced, which launched in 2017. It sports a split-layer design, with a row of slim buttons sitting below a slender horizontal display that runs along the width of the amplifier.

There are separate volume and input selection wheels, as well as a few front-facing ports.

The Denon, on the other hand, looks almost identical to the last decade of Denon AVRs that came before it. It sports a brushed metal finish, a row of buttons that sits below a slim horizontal screen, separate volume and input selection wheels, and a few front-facing ports.

While that might sound identical to the Sony (because it pretty much is), the Denon’s display and buttons take up only a central panel rather than the full width of the amplifier.

Denon has also kindly tweaked the on-unit controls this year, with buttons that are angled slightly upwards, making them easier to press if the AVR is sitting on a lower shelf in your media unit.

Truthfully, this is a horses-for-courses situation, and which looks better will depend on your personal taste.

**Winner: Draw**

Sony TA-AN1000 vs Denon AVR-X2900H: Features

The AVR-X2900H and TA-AN1000 both feature seven channels of amplification, which can power up to 7.1 surround sound or a 5.1.2 Dolby Atmos speaker system. The Denon takes the crown when it comes to power output, though, as it features a claimed 95W of power with two channels of the seven driven, whereas the Sony touts a claimed 85W with two channels driven.

Denon also beats the Sony when it comes to connectivity; both amps feature six HDMI inputs on the rear; however, three of them are full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 sockets that can handle 4K/120Hz or 8K/60Hz signals with VRR and ALLM on the X2900H.

The TA-AN1000, on the other hand, has just two HDMI 2.1 inputs. The X2900H also adds 1440p support for console and PC gaming, as well as AMD FreeSync for smoother gameplay.

Wireless connectivity is also solid on both. Bluetooth is featured on the Sony and Denon, and they can both handle music streaming over wi-fi, though they take different approaches.

The Sony allows for direct streaming via AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect and Google Chromecast, while the Denon funnels these services through its HEOS service, which also allows users to tie this amp into a multi-room system with other Denon and Marantz audio products. The Sony has a similar trick up its sleeve with its Works With Sonos feature, which means that you can link the TA-AN1000 with Sonos’ wireless multi-room speakers.

The X2900H beats the AN1000 when it comes to HDR support too. Both amplifiers can pass through HDR10, HLG and Dolby Atmos video, but the AVR-X2900H adds HDR10+ support, which is missing on the Sony. Both amplifiers support a wide array of Dolby and DTS audio formats, including Dolby Atmos and DTS:X.

Both amplifiers also have comprehensive room calibration systems built in, with the required microphones included in the box. The Sony uses its own proprietary system, which requires a little bit of manual labour – including taking measurements of your ceiling height, screen height, and distance to your listening position – though it rattles through the calibration process at speed afterwards.

The Denon features Audyssey’s MultEQ XT, which allows users to take measurements from multiple positions to determine the best speaker distances and levels for your space.

If that doesn’t float your boat, then Dirac Live Room Correction is also supported, though it requires additional paid software and accessories to complete.

While the Sony is a well-equipped amplifier by general standards, there’s no denying that the Denon steals the spotlight with better connectivity, HDR support and calibration options.

**Winner: Denon AVR-X2900H**

Sony TA-AN1000 vs Denon AVR-X2900H: Sound

Here is where the winner of this battle is truly decided. Sound performance is everything, and as the star ratings for these amplifiers may give away, there is a clear winner in this regard.

We’ll start with the AVR-X2900H, as there is plenty to like here. Denon’s signature sound is on full display here, as there is a rich, weighty and broad sense to the sound that this amplifier produces.

This ensures that the Denon is in its element with large-scale action set pieces, as the big, powerful sound sweeps us up in its cinematic presentation.

While it may sound like this amplifier is all muscle, that’s far from the case; sonic subtleties are handled with care, meaning distinct background sounds are preserved to ensure immersion.

That is paired with an excellent sense of sonic cohesion, as the Denon is a dab hand at passing sound effects – big and small – around the surround sound channels without noticeable gaps or distractions.

The Denon’s richer and more powerful sound makes it talented for music. The smooth, inviting sound makes stereo recordings a joy to listen to, and with that level of detail that we mentioned earlier coming into play here with vocals and instruments. We find that the Denon is talented for AV and hi-fi tasks alike.

That said, the Sony also delivers detail in droves, and it too delivers an impressive surround sound showcase. It also introduces a much-needed sense of energy and agility to the sound, which highlights the Denon’s tendency to veer into sounding somewhat over-indulgent and slightly lethargic.

Furthermore, the Sony dominates when it comes to dynamic control. Immediate jumps in volume (think explosions and car crashes) are punchy, powerful and engaging, and there’s also much more care given to low-level dynamics too.

Paired with the crisper and snappier nature of the Sony, we find that dialogue sounds much more lifelike through this amplifier compared to the Denon too.

What really seals the Denon’s fate, however, is how it handles bass. While this amplifier can pump out a truly impressive amount of bass (certainly more than the Sony), it often feels disappointingly ill-defined and mushy, with surprisingly little tonal variation on display here.

The Sony, on the other hand, dials back the bass depth slightly, but in doing so it makes low frequencies sound much more intentional, with more dynamic, textured and expressive low end.

**Winner: Sony TA-AN1000**

Sony TA-AN1000 vs Denon AVR-X2900H: Verdict

Denon’s mission to knock Sony down a peg and reclaim its spot as the champion of mid-range AVRs may not have succeeded this time, but that doesn't mean there isn't lots to like with the X2900H.

It delivers a warm, rich and powerful sound that will appeal to and delight many, and it's talented for movies and music alike. If you want grandeur, scale, and a surround sound experience that envelops you in every aspect, then the Denon could be ideal for you; however, the Sony once again reminds us why it's earned its praise and accolades once we fire it up for comparison.

Truthfully, we wanted the Denon AVR-X2900H to give the Sony TA-AN1000 a serious fight. The Sony has sat too comfortably on our annual Awards list, shooting down any competition that comes its way thanks to its superb handling of dynamics and detailed sound.

It may not be as well equipped as the Denon, but given the price drops that can be forgiven for now. And once we immerse ourselves in the agile, dynamic and crisp sound it produces, it begins to highlight some of the Denon’s inherent flaws.

We can't fault Denon’s grit and determination to deliver an AVR that beats this three-time Product of the Year Award-winner, but it needs to rethink its approach to dynamics and bass performance if it truly wants to knock Sony off the podium.

**Overall winner: Sony TA-AN1000**

MORE:

Read our full Sony TA-AN1000 review

And our Denon AVR-X2900H review

Check out our list of the best AV receivers

But there’s one demo that I experienced on Xgimi’s stand that will not leave my head, and it involved a prototype 3D projector system.

And I really do mean "prototype": this isn't a product you can buy, but more of a Frankenstein’s monster combining various products.

There was quite a lot going on behind the scenes, so let’s break it down: Xgimi had two of its newly announced Titan Noir Ultra Max projectors set up side-by-side, each hooked up to the same laptop.

In front of each projector, Xgimi positioned a polarising filter. Essentially, one projector produced the image for the left eye, while the other handled the right. Once you put on the polarised passive glasses, the picture came together to create an incredible 3D experience.

Just one of these projectors will set you back £4799 (around $5000 / AU$9040), but the Titan Noir Ultra Max does boast some impressive specs.

Xgimi claims it delivers up to 8000 ISO lumens of peak brightness and a native contrast ratio of 12,000:1, for starters, and the brand says this results in an “impressive contrast performance for true cinematic depth”.

There are some promising specifications for gaming, too, with Xgimi claiming input lag of just 1ms, which seems preposterously low, but will need proper testing once we get a sample in for review. VRR and ALLM are also on board.

My demo wasn't about gaming, though; it was about 3D movies.

The team had the trailer from Avatar: Fire And Ash on a loop and, even though I had seen it countless times by the end, I was captivated by the video every time it played.

The sense of three-dimensionality was simply breathtaking. When the majestic flying Leonopteryx swooped into the frame, the creature’s wings and tail appeared to flick into the audience with a stunning sense of immersion.

Surrounding the winged animal were floating islands in the sky, and they came out of the frame like a pop-up book.

Instead of feeling limited to the screen on the demonstration room's wall, it really felt as though the picture reached far beyond the frame. I almost thought that if I reached my hand out I could brush the animal's wing.

During the blue-tinted nighttime water scenes, the picture looked detailed despite the movie's lower-light presentation. The bioluminescent spots on the skin of our blue protagonists stood out against the dark woodland instead of getting lost in the background, too.

The picture was bright and punchy as well, and this was in a reasonably well-lit environment. Imagine it in a blacked-out room. That all transported me away from the busy convention space to the world of Pandora in seconds, and it was really a sight to behold.

The sound was less impressive, with the projector's speakers struggling to cut through the bustling showroom floor. But that would obviously change in a more ideal environment, and you could hook up a separate sound system.

It's been a while since I have seen a projector brand, or really any brand at all, running a 3D movie demo. That's hardly surprising, considering that fewer and fewer movies are getting a 3D release.

But even though you won't find it on shelves anytime soon, Xgimi's experiment has still given me renewed curiosity about the world of 3D. Perhaps we gave up too easily, and perhaps it's not too late for a thrilling, three-dimensional renaissance.

MORE:

Check out the best projectors

These are the best soundbars on the market

And here's our review of the Horizon 20 Max

Was the main character meant to sound that muffled in the climax? Or did they just explain something crucial to the plot?

That's just one of the reasons we at What Hi-Fi? usually recommend investing in a good soundbar or sound system. It doesn't have to be a super flashy or premium model either, which is why the Hisense HS215 has caught my eye for £59 at AO.com.

It's an inexpensive but effective way to improve your TV speakers, especially for clearer dialogue and a wider tonal range. And frankly, out of all the soundbars we've tested, there's nothing else we recommend at this price.

With darker nights on the horizon and cosy evenings on the sofa becoming more common, your TV speakers are going to get quite the workout over the next few months.

Which is why a quick soundbar upgrade might just save your autumn, especially if you have a nice TV that gives movies the picture they deserve.

The Hisense HS214 can do just that, adding a broader soundstage and a welcome touch of bass thanks to a 3-inch down-firing woofer on the underside.

Dialogue clarity is one of the key benefits of the HS214, sounding even better than the five-star OLED TV we were testing with.

"The HS214 anchors the vocal, meaning you can sit back and enjoy the unfolding drama without focusing on the subtitles," our Hisense HS214 review reads. "The enhanced depth that the bass unit brings to the table isn’t superfluous either; there’s a solid sound to the lows and kick that gives the sound a touch more musicality than you would otherwise experience."

The HS214 is also a surprisingly competent music player, an area where even expensive soundbars struggle. Despite its size, the soundbar produces a pleasant, uncluttered midrange and a decent stereo image, delivering Follow Me Around by Radiohead without the tinniness we often experience with small speakers.

It’s simple to set up, too: an HDMI ARC port means you can just plug your TV in via HDMI and be done with it, but there are also optical and coaxial sockets, a 3.5mm mini-jack auxiliary input, Bluetooth 4.2 and a USB port.

At only 9.2 x 5.8 x 65 cm, it's also compact enough to fit in small spaces, and a decent build quality means it will sit happily beneath both a new high-spec TV, or an older model. It can also be wall-mounted thanks to rigging points on the rear and fixings included in the box.

If you're looking for a decent upgrade to your TV speakers at the lowest possible price, the Hisense HS214 is for you.

MORE:

Read our Hisense HS214 2.1 review

Check out the best budget soundbars: cheap ’bars, tested by our experts

And the best TVs under £1000: affordable OLED, Mini LED and LCD models hand-picked by our experts

But with the Beam (Gen 2) remaining on sale, would you better off opting for the tried-and-tested older model? Or spending more on the Ultra?

We're here to help you decide. We haven't tested the Ultra yet, but we have given it a first listen during a hands-on session. We'll update this article once we've put it through its paces in our testing rooms. In the meantime, read on for our first impressions, and how it compares on paper with its older sibling.

• Read our Sonos Beam Ultra hands-on review

Sonos Beam Ultra vs Beam (Gen 2): price

Price is likely to be chief among buyers' considerations when eyeing up a new soundbar, so let's kick off with that.

The Sonos Beam Ultra launches at £699 / $699 / AU$1099 when it goes on sale at the end of September. That's £250 / $250 / AU$450 more than the Beam (Gen 2)'s launch price of £449 / $449 / AU$649.

However, the Beam (Gen 2) has been discounted plenty of times in the five years since it launched, and is likely to be again. In days gone past, it has fallen as low as £299, so if you're willing to wait, you could snap up a bargain.

** Winner: Sonos Beam (Gen 2) **

Sonos Beam Ultra vs Beam (Gen 2): design

There's not much to choose between the two 'bars in terms of looks. They both opt for a rectangle-with-curved-corners design, and a perforated grille on the front. The big difference? The Ultra has a perforated grille on the top as well, for the up-firing drivers.

The Beam (Gen 2) has no up-firing drivers, hence no top grille.

Both models come in the same black and white finishes as most Sonos devices, which should fit most decors (as well as slot neatly into a Sonos set-up, as long as you're consistent with your choice of colour).

The Ultra is slightly shorter than the Gen 2, which means it's less likely to obscure the bottom part of the TV screen when placed on a cabinet. But at 75cm wide, it is almost 10cm wider than the Gen 2's 65.1cm. It's also very slightly deeper (10.5cm compared to 10cm). Both 'bars weigh the same 2.88kg.

** Winner: Sonos Beam Ultra **

Sonos Beam Ultra vs Beam (Gen 2): features

The big addition over the Beam (Gen 2) is the up-firing drivers, which should provide a more immersive Dolby Atmos experience. The Gen 2 relies on clever processing (AKA "virtualised Dolby Atmos") to provide height effects, and with superb results, as its string of What Hi-Fi? Awards attests. So we're looking forward to seeing what the Ultra can do.

The extra up-firing drivers give the Ultra a 7.1.2-channel configuration, compared to the Gen 2's 5.1.2.

However, despite the extra drivers, the Ultra still lacks DTS:X support (which is also missing from the Gen 2). This likely won't be a deal-breaker for most people, but it's a shame nonetheless.

Also new are a redesigned centre channel and four levels of AI Speech Enhancement to help it deliver clearer dialogue (the Gen 2 only had one level).

The Ultra has a newer version of wi-fi (Wi-Fi 6 compared to the Gen 2's Wi-Fi 4), which makes sense, given that its predecessor came out in 2021.

Other than that, their feature sets are the same, with Trueplay, Night Sound and TV Audio Swap with the Sonos Ace (and newer Ace Ultra) headphones.

There is one other thing. On Sonos' comparison table, it says that the Beam Ultra is suitable for rooms up to 23–32.5 m² in size, while the Gen 2 is listed as "up to 250 sq ft" (around 23 m²). So thanks to the addition of the height channels, the Ultra is better suited to filling a slightly larger room with sound than the Gen 2.

** Winner: Sonos Beam Ultra **

Sonos Beam Ultra vs Beam (Gen 2): sound

As we said, we haven't fully tested the Beam Ultra yet. But we have given it a listen, albeit in the less-than-ideal surrounds of a trade show. And our first impressions were very positive.

A Dolby Atmos mix of Harry Styles' Ready, Steady, Go! sounded very detailed and musical, with the vocals hitting you right between the eyes. We found bass to be tight, with minimal distortion, and while it wasn't the most floor-shaking performer, it did stay controlled throughout. For a soundbar of this size, that's more important than sheer bass heft.

The panning shots in Sinners contained good precision within the audio, while the dialogue in Widow's Bay was clear and filled with subtle inflections.

Placement was also pretty spot-on: Widow's Bay's birds squawking across the sea and choir came across as room-filling, though of course we'll have to wait until we get the Ultra in our own acoustically treated test room before we offer our final verdict.

The Ultra has a lot to live up to. The Beam (Gen 2) excels in the sound department, which is part of the reason why keeping it on sale is a wise decision.

"Whether it’s a chirping bird, a car or a voice, there’s remarkable consistency across the complete soundfield, and seamless handover between drivers, which doesn’t always happen when a Dolby Atmos soundbar has upward drivers to contend with," we wrote in our Sonos Beam (Gen 2) review.

The soundstage is expansive, and offers "tangible motion, depth and space, which heightens the drama and sense of immersion", we added. It comprehensively outperforms every soundbar in its class, even five years after its launch. That doesn't happen too often.

** Winner: TBC **

Sonos Beam Ultra vs Beam (Gen 2): early verdict

With more features – including those all-important up-firing drivers – the Ultra looks like a decent improvement on the already excellent Beam (Gen 2). Of course it all comes down to how it sounds, and we won't know that until we've given it a thorough going over in our test rooms.

However, with the Beam (Gen 2) remaining on sale, and regularly having its price cut, it will still be a serious contender for a place under your telly. There's a reason it's won an Award every year since it launched, after all.

We'll update this article once we've published our full Sonos Beam Ultra review.

MORE:

I just listened to the new Sonos Beam Ultra, and the upgraded Dolby Atmos soundbar made a great first impression

Our Sonos Beam (Gen 2 ) review

The best Dolby Atmos soundbars you can buy

That's for good reason, as both the Sonos Beam (Gen 2) and Arc Ultra (and the Arc before it) have been mainstays at the top of our soundbar guides.

And now there's a new kid on the block hoping to make the same impact – let's hear it for the Sonos Beam Ultra. The US brand claims that the latest edition to the Beam family delivers "true Dolby Atmos sound and clear dialogue from a compact soundbar that fits your room".

Whether the Beam Ultra is truly that good will only become clear once we've had it in our testing room for exhaustive, comparative testing, but we have had a brief listen to the new soundbar at a launch event in Berlin, and the early signs are very positive.

Price

The Sonos Beam Ultra will set you back £699 / $699 / AU$1099.

That puts it directly between the Sonos Beam Gen 2 (£449 / $449 / AU$649) and the Arc Ultra (£999 / $999 / AU$1799), both of which have scored What Hi-Fi? Awards and five-star reviews.

A little surprisingly, the Sonos Beam Ultra isn’t a replacement for the Beam Gen 2, and the older model will remain on sale. That feels like a good move to us, as it leaves a more affordable Dolby Atmos soundbar (albeit without dedicated drivers) in the range.

Design

Having briefly handled the Beam Ultra at the demo, it felt lightweight yet well-built and sturdy.

The new bar comes in at 2.9kg, which is slightly heavier than the Beam Gen 2’s 2.8kg. It is also a little thinner and longer than the older Beam model, which means it should fit nicely under your TV screen. You can also mount the bar to your wall if you prefer.

The soundbar comes in two colour options: Black and White. That’s the same as the rest of Sonos’s soundbar models, and the matte finish looks quite stylish.

It also features perforated grilles on the top. On the lip of the bar, you will find a press button to activate Bluetooth, as well as touch controls for volume and play/pause.

Features

Those perforated grilles at the top are included to allow the two up-firing drivers on either end of the bar to work their magic.

The Beam Gen 2 is an excellent deliverer of Dolby Atmos audio, despite its reliance on virtualisation rather than physical up-firing drivers. That said, the addition of up-firers for the Beam Ultra should result in an even more convincing Atmos performance.

In fact, the Beam Ultra has nine drivers in total – four more than the Beam Gen 2. These are arranged in what Sonos says is a 7.1.2-channel configuration.

Sonos states that the centre channel has been redesigned to feature a coaxial transducer, which embeds a tweeter into a woofer. With this new arrangement, the brand says the Beam Ultra will make “movies sound wider” and “dialogue sound clearer”.

While the new bar supports Dolby Atmos, DTS:X is still not on the cards. That’s not a big surprise considering this has been the case with all of Sonos’s products, but it could be a drawback for those wanting fully comprehensive surround sound options.

For physical connectivity, you will find a single HDMI eARC port at the back of the bar. The lack of dedicated HDMI inputs and passthrough functionality is no surprise (no previous Sonos products have had either), but it's still a shame for those who are already running out of HDMI sockets on their TV.

You will also spot a USB-C port, which is an upgrade on the Beam Gen 2. Sonos offers the optional Line-In Adapter which lets you connect any piece of traditional hi-fi with a 3.5mm aux jack, such as a turntable or CD player. There is also the Combo Adapter so you can hardwire the soundbar to your router.

While there is no remote control to adjust the soundbar, the newly updated Sonos27 app is on hand. This gives you access to advanced EQ settings and lets you adjust the input and volume.

You can also switch on the Night Sound setting from here if you don’t want to disturb the neighbours. Once again, the firm's Trueplay calibration is on hand to fine-tune the sound to your space.

As with previous Sonos soundbar models, music can be sent directly from apps such as Spotify and Tidal. Bluetooth 5.3 is on board, too.

There is the option to link the Beam Ultra with other Sonos products to create a multi-room listening experience, including the newly announced Sonos Ace Ultra over-ear headphones. That’s handy if you want to move around your house and still get audio from the TV, or simply want to keep the sound to yourself.

You can also add Sonos's wireless speakers as the surrounds, including the Era 100, which we gave a five-star rating. There's the option to transform its portable speakers, such as the Move 2 and Play models, into surrounds.

Sound quality

So, how does the Beam Ultra actually perform? While we will have to wait until we have it in our test room to deliver a final verdict, we got a taste of the soundbar’s audio performance at the demo.

Sonos kicked off with a Dolby Atmos mix of Harry Styles’ Ready Steady Go!, and the vocals felt clear, direct, and expansive, which immediately drew us into the track.

There are four AI Speech Enhancement levels to choose from, and we got a chance to hear them at various levels. As you would hope, these made voices even clearer and more centred, but we need to listen more to see how they affect the rest of the sound before deciding if they are worth using.

The instrumentals sounded reasonably well-placed around the soundstage, with the guitar plucking in the mid-section delivered with a strong sense of precision.

Next, some TV. The first episode of Widow’s Bay in Dolby Atmos showed off the bar’s wide soundfield, as atmospheric choral singing and crashing waves surrounded the listener as we followed a fisherman on a nighttime ocean trip. These built to a spooky crescendo, which demonstrated the bar’s promising dynamic handling.

From our first listen, the bass was not the deepest, but the soundbar delivered refined and detailed lower frequencies that gave the demo scenes a strong foundation.

As we said, we will hold off on delivering until we have reviewed the bar properly, but this initial listen made a promising first impression.

Early verdict

The Beam Ultra’s upgraded speaker arrangement and stylish design make us hopeful that the new model will build on Sonos's strong soundbar heritage.

Judging by this initial listening session, this latest soundbar continues to deliver clear vocals and an engaging overall experience.

Stay tuned for our full review, where we’ll compare the bar with the Beam Gen 2 and Arc Ultra to establish whether it’s the ideal combination of both or an awkward middle ground, before also testing it against rivals from the likes of Sony and Samsung.

MORE:

Here is our review of the Sonos Beam Gen 2

These are the best soundbars

And check out the best Dolby Atmos soundbars on the market

Then we've got you covered. Our expert testers found the Harman Kardon Enchant 900 to be a particularly fun sound experience that delivers a much more immersive soundstage than most TV speakers.

It's seeing a healthy discount now too – the code ENCHANT20 brings the price down to £263 at Peter Tyson, saving you a whopping £167.

A 5.1.4-channel soundbar driven by a total power output of 195W, the Harman Kardon 900 includes two up-firing drivers for true Dolby Atmos support.

MultiBeam technology is on hand to create a more spacious soundstage, and the Harman Kardon One app allows you to adjust the EQ settings and calibrate the soundbar. We highly recommend you do this – our testers found a notable difference in the bar's soundstage after calibration.

Streaming services such as Tidal and Amazon Music can also be played through the app, with Spotify Connect and Bluetooth 5.3 also supported.

Those who already have Harman Kardon products will want to listen up – the soundbar can wirelessly connect to the Enchant Sub and Enchant Speaker, with two Enchant speakers able to function as rear surrounds.

The Enchant 900 alone is more than up to the job, however, as upon booting it up, we are "greeted by an energetic, exciting sound", as our Harman Kardon Enchant 900 review states.

It's an immersive, room-filling sound that's much more spacious than our TV speakers, with remarkably clear vocals and a reasonably clean presentation.

It's not the most subtle soundbar, however, with the treble especially sounding rather coarse when pushed.

But if it's a big sound you're looking for, the Enchant 900 provides that in spades, with plenty of spaciousness and excitement to boot. It's also far easier to recommend in the crowded entry-level Dolby Atmos soundbar market now that it's £167 off at Peter Tyson.

MORE:

Read our review of the Sonos Beam (Gen 2)

Also consider the JBL Bar 300MK2

Read our Hisense AX5125H review

Specifically, the firm lifted the lid on its spiffy new Sonos Beam Ultra at the IFA trade show in Berlin.

Unveiled alongside the new Sonos Ace Ultra wireless headphones, I want to kick off this opinion piece by making clear: I think the Ultra looks impressive and is, in nearly every way, the successor we’ve been waiting for.

In fact, as our reviewer on the ground at IFA, Robyn Quick, rattled off the details about the bar to the team back home, all of us (outside of senior staff writer, Harry McKerrell, who’s always miserable) had a smile growing on our faces.

Upgraded drivers, including the addition of proper up-firing height channels? Yep, it’s got them.

The ability to add Sonos Era 100 or Era 300 satellite wireless speakers as surrounds? Yes, the awesome feature has finally trickled down from the Arc Ultra into the more affordable Beam range.

And as a cherry on top, Robyn then penned a feature detailing how it sounds. The top line is, while it’s too early to give our final verdict, the Ultra left a very strong opening impression – so much so that a game of rock, paper, scissors ensued among the team to decide who would be the primary reviewer (it ended in a stalemate).

All in all, it was huzzahs abound at What Hi-Fi? towers.

But then, one more fact came rumbling in that replaced our smiles with a quizzical expression. Specifically, the Ultra is not a replacement or successor to the Sonos Beam (Gen 2); it’s actually a new step-up model in Sonos’ range.

Yes, we don’t know how the Beam Ultra will perform in our test rooms, but truthfully, given the Beam 2’s age, this was a curveball for us.

Why would the company do that when the Beam 2 is so old? Surely, it’s time to let the old girl retire? These were some of the mutterings that came out of our mouths as we processed the information.

But as I pondered the question, a final bit of information trickled through from the launch event that, at least for me, explained the move.

The Beam Ultra is a lot more expensive, set to retail for £699 (around $946 / AU$1320). The Beam (Gen 2) – outside of big sales events where it’s dropped as low as £349 – usually retails for £429 / $429 in most stores right now.

Cash-rich people may laugh at the idea of going for a soundbar that launched in 2021, when a newer model is out. But truthfully, £160 / $160 is a lot of money for most of us right now.

As a person who has listened to the Beam (Gen 2) alongside newer rivals, I can confirm it is still a very competent unit. That’s why it remains the recommended small option in our best Dolby Atmos soundbars guide.

I cited the cost of living crisis as a key reason I don’t think we’re in a golden age of home cinema during our public debate on the topic earlier this year, and I stand by that sentiment.

So given that it still sounds good, keeping it around and giving normal people an entry point to Sonos’ ecosystem that won’t completely break the bank not only makes sense, but for me is 100 per cent the right thing to do.

It’s also why, even if the Beam Ultra delivers the sonic goods in our review rooms later this year, I can easily envision the Beam (Gen 2) retaining its recommendation. There are very few good, sub-£500 soundbars around and even fewer with the Beam’s compact form factor. So it’s definitely not beyond the realm of possibility…

MORE:

These are the best soundbars we’ve tested

We rank the best surround sound systems

Our picks of the best TVs

And while it may be tempting to wait a few more months, there are some record-low prices to be had already – including a whopping 50 per cent off a pair of multi-Award-winning headphones.

There’s plenty else to consider, though, including our 2025 TV Product of the Year, a new OLED favourite and a saving on Apple’s best AirPods.

Whatever you decide on, every product below has been tried and tested by our expert review team. Each device is compared to the market leaders, and only those with four stars or more get our sought-after recommendation.

So kick back this long weekend and enjoy some of the deals…

The Sony WH-1000XM5 premium noise-canceling headphones are great performers, and this fantastic half-price saving makes them even better value. The newer WH-1000XM6 have taken their place, but the XM5 are still very much recommended.

The LG C6 is one of our favorite TVs of the year so far, with a new processor delivering a brighter, richer and more refined OLED picture than its predecessor. If you’re looking for a mid-range OLED, this is the one to get, and its awesome gaming specs are ideal for GTA 6 in a few months.

If you’re looking to add streaming smarts to your TV or just upgrade its capabilities, then the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max (2nd Generation) is our video streamer Product of the Year and our top choice at this price range. The stick adds Amazon’s app-packed Fire OS, with a detailed, rich picture and support for all four HDMI formats.

The AirPods Pro 3 have it all, with spacious, powerful and dynamic sound, effective noise-canceling and a comfortable, lightweight design. If you have an iOS device, these are the AirPods we recommend, and you’ll get to enjoy the snappy, seamless synergy between the two.

JBL has been king of the portable Bluetooth speaker game for a while now, and the JBL Flip 7 is no different. With skilful handling of dynamics and rhythms, excellent build quality and a strong feature set that includes Auracast and lossless wired audio, there’s a lot on offer here.

The Sony Bravia 8 II is our current reigning TV champion, scooping the Product of the Year gong in this category thanks to its exceptionally bright, vibrant and three-dimensional picture, excellent shadow detail and cinematically authentic presets. We’ve been singing its praises for some time, so this discount is the perfect time to see what all the fuss is about.

MORE:

These are the best projectors out there

Check out the best TVs we have reviewed

And here are the three best OLED TVs

Below, you’ll find all the clues to our crossword, which packs in multiple TV terms to try and bamboozle you. Give it a go and see if you can record the fastest time and beat our own experts at their own game. Enjoy!

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Can you name all the types of hi-fi and AV cables from the photos?

How fast can you solve our turntable challenge? Test your wordsearch skills now

Can you name the first audio product from these 12 iconic hi-fi brands?

Can you name the first film in these home cinema formats?

The series consists of two models: the flagship Aura 3 Max and the step-down Aura 3 Pro.

Both projectors will support 4K/120Hz gaming with VRR and ALLM, and they each boast an RGB Triple Laser light engine, a claimed 8000:1 native contrast ratio, and Dynamic Dual Iris Technology for "unprecedented contrast, depth and detail".

Xgimi claims a 200-inch maximum projection size, with a 120-inch image possible from just eight inches away from the wall.

There's also Google TV built in, as well as support for HDR in the HLG, HDR10, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision formats. The projector is IMAX Enhanced certified as well.

Rather surprisingly, two pairs of 3D glasses are included for any remaining 3D fans out there, while audio is supplied by an 80W Harman Kardon speaker system with Dolby Atmos support.

Xgimi claims the Aura 3 Max can deliver brightness of up to 5700 ISO lumens, while the Aura 3 Pro tops out at 4100 ISO lumens. Prices are $2399 (around £1775 / AU$3335) and $2199 (around £1626 / AU$3057), respectively.

UST projectors have generally had to compromise on refresh rates at 4K, so the Aura 3 series will be particularly appealing to gamers looking for a TV replacement.

The AURA 3 Series will launch on Kickstarter on October 20th in the US, with pre-orders now open from Xgimi directly. Customers can unlock an extra $200 off by placing a $50 deposit.

MORE:

Read our Xgimi Titan review

The best projectors around

Ultra short throw projectors: everything you need to know

Since it burst onto the scene in 2021, the five-star soundbar has blown away the competition with its refined delivery of both movie soundtracks and stereo music.

We have been waiting patiently for a new model for ages now, and the time has finally come.

The Sonos Beam Ultra isn’t a replacement for the Beam Gen 2, but an upgraded model that will sit above it, and the big news is that, unlike its sibling, the Ultra sports dedicated up-firing speakers to aid in its delivery of Dolby Atmos sound.

In fact, the Beam Ultra has nine drivers in total – four more than the Beam Gen 2. These are arranged in what Sonos says is a 7.1.2-channel configuration.

The Ultra is launching on 29th September for £699 / $699 / AU$1099. That price puts it between the Beam Gen 2 (£449 / $449 / AU$649) and the also Award-winning Arc Ultra (£999 / $999 / AU$1799).

As with both of those sibling soundbars, the Beam Ultra can be upgraded through the addition of surrounds and/or a subwoofer, and you can easily jump from out-loud to personal listening if you also have a pair of Sonos’s Ace or new Ace Ultra headphones.

This is all great stuff on paper, but how does the Beam Ultra actually sound? We got a chance to hear it during a demo session in Berlin, and it certainly sounds promising.

Of course, we will save our final verdict until we get the bar into our acoustically treated test room for extensive, comparative testing, but these are our first impressions.

The demo kicked off with a Dolby Atmos mix of Harry Styles’ Ready, Steady, Go!. Harry’s vocals were clear, direct and expressive, immediately drawing us into the track.

The instrumentals were well placed around the soundfield, too, with the guitar plucking featured in the mid-section delivered with a strong sense of precision.

Next, we got a taste of how the soundbar performs with movies. Watching the scene in Sinners when Sammie summons spirits from the past, present and future, the up-firing drivers worked their magic and the sound could be felt well above the TV screen.

When the track I Lied To You reached its crescendo, it created a room-filling experience that was very impressive considering the size of the bar.

From our first listen, the bass was not the deepest, but the soundbar delivered refined and detailed lower frequencies that gave the demo scenes a strong foundation.

In terms of design, the bar is impressively lightweight and has a compact footprint. There are perforated grilles at the top of the soundbar for the up-firing drivers, and these look quite stylish. On the lip of the Beam Ultra you will find volume and Bluetooth controls, as well as play and pause 'buttons'.

As mentioned, we will of course wait until we have fully reviewed the new bar in our dedicated test room before we deliver our final verdict, but during this initial listening session, the Beam Ultra made all the right noises.

The big question is whether it's the perfect halfway house between the Beam Gen 2 and Arc Ultra or a soundbar stranded in no man's land between two awesome Award-winners. We should be in a position to answer that question very soon.

MORE:

Here are the 5 Beam Ultra things I’m most excited about – and my 3 disappointments

Here's our review of the Sonos Beam Gen 2

Could Sonos one day support DTS:X? “The door isn’t closed”

Quiz! I made a TV tech crossword to test your knowledge - can you get 100%?

However, rather than just the panel tech, it's the aggressive pricing that has caught our attention.

Prices start at $999 (around £740/ AU$1389) for the 55-inch Pro Series OLED and $1299 (around £962/ AU$180) for the Pro Series LX OLED.

The Roku Pro Series OLED is available in 55- and 65-inch sizes, and comes with a 120Hz panel with support for Dolby Vision, HDR10+ and HLG. Gaming features include ALLM, VRR, and FreeSync Premium, and it also supports Dolby Atmos.

The step-up Roku Pro Series LX OLED TV adds a 144Hz refresh rate, a Roku Voice Remote Pro, an advanced polariser to cut reflections and "a brighter picture and even wider range of colors".

Both TVs will run on the popular Roku platform. We've found the operating system to be simple to use but a little basic, but the use of adverts, such as automatic startup ads, has proved controversial before.

“OLED technology has been locked behind premium price tags, forcing many customers to choose between the display they want or a price that works for them,” said Chris Larson, Vice President, Retail Strategy, Roku. “We see a clear opportunity to change that equation. With the new Roku Pro Series OLED and LX OLED TVs, we’re removing that cost barrier and making a top-tier viewing experience genuinely accessible.”

Cheap, good OLED TVs have long been elusive. The only other 55-inch OLED TV we've tested around this price was the three-star Toshiba XF9F at £799. If the Pro Series OLED can deliver, it could be the closest thing to an "affordable" OLED around at this size – even the aggressively priced LG B6 is sitting at £899 right now.

The Roku Pro Series OLED is available now in the US at Amazon, with the Pro Series LX releasing in October.

We've reached out to Roku about UK availability and will update this page if we hear back.

MORE:

Check out our list of the best streaming devices

As well as the best streaming services for movies and TV

And the best OLED TVs

The UX1 bundles a soundbar, wireless subwoofer, and two wireless satellite speakers for a true surround sound experience, and Hisense claims it can output a staggering 1840W across the whole system.

The ethos behind this premium package is that Hisense wants to up its audio game to bring it in line with its premium TV offerings.

The company now sells made-to-order Micro LED sets and 116-inch RGB Mini LED TVs, so naturally it wants a premium audio offering that reflects its flagship products.

Hence the UX1's title – Hisense already offers the UX range of premium TVs, so this has been conceived as a dedicated audio companion for that range.

Generally speaking, Hisense is really paying attention to audio this year and, from what we've seen, next year, too – the Chinese tech giant's stand in Berlin had a whole section dedicated to soundbars, party boomboxes, and portable wireless speakers, so it looks as though the brand is taking sound seriously.

And the UX1 is clearly the most serious product of this new range, and I've walked away from the Hisense booth with three key thoughts on why it could be a genuine competitor for Samsung's dominant HW-Q990H system.

1. It's packed full of drivers

Hisense proudly touted the driver tech within this system during my stand tour, and I can see why.

This is an 11.2.6-channel system, and Hisense has packed 26 individual drive units into the soundbar, subwoofer, and surround speakers. 14 of those drivers appear to be in the main soundbar unit alone, with the rest embedded within the other components.

That includes side-firing and up-firing speakers within the soundbar and the surround speakers, which means that the UX1 should (in theory) have no issue presenting Dolby Atmos height effects.

We're anticipating the "bubble of sound" effect we look for in all premium soundbar systems here, so we're hoping the UX1 delivers.

2. It's taken some big bass inspiration

The subwoofer bundled with the UX1 uses an almost identical setup to the Samsung system. It sports dual opposing 8-inch woofers, which Hisense says will help to reduce unwanted bass distortion.

While I didn't get a chance to listen to the soundbar outside of some looping branded demo content, I have relatively high hopes for the bass performance, based on the specs.

That said, Hisense has taken a different approach to the design of its sub. Unlike the petite and polite Samsung subwoofer, this Hisense has quite the presence.

I think it wears its heft well, though: it combines sharp lines with smooth edges, and if the design facilitates better bass performance, then it makes sense to me.

3. It could be a high end version of a system we already love

Hisense struck gold with the AX5125H budget Dolby Atmos soundbar system, so think what it can do with a proper flagship version of that concept.

While that isn't always the case – sometimes budget products aren't indicative of their premium counterparts and vice versa, even when they come from the same company – I think it's fair to say that expectations are high based on our experience with the Award-winning budget package.

If Hisense can scale up the AX5125H into a flagship sound system, then Samsung could have a problem on its hands.

Pricing is, of course, crucial to figuring that part out, and with this being a 2027 product, we don't have that information right now.

That said, if I were Samsung right now, I'd be nervous. The HW-Q990H is a stellar soundbar system, but with fresh competition coming in 2027, the next version of that package might need to be more than an iterative update.

MORE:

Read our full Samsung HW-Q990H review

As well as our Hisense AX5125H review

And check out our picks for the best Dolby Atmos soundbars

Quiz! I made a TV tech crossword to test your knowledge - can you get 100%?

Four weeks on, the answers have come flooding in (many breaking our PG-13 language rule). But, to our surprise, unlike our team of testers, you are not only united in your belief we are not living in a golden age, you also (generally) agree on the reason why.

It’s all about physical media

The importance of physical media was a central point in all your arguments, which shouldn’t be a surprise given how vocal you (and we) are about the benefits of 4K Blu-ray over streaming.

This was initially expressed by reader “mrj6j”, who argued that, despite having a “proper” set-up that he’s spent years, even decades, honing, the age of streaming is a blemish he can’t ignore, which makes it impossible to call the current world a golden age.

“I have been into home cinema for a long time and agree we are at a point where it is more affordable, but mine has grown into a 4k projector in a dedicated room with a 7.2.4 Atmos set-up. And a 136-inch screen in total darkness. But this has taken a long time to grow into what it is today. But it is exceptional; it often sounds better than the cinema (I had it professionally calibrated), and I can enjoy it whenever,” wrote mrj6j.

“The problem is that the 4k discs are the best format, better than streaming without doubt. But do those with a home cinema set-up utilise this? They should, and more distributors should too.”

Reader Michael Peterson agreed, adding that even if you have a more modest set-up, as he does, the increased price and limited selection of 4K Blu-ray discs and players is an issue that stops the 2020s being a golden age for home cinema.

“I have an entry-level Samsung, my Sony receiver, Elac sub1010 and 8-inch speakers in a 2.1 set-up. I use my Xbox One S for Blu-ray and streaming. Good enough [for] me. 4K Blu-ray would be better if the prices of discs and players were more affordable and discs were more reliable,” he wrote.

But it wasn’t just about 4K Blu-ray; some readers, including Andrew Wood, argued: “Culturally [the golden age was], when you shuffled into town, to a shop, to hire or buy a video/DVD and then watched it on your wide-screen CRT TV with built-in 5.1.”

Our hot take

We agree; there is something undeniably special about physical media. At a technical level, we have long championed 4K Blu-ray. It offers a much higher bitrate, superior HDR and far less data compression than streaming, giving you a sharper, more detailed image in most instances. That’s why we use an ever-evolving library of 4K Blu-ray test discs when reviewing home cinema hardware. We even have a monthly Now Showing column where we detail the new movies we're using.

While none of us would go so far as to want to return to tapes and CRT TVs – read this feature chronicling our editor’s attempts to resurrect his VHS collection last year, and you’ll see why – we also agree there’s something emotionally special about physical media. Having it on a disc you own gives you a more personal, emotional attachment to the film, as rather than just clicking on something an algorithm’s decided you will like, you’ve chosen that film, specifically, at some point.

As Andrew Wood points out, there was also something truly magical about the Blockbuster years, when we had to physically go outside to rent a new movie. Many of the team are old enough to remember the experience, and have fond memories of the family trips (and arguments) we had going out to pick a new film to watch after the final school bell rang on Friday. That makes it hard not to agree that there is some substance to his argument that, "culturally", that was a golden age for film fans – even if the hardware was worse and it wasn’t as easy to find new films to watch.

MORE:

These are the best projectors we’ve reviewed

We rank the best surround sound systems

Our picks of the best Blu-ray players

And, I have to say, I think it broadly looks excellent, delivering pretty much everything that Beam owners like me have been asking for.

But ‘pretty much everything’ and ‘everything’ aren’t the same thing, and we always want more.

So, here are the five features of the Beam Ultra about which I’m most excited, and the three elements that I find slightly disappointing.

Good: up-firing drivers

This is the big one: the thing Sonos Beam owners have been clamouring for since the launch of the original model back in 2018 – dedicated up-firing drivers.

In fairness, the Beam Gen 2 does an excellent job of creating a Dolby Atmos effect with its front-firing drivers and clever virtualisation tech, but the Beam Ultra should be significantly better in this regard. I find that very exciting indeed.

Good: more drivers in general

The Beam Ultra actually features nine drivers, which is four more than the existing Beam Gen 2.

As well as the two up-firers, the new soundbar features a forward-firing driver, two side-firing drivers, and four woofers, arranged into what Sonos says is a 7.1.2-channel configuration.

This should bring improvements to spaciousness and directness as well as Dolby Atmos delivery – assuming Sonos has nailed the tuning, that is.

Good: compact dimensions

It might feature four more drivers than the Beam Gen 2, but the Beam Ultra is still impressively compact, measuring 6.5 x 75 x 10.5cm.

In other words, it’s only 10cm wider than the diminutive Beam Gen 2, which means it will still fit neatly below or in front of most TVs – even smaller models – and it won't visually dominate a typical living room.

Good: upgradability

As with Sonos’s previous soundbars, the Beam Ultra can be upgraded through the addition of a subwoofer and/or wireless surrounds, and the new model’s launch is coinciding neatly with a new feature called ‘Portable Surround’.

This, as the name suggests, will allow you to use two portable speakers – the Play and Move 2 are compatible – as surrounds with one of Sonos’s soundbars.

Why does that matter? If you use a pair of non-portable speakers (Era 300s or Era 100s, for example) as surrounds, that's likely all they’ll ever be. Use portable speakers, though, and they can be picked up and used as music speakers anywhere in or out of the house. That’s much better value for money.

Good: new app

The launch of the Beam Ultra is also coinciding neatly with the launch of the new Sonos app, called Sonos 27.

Sonos is promising fancy features such as integration with any and all AI chatbots, so you can control your system via ChatGPT if you like, but, frankly, I’m just excited for the promised usability overhaul.

I still find the current Sonos app a real pig to operate, so I can’t wait to see how Sonos has (hopefully) improved things.

Disappointing: no HDMI passthrough

Look, I wasn’t expecting Sonos to add HDMI passthrough – I don’t think this is a feature that Sonos will ever support – but that doesn’t mean I’m not disappointed that it’s not been added.

I own a TV with just two HDMI 2.1 inputs, and one of those doubles as the eARC port. Once that’s taken up by a soundbar, I have just the one left. Seeing as I have both a PS5 and an Xbox Series X, that’s a bit of a pain in the bum, and it wouldn’t be if the soundbar just had a dedicated HDMI input and 4K/120Hz passthrough.

For Sonos, though, simplicity is key, so I think the single HDMI socket is here to stay.

Disappointing: no DTS:X

Again, this isn’t something I was expecting, and I don’t actually think a lack of DTS:X in the context of a mid-range soundbar is actually that big a deal, but it would still be better to have than not, especially as there are rivals that offer both Dolby Atmos and DTS:X.

That said, Sonos hasn't completely ruled out adding DTS:X support in the future.

Disappointing: a fairly high price

Whether the Beam Ultra is good value will ultimately depend on how it sounds, but at £699 / $699 / AU$1099, it certainly looks expensive on paper.

There are rivals from the likes of JBL and Harman Kardon that offer up-firing drivers and similar driver configurations for around the same money as the Beam Gen 2. If the Beam Ultra had simply replaced the Beam Gen 2 at its £449 / $449 / AU$649 price, it would be exceptionally tempting.

At £699 / $699 / AU$1099, though, Sonos is asking us to pay a significant premium, and the new soundbar is going to have to deliver some seriously impressive performance to justify it.

In fairness, this is nothing new for Sonos, which typically prioritises performance over specs – let's see if it's got the formula right again when we get the Beam Ultra in for review.

MORE:

“We know the home, we know audio, we know music” – we speak to Sonos about its operating system rebrand, its "customer-led" focus and app updates

Sonos Ace Ultra feature all-new drivers, updated ANC, and a "direct connection" to the current Sonos ecosystem

Here are the best Dolby Atmos soundbars you can buy right now

Two versions of the Canvas soundbar are available with this particular TV model – the standard Canvas with 1000W of Class D amplification, or the larger Canvas L with a staggering 1500W.

The Samsung HiFi S99H will make its debut at IFA 2026 in Berlin this week, and will be available in 55-, 65-, 77-, and 83-inch sizes.

Prices start at $7,999 (UK and AU$ are TBC) – we tested the 55in version of this TV at £2499 / $2500 / AU$3999 back in June, so you can see this HiFi version is very much a premium product.

A fixed floor stand or wall mount is included, and there's an optional rotating floor stand available in aluminium or black.

Samsung has described the S99H HiFi as "more than simply the combination of a TV and a sound system.

The ambition is to create a new category in which true HiFi, picture quality and furniture design are developed as one integrated solution — developed for consumers who do not want to choose between performance and interior design."

We've previously tested the Canvas HiFi 65 soundbar and were very impressed by its clear, detailed sound and excellent handling of voices. We're yet to test the Canvas L, which Canvas HiFi has marketed as the "world's first audiophile soundbar".

Both Canvas soundbars are stereo, but include Baach's 3D audio processing to create a wider and more immersive soundstage.

In our Samsung S99H review, we gave the flagship OLED five stars, but noted that the audio lacked volume and bass weight. The HiFi S99H looks to rectify this shortcoming.

The Samsung HiFi S99H will be available in selected Canvas showrooms from October, with the Canvas L version available later this year.

MORE:

Read our Canvas HiFi Canvas 65 review

Our pick of the best TVs you can buy for every budget, from flagship OLEDs to budget Mini LED sets

And here are the best soundbars you can buy with your own money

Thankfully, it looks like my patience has paid off, as Sonos has finally announced a new version of its compact Beam Dolby Atmos soundbar, and upon first impression, it's exactly what I've been waiting for.

The Sonos Beam Ultra takes the concept of the Award-winning Beam Gen 2 and elevates it; and I mean that in a literal sense.

While the Beam Gen 2 sported a five-speaker array with four elliptical mid-range drivers and a single tweeter, the Beam Ultra takes things up a notch with nine drivers in a 7.1.2 arrangement. That includes two upward-firing drivers for the first time on a Sonos Beam.

This upgrade was top of my wish list for a new Sonos Beam. While the Gen 2's advanced psychoacoustic processing delivers a surprisingly convincing Dolby Atmos experience, it's hard to beat dedicated height channels when it comes to delivering a proper "dome of sound" effect.

The addition of up-firing drivers brings the Beam Ultra closer to the Arc Ultra in many ways. Taking Sonos' usually excellent sound tuning into account, I'm really hoping that the Beam Ultra will deliver the height I felt was missing on the Beam Gen 2 after years of waiting.

However, there's one missing upgrade that has tempered my excitement ever so slightly. Specifically, the firm's SoundMotion woofer technology.

As we mentioned in our Sonos Arc Ultra review, this smaller, redesigned bass driver features "four smaller, lightweight motors in opposing corners" which are "able to push the cone to shift far more air and produce far more bass".

As a result, the Arc Ultra delivers "deep, tuneful and expressive bass", and it's a noticeable difference compared to the original Arc soundbar.

A smaller, more efficient bass driver seems like a perfect fit for the Beam, especially given the footprint of the soundbar. The Beam is also starting to see challengers in the market when it comes to bass performance, so a low-end upgrade would have been appreciated.

Despite this, Sonos appears not to have outfitted the Beam Ultra with its SoundMotion bass tech, which feels like a missed opportunity to me.

That's not to say the Beam Ultra won't deliver better bass. We'll only know if it is better in that metric when we run the two head-to-head in our review rooms. I just think the Arc Ultra tech would have been a great fit for the new Beam, considering our positive experience with it.

Nevertheless, the Beam Ultra is shaping up to be the compact Atmos-equipped soundbar that I've been waiting for, and I can't wait to hear it in action.

MORE:

Read our full Sonos Beam Gen 2 review

Here are the best Dolby Atmos soundbars

As well as the best cheap soundbars

One of the coolest things about the Beam Ultra is that, unlike the Beam Gen 2, it has dedicated up-firing speakers for a more involving Dolby Atmos delivery.

Dolby Atmos isn't the only 3D audio format in town, though. DTS:X is a serious alternative, and one that's particularly popular with home cinema enthusiasts, yet Sonos has resolutely refused to support it on any of its speakers.

Given the chance to speak with Brandon Holley, Sonos’s Senior Director of Product, ahead of the Beam Ultra’s launch, we asked about that.

“Beam Ultra doesn’t support DTS:X at this time”, he said.

But could it (and other Sonos speakers) do so one day?

“It’s definitely a question that we ask ourselves, and it’s one of the many features, codecs and partnerships that we’re constantly entertaining. The door isn’t closed to any of those particular things”.

I realise that all seems a bit "nothing to see here", but I actually took some encouragement from the way Holley said it, and I genuinely believe this is a discussion that Sonos is having regularly.

It’s always seemed slightly odd to me that Sonos – a brand that has had format and service agnosticism at its core from its inception – would support Dolby Atmos and not DTS:X.

Sure, DTS:X is comparatively niche, but so are a large number of the streaming services that the Sonos ecosystem supports.

I wouldn't be surprised if DTS:X eventually found its way onto Sonos speakers. The more pressing question, though, is whether the Sonos Beam Ultra is any good in its own right.

We intend to answer that question by putting it through our comparative review process just as soon as possible.

MORE:

Sonos' new Beam soundbar is finally here with a big Dolby Atmos upgrade – but there’s still something missing

Sonos Ace Ultra feature all-new drivers, updated ANC, and a "direct connection" to the current Sonos ecosystem

Here are the best Dolby Atmos soundbars you can buy right now

The new Beam Ultra was unveiled at a pre-launch press event today and sits in the same family as the more premium Arc Ultra, which came out in 2024.

The “mid-size soundbar” boasts a 7.1.2-channel configuration. This includes two up-firing drivers.

The up-firing drivers are a key upgrade over the older Beam Gen 2, which didn't feature them.

Despite the upgrade, there is still no DTS:X support. The omission isn't a huge surprise, as none of the company’s soundbars features it, but it is a bit of a shame for those wanting comprehensive surround sound options.

When asked whether Sonos would add DTS:X in the future, Senior Director of Product Development at Sonos, Brandon Holley told us: "The door isn't closed for us, but just in terms of delivering the value that we think our customers are specifically asking for, that's what Beam Ultra has today."

The Beam Ultra also features a redesigned centre channel and four levels of AI Speech Enhancement to help it deliver clearer dialogue.

There’s also a Night Sound setting if you don’t want to disturb the neighbours, which should compress the bar's dynamic range. Once again, the firm's Trueplay calibration is on hand to fine-tune the sound to your space.

You can also link the Beam Ultra with other Sonos products to create a multi-room listening experience, including the newly announced Sonos Ace Ultra over-ear headphones.

Holley added that the firm has worked to ensure the Beam Ultra delivers better audio with music, telling us: "We treat music as important as we do home theatre performance, and so we want it to sound great musically as a soundbar as well."

That's something we found to be true with Sonos' previous models, so we are hopeful it will be the same with the new addition.

The Beam Ultra will be available in two finishes (black and white) and you can mount the bar to your wall or simply place it in front of your TV. We don't have its full dimensions yet, but Holley told us that the Beam Ultra has been intentionally designed not to block the TV screen, even if it is sitting on the surface.

So, how much will the new soundbar set you back? In the UK, the Beam Ultra will launch at £699 (around $946 / AU$1320). That means it sits between the Sonos Arc Ultra and the Sonos Beam Gen 2, which launched at £999 / $999 / AU$1799 and £449 / $449 / AU$649, respectively. The base Beam Gen 2 will remain on sale, sitting below the Ultra in Sonos' range.

We haven't managed to get the Beam Ultra into our test room yet, but we should have a chance to get up close with it very soon at the IFA trade show in Berlin. Watch this space.

MORE:

Check out our review of the Sonos Beam Gen 2

These are the best Dolby Atmos soundbars

And here are the best soundbars we recommend

Not only does it focus on convenience and is incredibly easy to set up, but it also delivers a bright, punchy 4K picture and outstanding built-in sound.

And now you can get all of that with a solid discount, too. The C2 Ultra is down to £1599 at Sevenoaks, a £200 drop from the £1799 price we tested it at only last week.

And there's more. You even get an Xbox Design Lab Controller and 1 month of Game Pass thrown in for free, so you can take advantage of the projector's many gaming features.

The Hisense C2 Ultra clearly has portability in mind, and this is reflected in the design. It's compact at 29 x 25 x 25cm (hwd), and even comes with a neat cloth carry bag.

Constantly moving a projector around can involve constant set-up adjustments, but Hisense makes this as smooth as possible. The C2 Ultra can rotate a full 360 degrees on its circular base, for starters, and its cradle design supports a generous 135 degrees of vertical tilt.

The Auto Magic AI Adjusting 2.0 system is also one of the most straightforward AI set-up systems we've seen, with a genuine plug-and-play experience that seldom needs any manual intervention.

The triple-laser DLP projector is rated to deliver up to 3000 lumens of brightness and claims to support huge image sizes of up to 300 inches. The larger you go, the more brightness you lose, though, and we found 100-150 inches to be the sweet spot.

The built-in Vidaa smart platform isn't quite as sophisticated as Google TV, but it does boast all the major domestic and international streaming services as well as Freely.

There's also support for all four HDR formats – including HDR10+ and Dolby Vision – a rarity for a projector, as well as an IMAX Enhanced picture preset.

Gaming features include ALLM, 240Hz refresh rate support, and a measured 34.4ms of input lag in Game mode with a 60Hz signal. Ideal for that bundled Xbox controller, then.

And it's not all features over performance – the picture the Hisense produces is still effortlessly watchable.

As our Hisense C2 Ultra review reads: "The C2 Ultra’s HDR images are bright, for starters, making full use of the available 3000 lumens to deliver images that look both excellently punchy in a dark environment, and strong enough to hold their own, retaining good colour saturation and solidity, even in fairly bright living room conditions."

Our only issue was a cloak of greyness in some uniformly dark scenes, and a moderate level of rainbow effect in bright highlights.

It's the sound that really impresses for a projector, however – the unusually powerful, 40W JBL sound system delivers a remarkable amount of bass, as well as a palpable sense of three-dimensionality for Dolby Atmos.

The Hisense C2 Ultra is absolutely stacked with features as well as being extremely user-friendly. Given how much you get for the price, this really is a bargain – and even more so with £200 at Sevenoaks.

MORE:

Read our BenQ W2720i review

Also read our BenQ TK705i review

Our pick of the best projectors across a range of prices

How to set up your projector and get the best picture

They can deliver bigger images and usually cost much less than the largest TVs, and do so while sat just inches from your screen, rather than having to squat in the middle of your living room.

It’s also easy to see why Hisense UST projectors in particular have done so well.

Hisense has more experience with them than most brands, which now typically pays off in superior performance levels, and it has the economies of scale to sell UST projectors more cheaply than most rivals.

Even by Hisense’s standards, though, the PT1 is quite the head turner, offering full tri-chroma (RGB) laser projection, built-in Vidaa smarts, a premium design and a potent integrated sound system for just £1599 in the UK.

Is this really Hisense’s biggest bargain to date, though, or does the price come with strings attached?

Price

The Hisense PT1’s £1599 / $2199 / AU$2500 price is aggressive for any UST projector, never mind one as well specified and richly featured as this one.

If your projector doesn’t need to be a UST model, Hisense has a strong ‘coffee table’ offering in the shape of the C2 Ultra, while BenQ’s Award-winning W2720i is a strong rival if you’re after a projector focused more on a dedicated home theatre approach.

Design

The PT1 doesn't stray too far from the conventional rectangular UST projector design, with speakers on the front edge and a lens slit on top. That's quite a contrast to models such as the futuristic AWOL Vision Aetherion Max and gleaming metallic Leica Cine 1.

It offers enough eye-catching refinement in its build quality and the crisp bronze metallic trim and side detailing, though, to look like it should cost more than it does.

Hisense’s love affair with UST projectors started with the notion that when partnered with a screen they could essentially replace the traditional TV set, so it’s no great surprise to find the PT1 shipping with pretty much the same long, sleekly finished and button-packed remote control you get with the brand’s latest premium TVs. It even has the same solar recharging panel at the bottom of its front edge, and a series of buttons for directly accessing various streaming apps.

Features

As a UST projector, the PT1 is capable of producing images as large as 150 inches when sat just inches from your wall. However, thanks to a slightly restrained claimed peak brightness of 2500 lumens (less than you get with Hisense’s cheaper PL2 UST model), you’re probably better off thinking of 120 inches or so as being the maximum image size this projector can stretch to while retaining the sort of punchy images you’ll likely want in today’s HDR world.

Talking of HDR, the PT1 joins other current Hisense laser projectors in supporting all four of the main HDR formats: HLG, HDR10, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. Such comprehensive HDR support remains uncommon in the projector world, and it means the PT1 will always play the best version of any HDR content you feed it. It’s able to apply dynamic tone mapping to HDR10 content, too, in a bid to optimise such images to the projector’s capabilities.

The PT1 is capable of playing 4K images through its 2.07 million micro mirror DLP optical engine courtesy of Texas Instruments' XPR technology (a combination of pixel shifting and fast DLP mirror ‘flashing’), and its light comes from three separate lasers, one for each of the red, green and blue colour elements.

This is the most important way it differs from the cheaper PL2 model, which only uses single-element laser lighting, and it should enable the PT1 to produce a much wider colour range.

In fact, Hisense claims it can reproduce 110 per cent of the AV world’s most extreme (and actually rarely used) BT.2020 spectrum, making full coverage of the smaller DCI-P3 spectrum typically used in HDR mastering well within its reach.

The PT1 also carries an AI Colour mode that claims to fine-tune every frame to deliver, in Hisense’s words, “richer, more accurate colours that go beyond what typical displays can offer”.

The PT1's built-in smart system is the ninth generation of Hisense’s own Vidaa platform. While Vidaa might not be the most glamorous or ‘intelligent’ smart system on the market, it is straightforwardly organised and presented, making it relatively easy to use.

It also carries all the main global and UK apps, including the relatively new Freely UK platform that lets you livestream most of the UK’s terrestrial broadcaster channels rather than having to depend on an aerial to receive them. This is particularly handy given that the PT1 no longer sports the digital tuner input you used to get on Hisense’s earliest laser TV projectors.

Connections are still decent, though. They include three HDMI ports (two with ‘enhanced’ HDMI 2.1 gaming features), a USB-C port, an optical digital audio output, a headphone jack and a LAN port. There's also wi-fi and Bluetooth support, including Apple AirPlay.

Home theatre fans will be pleased to hear that the PT1’s available picture presets include both Filmmaker and IMAX Enhanced modes, while gamers will appreciate the projector’s support for 240Hz frame rates (at HD resolution), 4K resolution at 120Hz refresh rates, ALLM switching, and a reasonably speedy (for a projector) measured input lag of 37.1ms with 60Hz feeds in the default Game mode.

This input lag can be reduced, too, to 20.4ms if you activate the DLP Turbo feature in the picture menus. Activating DLP Turbo, though, switches off all your auto and manual keystone correction work – not ideal for us given the unexpected difficulties we experienced with getting the PT1’s provided auto keystone correction feature to get the edges of the images straight.

The relatively deep and substantial bodywork associated with UST projectors often helps them integrate substantial sound systems, and the PT1 sports an unusual 2.0.2 channel arrangement, where the two main front-firing speakers are partnered with a pair of up-firing units. Total amplification is 46 watts.

Picture quality

If you’re careful which settings you use, the PT1 is capable of delivering plenty of the impressively natural, balanced and refined pictures we’ve come to expect from Hisense UST projectors.

Provided you use its Filmmaker Mode or IMAX Enhanced presets with HDR10 footage, and the Dark Dolby Vision setting with Dolby Vision content, images enjoy a wonderfully no-nonsense and essentially glitch-free quality.

This is expertly built on a combination of remarkably deep and consistent blacks for such an affordable UST projector. There is excellent sharpness and texturing with both native 4K and upscaled HD sources; and eye-catchingly natural skin tones of the sort that elude so many other similarly affordable projectors.

Motion with 24p movie sources looks natural out of the box in the presets we’ve just recommended too, without the need to mess around with any motion compensation settings.

Both the Filmmaker Mode and IMAX Enhanced presets default to the Film option for the PT1’s Ultra Smooth Motion setting, confirming the sense we’ve got from other recent Hisense projectors that this Film setting is now one of the most cinematic movie motion presets in the projector world.

However, while the Filmmaker Mode, IMAX Enhanced and Dolby Vision Dark modes are endlessly watchable in pretty much fully blacked out rooms, they look a little dim and dull in any even half-bright living room environment.

This doesn’t matter, of course, if you’re looking for a projector to go into a dedicated home cinema room, but UST projectors such as the PT1 are typically positioned as lifestyle options, designed to cope with bright as well as dark room settings. So, while the PT1’s lack of brightness versus most UST projectors might actually serve its pictures well when it comes to their excellent black levels, they become a limitation if you’re looking for a UST projector to essentially take the place of a living room television. Don’t forget, either, that if you try to push the PT1’s pictures towards the biggest extremes of its claimed screen size range, the picture will shed significantly more brightness.

It’s perhaps telling that if you go into the PT1’s Screen Type menu, the only options available are Wide Angle ALR screen, High Gain ALR Screen 1, High Gain ALR Screen 2, and No Screen. There’s no option for a relatively neutral or negative gain screen of the sort a home cinema purist might prefer to use, perhaps acknowledging that the PT1’s limited brightness needs extra ‘help’ from whatever surface it’s being projected onto.

We were able to confirm that the PT1’s most accurate image modes do indeed benefit from a brightness boost when projected onto the 120-inch AWOL Vision Cinematic+ ALR Motorised floor-rising acoustic screen. However, the screen’s relatively high gain made dark scenes look a little less convincing in a dark room than they did on our usual almost-neutral-gain screen.

It also adds to the overall cost of the projector set-up, of course, as a good-quality ALR (Ambient Light Reflecting) screen is considerably more expensive than a regular neutral-gain screen.

Naturally, the PT1 has picture settings that can push the picture quite significantly harder in terms of brightness and colour saturation than the relatively accurate modes we’ve recommended so far. Using the HDR Standard, HDR Dynamic or, to a lesser extent, Dolby Vision Bright modes, however, has a really quite strange impact on the projector’s colour performance, with the tones that generally looked so balanced and authentic in Filmmaker Mode especially suddenly starting to take on some quite ‘off’ tones.

A kind of bluish green hue tends to dominate the overall tone of the HDR Standard setting, while skin sometimes takes on the sort of tones you only see in the real world with people who’ve spent way too long on a sun bed.

For example, the leaden skies over Los Angeles as Agent K heads to the old orphanage in Blade Runner 2049 take on a curious purple hue at times, and what should be subtle tonal differences become overstated, drawing too much attention to themselves by simply not looking subtle or authentic enough.

The brighter settings do create a more HDR feeling with HDR sources, including giving peak bright highlights impressive punch for a display technology that doesn’t have any local dimming processing to draw on. The overcooked nature of some of the colour tones is reduced a little by the natural desaturating effect of ambient light, too, if you’re in a non-blacked-out space.

Overall, though, we don’t find the Standard and Dynamic HDR10 settings and Dolby Vision Bright modes as truly engaging and immersive as we would have liked while using the projector in day-to-day living room conditions.

The PT1’s brighter presets also cause an increase in the rainbow effect, where the DLP projector engine causes stripes of pure red, green and blue to flit over stand-out bright objects, though it is far from the worst offender we’ve seen in this respect.

Sound quality

You certainly can’t accuse the PT1 of not trying to deliver a compelling audio performance to go with its king-sized pictures. In fact, if anything, it tries a bit too hard.

At first hearing, you’re immediately impressed by two striking audio achievements: loudness and the size of the soundstage. The speakers mounted on the projector’s front edge drive their sound forward with impressive power and volume, easily filling the gap between the projector and seating position with a potently expressed three-dimensional space.

The smaller up-firing speakers built into the PT1’s top are a little less well-rounded, but they deliver a palpable sense of height and plenty of subtle placement details within the resulting vertical wall of sound. Cooling fan noise, meanwhile, is noticeable by its absence, even during the quietest movie scenes.

Lower mid-range sounds are rich and rounded, too. The projector can even deliver enough bass to give big movie moments a level of heft and scale not found on most integrated TV and projector sound systems.

The only problem is that this bass doesn’t know when to stop, sometimes trying so enthusiastically to reproduce the movie world’s most foundation-troubling low-frequency sounds that the speakers either collapse in on themselves, so that the overall sound becomes swallowed and muted, or succumb to distracting crackles and buzzes.

Deep male voices can sound a bit thick and dominant, too, though we can finish on the good note the audio mostly deserves by adding that voices sound connected with the action on the screen, rather than as if they’re coming from the speakers below.

Verdict

The Hisense PT1 is yet another highly competent projector from Hisense. In its most accurate, dark room-friendly picture settings, in fact, it’s rather more than competent, delivering excellent images for its money, with outstanding black levels and natural colours.

Its relative lack of brightness compared with many of today’s UST projectors, though, together with some colour issues when using its brightest picture settings, make the PT1 less of a dark room/bright room all-rounder than people looking for the convenience of a UST projector might want it to be.

SCORES

• Picture 4
• Sound 4
• Features 4

MORE:

Read our review of the Hisense C2 Ultra

Also consider the BenQ W2720i

Read our Hisense PL2 review

Best projectors: the best options tested by our home cinema experts

And I couldn't be happier; that's what home cinema is all about in my opinion, and I'm always keen to host so that I can preach (and more importantly show off) the benefits of OLED to my not-so-AV-savvy mates.

While I usually get met with raised eyebrows when I mention the price of OLED TVs, after demonstrating the inherent benefits of OLED, the unanimous sentiment amongst my friends is along the lines of "yeah... I need one of these".

While I have convinced a couple of friends to splurge on an OLED TV already, at the end of the day that price factor is the hardest sell, especially to a group of twenty-somethings living in cramped London house shares.

That said, I usually end up getting a message shortly after they return home to their LCD TV complaining that I've ruined every other TV for them; and no, I am not sorry.

That's why I'm almost always urging them to save up and treat themselves to an upgrade, and I now have a secret weapon to tempt my mates into joining me on team OLED.

My friends and I are all keen gamers, and there's this little game launching in November that we're all quite excited for; it's called Grand Theft Auto VI, you might have heard of it.

As such, the current buzz in our group chats is upgrading our gear to experience the game at its best, including its stunning visuals. This conversation has ramped up since Thursday night's Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look, which premiered on Netflix and gave us a glimpse at the vibrant visuals of Rockstar Games' latest flagship title.

Frame rates and fidelity have now become major talking points, and the few friends of mine that don't already own a PS5 are now locked into purchasing one ahead of the 19th of November.

My advice to friends who already own a PS5 but want to upgrade a key component for GTA VI is to upgrade their TV or monitor; and of course, I'm pushing them towards OLED.

The perfect blacks, pixel-level contrast control, and superb response time of OLED make it a perfect panel technology for gaming, and I think the most anticipated game of the decade is a good excuse to take the plunge.

I've also touted the benefits of upgrading to a newer HDMI 2.1-equipped TV, too; most of my friends didn't know what VRR and ALLM were, let alone that their consoles had these features. And, of course, I've already assured them that these sets will exceed expectations when it comes to movies and sports too.

My recommendations are currently down to these three models, all of which are perfectly suited to all content:

The LG C6 is my current top pick; it comes in a range of sizes including a desktop-friendly 42-inch version, and it's one of the best-equipped TVs on the gaming market.

However, a stellar budget alternative is the Philips OLED760, which sports an impressive set of gaming specs and Ambilight, and it's under £1000 for the 55-inch model currently.

And the Samsung S99H is probably the most impressive TV I've seen this year. It happens to support up to eight full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 sockets if you purchase the wireless One Connect system, and the picture performance is simply stunning. That said, the price will put many (my friends included) off.

If you're eyeing up a home cinema upgrade in preparation for GTA VI later this year, then my advice remains: you'd be hard-pressed to go wrong with any of the OLEDs I've mentioned above.

Now, my next task is to talk them into getting Dolby Atmos sound systems, but that's a discussion for another day...

MORE:

Read our full LG C6 65-inch review

Check out our picks for the best OLED TVs

Find the best OLED TV deals here

Whether you've owned them all or have only just started, we've put together a little quiz about the films that were notable firsts in home cinema.

They could be the first on a particular format, the first to have notable surround sound technology, or experimental releases that were pioneers in terms of 3D or frame rates.

It's multiple choice, so there's no need to worry about knowing exact answers – you have a one in four chance either way.

So what are you waiting for? Put your home cinema history knowledge to the test...

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Quiz! Can you name all the types of hi-fi and AV cables from the photos?

Quiz! Can you remember when these pioneering AV products first came out?

Quiz! How fast can you solve our turntable challenge? Test your wordsearch

Our main issue was the price, with the Sony Bravia 7 II model competing with new mid-range OLEDs at its £1999 launch price. Now, however, the price is much more palatable thanks to a beefy £721 discount, which sees the TV now available for £1279 at Argos.

Use the code RED20 to get this price, and you'll be rewarded with a bright, vibrant picture with excellent depth. You can also claim triple Nectar points on this purchase, too!

RGB Mini LED, for the uninitiated, is next-gen TV panel technology that uses independent red, green and blue LEDs rather than filtering a blue LCD layer.

And after extensive testing of the Sony, the benefits over traditional Mini LED were clear.

"When this TV is in its element, it becomes possible to forget that this is a backlit TV, as the RGB Mini LED system doesn’t distract or detract from the experience," our Sony Bravia 7 II review reads,

"This extends to general blooming control, which is extremely impressive by prevailing standards.

In a shot from Oppenheimer in which the nuclear bomb testing site is lit up at night by a series of spotlights, we find that the halos of light that we’ve seen time and time again on other backlit TVs have been strictly confined."

Sony's typically excellent picture tuning is also on display here, with balance and subtlety applied to the punchy colours so they don't appear overblown.

Motion handling is also particularly impressive, but it's the solidity and depth that really blew us away. Sony's Bravia XR Processor is renowned for its ability to capture three-dimensional depth, with a screening of No Time To Die giving a tangible sense of solidity that we rarely see.

The Bravia 7 II is stacked with features too – fittingly from the makers of the PlayStation, there's plenty for gamers to enjoy. Four HDMI sockets with ALLM are on offer, two of which have full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 sockets with 4K/120Hz gameplay and VRR support.

The built-in Google TV operating system has all the major domestic and international streaming services, while the Bravia 7 II supports the HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision HDR formats, with only HDR10+ missing.

Sony's usually impressive built-in audio has faltered slightly here, however. There's a good sense of clarity and detail, but the system struggles dynamically. Once again, we'd recommend a good soundbar or sound system if you want to make the most of this package.

While the Bravia 7 II is a fair bit cheaper now, you can still get a good OLED for a similar price. We'd recommend looking at the LG C5 for better contrast, black levels and viewing angles.

But, if you are happy with a high-tech backlit set, then the Sony Bravia 7 II is one of the best we've tested. It gets plenty right on the picture front, and is as appealing as ever now it's £721 off at Argos.

MORE:

Fancy an OLED? Check out our LG C6 review

And read the verdict of our TCL C8K review

Our pick of the best TVs across a range of prices

RGB Mini LED: all you need to know about the TV panel tech that could defeat OLED

If you're a fan of home cinema, then there's a good chance that a movie has (hopefully) touched you in some way or stuck with you over the years.

But how many films have actually changed home cinema?

There are many great reference discs out there which have surely opened some people's eyes to the possibilities of truly immersive home cinema, but only a handful of film titles can lay claim to have impacted the industry.

We're going to go through some of the most notable firsts in home cinema below, as well as a few pioneering titles which single-handedly changed the industry.

It's an interesting mix of absolute classics, smaller innovators and a few films you probably wouldn't expect. See how many you own...

1976: The first-ever VHS is... disputed

So what was the first film to kickstart the home media revolution? Well, no one's really sure. A long-standing rumour suggests that South Korean drama The Young Teacher came out on tape in 1976, shortly after JVC released the technology, but this claim has been widely contested.

The first Western releases are a bit more certain – Magnetic Video released the first 50 titles in a wave in 1977, which included classics such as M*A*S*H, Patton and Hello, Dolly!

1995: Batman and Jack Ryan bring surround sound home

Okay, bear with us here – surround sound technically entered our living rooms in the 1980s, when Dolby Surround and Dolby Pro Logic used a matrix to decode stereo into multi-channel sound. But surround sound as we know it today, with completely separate, discrete channels, came a bit later.

Batman Returns made history in 1992 as the first film to be released in cinemas in what is now Dolby Digital, making digital sound and 5.1 the new standard. However, it wasn't until the 1995 release of Clear And Present Danger on LaserDisc that a discrete Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound track was available on home media.

Dolby Digital would then, of course, become the audio specification for DVD, and is still in use today, even if it has been superseded by the object-based Dolby Atmos.

1996: DVD arrives with a Harrison Ford double bill

DVD premiered in Japan with four titles in December 1996: Eraser, The Fugitive, Assassins and the fittingly futuristic Blade Runner: The Final Cut.

The format reached the US a few months later in March 1997, with 32 titles on launch day, including Twister, which became the top-selling DVD of the year and a notable early demo disc for the format.

DVD arrived in the UK in June 1997, when former What Hi-Fi? staff members were distinctly unimpressed with the Thomson DTH-1000U in our first-ever DVD player review. We were limited to region 2 imports from Japan at the time, however – DVDs didn't hit UK shops until 1998, when Mars Attacks! topped the first UK DVD chart.

Sony would later add a DVD drive to the PlayStation 2 in 2000, which would launch a DVD boom – with veteran AV experts contending that home cinema really took off when the disc-based format arrived. While DVD (and most physical media) is undoubtedly facing some challenges, they're still being made and released 30 years later – a lifetime in AV terms.

1997: DTS roars into home cinemas with Jurassic Park

We're sure many home cinema fans are familiar with DTS. But did you know the dinosaur mega-hit Jurassic Park played a key role in its development? Not content with revolutionising digital effects, director Steven Spielberg did the same for digital sound too, investing in the creation of DTS to showcase the film's sound design and various dinosaur roars.

This resulted in Jurassic Park becoming the first film to debut in cinemas with DTS surround sound in 1993, and also claiming the title of the first DTS home video release when it debuted on LaserDisc in 1997.

Dolby Digital and DTS have had a heated rivalry ever since, with DTS also creating several more advanced versions – including their own object-based codec, DTS: X.

2006: Adam Sandler and Arnie bring us Blu-ray

With Sony set to kit out the then-upcoming PlayStation 3 with a Blu-ray disc drive, it's no surprise that the Japanese tech giant also led the charge when it came to the discs themselves in June 2006.

50 First Dates, The Fifth Element, Hitch, House of Flying Daggers, Underworld: Evolution and xXx were the very first Blu offerings courtesy of Sony, along with MGM's The Terminator.

A real mixed bag then (was anyone who purchased a ludicrously expensive early Blu-ray player reaching for an Adam Sandler rom-com?), and HD-DVD arguably had a stronger launch line-up with The Last Samurai, Million Dollar Baby, The Phantom Of The Opera and Serenity earlier that year.

However, we all know how that one went – HD-DVD waved the white flag in February 2008, and Blu-ray continues to be sold to this day, though it's of course competing with its successor...

2010: Avatar leads the 3D charge

Avatar was not, in fact, the first 3D Blu-ray – that honour goes to Monsters Vs Aliens in 2010, which was initially only available with Samsung 3D TVs or Blu-ray players.

However, almost anyone who invested in 3D home theatre technology at the time (which wasn't many, let's be honest) did so because of the Avatar effect, hoping to recreate the visual splendour of James Cameron's blockbuster at home. Avatar would have its 3D home premiere on Sky on Christmas Eve 2010, with a 3D Blu-ray release two years later.

Studios had mostly abandoned 3D Blu-ray by 2018, though certain regions worldwide still receive new releases. The most notable recent worldwide release has fittingly been a remaster of Avatar, as well as its two sequels – Avatar: Fire And Ash was released on 3D Blu-ray as recently as May 2026.

2014: Dolby Atmos arrives with a Michael Bay bang

Brave was the first feature-length Dolby Atmos film after a special installation at the El Capitan Theatre for its premiere in 2012.

However, it wasn't the first use of Dolby Atmos on disc – that honour goes to, um, Transformers: Age Of Extinction on regular old Blu-ray in 2014. Whatever you think of the film, it is a technical showcase, and it coincided with the announcement of the first Dolby Atmos technology for home theatres.

2016: X-Men, Hitman and Kingsman are the first 4K discs

As What Hi-Fi? reported at the time, the first 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray discs came to the UK in a wave in early 2016, meaning it was a photo finish with no definitive winner.

The eight discs in total were all 20th Century Fox titles: Fantastic Four, Maze Runner: Chapter II - The Scorch Trials, Kingsman : The Secret Service, The Maze Runner, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Life Of Pi, Hitman: Agent 47 and Exodus: Gods And Kings.

While you might call the quality of these films, well, mixed, there's no denying the excitement in the air when this new format was announced, and 4K Blu-rays can now often be found strewn across our test room after a lengthy review session.

It's been a rocky road for 4K Blu-ray since, with some of our favourite 4K Blu-ray players disappearing, key manufacturers leaving the market and Sony seemingly hinting that the next PlayStation won't support any disc-based home media at all. Will we even get another home cinema format? Time will tell...

2017: Billy Lynn's Long, High Frame-rate Walk

Ang Lee's experimental war drama Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk was not the first high frame-rate movie release (that was The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which was released in cinemas in 2012 at a divisive 48fps), but it was the first to take its high frame-rate to home media in 2017.

The 4K Blu-ray was presented in 60fps rather than the 120fps seen in cinemas, but it was still a first for the format. We found both the film and the high frame-rate experience to be a bit hit and miss in our Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk review, noting a hyper-real sense of depth at the cost of a cinematic feel.

It's not a trend that would catch on, however – Ang Lee would return to high frame-rate for his next film Gemini Man, but otherwise home video has stuck with good old regular 24fps.

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In fact, as the many strong reviews the brand has received from us in recent years prove, Hisense hasn’t just got most of your potential projector needs covered; it’s got them nailed.

Not surprisingly, then, we have high hopes for the brand’s C2 Ultra model – despite its obvious focus on design and convenience.

Price

Value is usually a strong area for Hisense, and the C2 Ultra is no exception. Its £1799 / $2300 / AU$3495 pricing is aggressively low (particularly in the UK) for a projector that provides such specifications as 4K support, triple laser lighting, an integrated smart system, Dolby Vision support and 3000 lumens of peak brightness to go with its eye-catching lifestyle design.

There is some stiff competition around this projector's price, though, including BenQ’s Award-winning W2720i home theatre projector or, if you want something that maintains the C2 Ultra’s more portable, lifestyle design approach, BenQ’s TK705i or Epson’s significantly cheaper EF-72.

Design

The C2 Ultra’s compact (29 x 25 x 25cm) form employs one of the ‘cradle’ designs that have become all the rage these days, where the projector rests within a pair of support arms that allow the main body to tilt up or down to help you to get images to the right height on your wall/screen.

The projector also rotates around on its circular base to easily adapt to any tricky angles your room might present you with, and that base rather niftily carries a fairly large up-firing speaker on its top edge.

The C2 Ultra is finished in an appealing gunmetal grey colour, and boasts a neat combination of smooth matte, high gloss and grilled finishes over various parts of the main projector body’s ‘slightly squashed cube’ shape.

Unusually for a cradle-style projector, the C2 Ultra can be mounted onto an optional thin pole floorstand or ceiling mount bracket if you’re not happy just sitting it on a coffee table.

The C2 Ultra’s provided remote control features a nice finish, backlit buttons and an ergonomic layout that includes buttons for direct access to some of the world’s most popular integrated streaming apps. There’s also a mic button on offer, indicating that you can control aspects of the projector by talking to it courtesy of Hisense’s own ‘Vidaa Voice’ system or built-in Alexa support.

Features

The C2 Ultra is a 4K-capable DLP projector illuminated by a triple laser lighting system.

We should qualify the 4K claim by saying that, as ever with DLP projectors, it’s not ‘true’ 4K to the extent that it features a full 4096x2160 or 3840x2160 count of digital mirror devices on its image control chip. The combination of pixel shifting and rapid mirror ‘flashing’ created by Texas Instruments’ XPR system, though, creates a 4K effect from DLP projectors such as the C2 Ultra that’s actually been approved as genuine 4K by the influential Consumer Technology Association in the US.

The C2 Ultra’s laser lighting is rated to deliver up to 3000 lumens of brightness – a high number for such a portable projector, and one that raises the possibility of the projector genuinely holding its own against quite high levels of ambient light.

This brightness is also important to Hisense’s claims that the C2 Ultra can support images as big as 300 inches across – though because the larger you go, the more brightness you lose, we argue 100-150 inches will give you more satisfying results from an all-round image impact perspective.

Hisense also claims that the C2 Ultra can reproduce more than 100 per cent of the AV world’s most extreme BT.2020 HDR colour spectrum. Experience suggests such claims are optimistic in the real world, but Hisense quoting it at least points to a projector that is likely to deliver most if not all of the narrower DCI-P3 colour spectrum used for most of today’s HDR mastering.

The C2 Ultra’s small shape and cradled design make it a particularly portable projector, easily moved to different rooms or houses. It even ships with a neat cloth carry bag.

It builds on its portability, too, by being just about as easy a projector to set up as we’ve seen. It can rotate through a full 360 degrees on its circular base, for starters, and it supports a generous 135 degrees of vertical tilt to help you get the image in the right place.

Obviously, the sort of angles created by rotating and tilting projectors can cause distortions to the shape of the image on your wall/screen. Here again, though, Hisense has got you covered with its Auto Magic AI Adjusting 2.0 system.

Despite its awkward name, this combination of auto keystone correction, auto focus, auto obstacle avoidance, intelligent wall colour adaptation and intelligent eye protection works remarkably well and extremely consistently, contributing to a genuine plug-and-play experience that seldom needs any manual intervention to improve on its results.

The C2 Ultra even carries a 0.9-1.5:1 optical zoom system to help it adapt to a wide range of room sizes and room layouts. That’s more zoom range than you would typically expect to get with this sort of projector.

Most lifestyle projectors these days provide some sort of AI set-up system, of course. But the C2 Ultra’s system just works out of the box more straightforwardly than most.

The C2 Ultra’s connections comprise two HDMI ports (one with eARC support), an optical audio output, two USB 3.0 ports, a headphone socket, and ethernet, plus Bluetooth 5.3 and Wi-Fi 6e wireless connections.

The wi-fi connectivity feeds the built-in Vidaa smart platform. This isn’t as sophisticated or visually attractive as the popular Google TV system many projectors use, but it’s easy to follow and is strong on native streaming app support.

Netflix, BBC iPlayer, ITVX, All 4, My 5, Now TV, Disney+, Prime Video, YouTube, Apple TV, Paramount+, and HBO Max apps are all present, and a firmware update has now also added support in the UK for Freely, through which you can live-stream many of the UK’s terrestrial broadcast services rather than having to use a traditional aerial system.

The C2 Ultra supports HDR video, as we’d expect of pretty much any proper home entertainment projector these days, but it doesn’t stop at the usual HDR10 and HLG formats – it also supports both the HDR10+ and Dolby Vision formats.

Finding one of these premium HDR formats on a projector at this level is still quite rare, so finding both on the C2 Ultra is excellent. Basically, it means the C2 Ultra will always play the best version of any source you present it with.

The playback flexibility doesn’t end there, either. The C2 Ultra has also earned IMAX Enhanced certification, and carries an IMAX Enhanced picture preset, while Hisense’s other usual punchy HDR Standard and HDR Day picture presets are also joined by a Filmmaker Mode calibrated to try and deliver pictures that get as close as the projector can manage to current mastering standards, for that ‘as the director intended’ feel.

There’s also support for 3D if you sort yourself out with a pair of DLP-Link 3D glasses, and an official ‘Designed For Xbox’ badge in the C2 Ultra’s marketing points to some unusually advanced gaming support. Confirmed features include ALLM switching when gaming sources are detected, 240Hz refresh rate support, and a measured 34.4ms of input lag in Game mode with a 60Hz signal.

You can get this down to 17.6ms if you call in a DLP Turbo Mode option, at the expense of some of the projector’s auto image correction tools.

A dedicated Gaming menu and information screen comes up if you hit the menu button with a game source running into the projector, and hooking up an Xbox Series X confirms 4K/120Hz support with HDR and VRR. Excellent.

One last feature in the C2 Ultra’s impressive feature locker for its money is a JBL-designed/tuned 40W sound system comprising 2 x 10W amplification and a 20W bass speaker cleverly built into the projector’s chunky circular desktop base.

Hisense’s materials on the projector suggest this sound system only supports DTS Virtual:X 3D audio, but Dolby Atmos also plays fine during our tests. Quite a lot better than ‘fine’, actually, but we’ll come back to that later.

Picture quality

As well as being fantastically easy to set up, the Hisense C2 Ultra’s pictures are effortlessly watchable. Hisense appears to have been doing living room projectors for long enough now to have forged a great feel for the sort of picture elements that most immediately warm viewers to a particular model’s cause.

The C2 Ultra’s HDR images are bright, for starters, making full use of the available 3000 lumens to deliver images that look both excellently punchy in a dark environment, and strong enough to hold their own, retaining good colour saturation and solidity, even in fairly bright living room conditions.

The C2 Ultra is even able to deliver bright highlights of HDR images with enough potency to almost have you believing it must be using a local dimming system somehow – even though this is, of course, not something current home projection technology can do.

Pictures are sharp and clean enough to look and feel like real 4K too, and the sharpness holds up well when there’s motion in the frame. Judder levels with 24p movie content feel strikingly natural rather than exaggerated or inconsistent.

Colour tones look nicely balanced and full of subtlety, too, helping 4K images deliver that three-dimensional feel that’s only fully unlocked by displays that are capable of a good combination of colour blending, contrast and clean, natural motion.

Black levels are only respectable rather than great, but for much of the time this relatively average part of the C2 Ultra’s performance is ‘hidden’ by the intensity and brightness of the rest of the images. It’s only uniformly dark scenes that suddenly reveal quite a cloak of greyness hanging over proceedings – especially if you’re using the projector’s Dolby Vision Bright, HDR Day or HDR Standard settings. You can also sometimes see a bit more detail in these elevated black areas than the content creators really intended you to.

The Dolby Vision Dark and HDR10 Filmmaker Modes improve on the excessive detail flaw without taking things so far that subtle details start to be crushed out of the image, but these modes are significantly less punchy than their brighter siblings, and the level of greyness lying over proceedings feels more or less the same. It’s just not offset by as much brightness as you get in the lighter HDR presets.

We also spot moderate levels of DLP projection’s rainbow effect over stand-out bright highlights, and while colours look well balanced, they can start to look slightly pallid in the brightest HDR images when using the projector’s relatively bright settings.

The brightest modes can also reduce the 3D effect that’s such a strong attraction with the Dolby Vision Dark and Filmmaker Mode settings.

Unless, however, you’re particularly susceptible to seeing the DLP projector rainbow effect (which a few people are), there’s nothing wrong enough or limited enough about the C2 Ultra’s pictures to prevent it from being consistently great fun to watch by class standards.

Yes, it sacrifices a little insight in the darkest and brightest scenes in its mostly highly successful quest to deliver as easy an ‘out of the box’ experience as we’ve come across in the projector world. But the overall picture results are still seriously easy on the eye for a projector that also has so many features and so much flexibility to offer.

Sound quality

The C2 Ultra’s clever integration of an unusually powerful three-speaker sound system pays off brilliantly. The volume and depth of bass delivered by that large up-firing woofer built into the projector’s base, for starters, are remarkable for such an affordable projector. It’s able to vary both the frequency response and volume of the bass it puts out better than the vast majority of TVs and pretty much all projectors, too.

The C2 Ultra builds on its strong bass foundations with similarly remarkable amounts of power and expressiveness for its midrange, too. It can get seriously loud without becoming muddy or congested, combining its raw power with strong levels of detail, without anything sounding too bright, clipped, thin or harsh.

The C2 Ultra even manages to deliver a palpable sense of three-dimensionality to its Dolby Atmos presentation, casting a soundstage that has genuine depth, height and width – and into which effects and scores are placed with excellent precision and dynamism.

As the cherry on the cake, the C2 Ultra not only delivers voices with a lovely rounded quality and great sense of context, but also ensures they’re projected, along with much of the rest of the sound, towards your screen, so that dialogue doesn’t sound as disconnected from the onscreen action as projector sound usually does.

The only problem with the C2 Ultra’s sound is that, while its woofer works brilliantly for the vast majority of the time, it can get caught out by the movie world’s most extreme and sustained low-frequency moments, suddenly succumbing to quite distracting amounts of crackling, whooping and phutting. It helps at such moments if you haven’t got the volume set much higher than its 60 level, but there’s no way of completely avoiding the occasional bass kerfuffle.

It’s also worth mentioning that even at its best, the integrated sound system isn’t a patch on the sound you would get from a decent soundbar, let alone a dedicated home cinema set-up, but that’s to be expected.

Verdict

The C2 Ultra isn’t perfect, but no lifestyle projector packed with so much flexibility and so many features at this price was ever going to be.

Even so, its rather grey dark scenes and rainbow effect issues cost it a mark in the context of the improved picture quality you can get from one or two less flexible rivals – especially the BenQ W2720i.

If its flexibility and features – especially its strong gaming support – sound like just what you need, though, you’ll likely be pretty amazed that such a user-friendly projector can also perform so well.

SCORES

• Picture 4
• Sound 5
• Features 5

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Seeing this as an opportunity to one-up its arch-nemesis, which has dominated the home console market for years now, Xbox has announced a new feature that will give physical discs a lifeline – for now, at least...

Announced at Gamescom 2026, Xbox's new "disc to digital" initiative will let gamers acquire digital licenses for the physical games they own, essentially bundling the best aspects of physical and digital media into one.

Inserting a supported Xbox Series X/S or Xbox One game (Xbox says that thousands of titles are supported and more will be added over time) will prompt users to "claim a digital entitlement", essentially adding a digital version of their game to their library.

This allows them to fire up the game even when the disc isn't in the console, and it unlocks the ability to play the game practically anywhere, whether that's a friend's console that you're logged into, Xbox's Play Anywhere feature, or even the Xbox Cloud Gaming service.

Crucially, though, users will still benefit from owning a physical copy of the game: Xbox says that this is an "important step toward a future where players can have greater confidence that the games they buy remain with them for years to come".

In other words, if you own a physical copy, your purchased titles can't suddenly disappear from your library – which is what happened when Sony removed hundreds of purchased films from PlayStation users' libraries recently.

Furthermore, you can still sell your disc or lend it to a friend without worry, as the digital license is transferable.

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, in an interview with BBC News, stated that it will allow users to experience a best of both worlds approach, and claimed that "it's really a breakthrough in how we think about physical and digital media".

The feature will come to Xbox Insiders (the gaming firm's Beta software testers) on 31st August, with a wider rollout to all users expected down the line.

While this looks like a positive change on paper, it also suggests Xbox may follow Sony's lead and opt for an all-digital approach for its next consoles, though that remains speculation for now.

Xbox could be preparing its users by allowing them to digitise their existing physical library in readiness for a discless Xbox launching in the coming years, but only time will tell if that is the outcome.

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Quiz! Can you name the first film in these home cinema formats?

It combines the brand’s established taste for innovation and pushing projector boundaries with features clearly aimed at serious home cinema fans – a combination neatly summed up by Xgimi itself, variously describing the Titan as "Commercial Grade" and capable of delivering “true home theatre in any living room”.

Headline features such as a 5000-Lumen 4K laser optical system, unusually large 0.78 DLP imaging device and proprietary brightness-enhancing lens are certainly promising, but can the Titan really live up to the hype?

Price

The Xgimi Titan costs £3499 in the UK and $3999 in the US at the time of writing. That’s certainly not shockingly expensive for a projector apparently targeted at serious home cinema enthusiasts that boasts, as we’ll see, a pretty extreme set of features and specifications. But it is quite expensive by Xgimi standards, raising a high level of expectation for its performance given how well some more affordable Xgimi projectors have performed in recent years.

In Australia, meanwhile, the Titan costs an even more serious AU$9999.

Rivals in the same price ballpark include the excellent recently reviewed AWOL Vision Aetherion Max UST projector, and the What Hi-Fi? Award-winning, dedicated home theatre Epson EH-LS9000 model.

Design

The Titan is a robustly built and striking-looking projector. Its basic rectangular shape isn’t particularly out there, but it’s reasonably compact for such a highly specified model; boasts an unusual but effective mixture of a slightly rubbery top edge, smooth plastic grilled sides and front felt finishes; and the lens features a striking red highlight running around its outer edge.

Most eye-catchingly of all, the projector ships with four elongated mounting legs that attach diagonally out from each underside corner, making the projector look like it’s sitting in some kind of cradle. We’re a bit torn on both the usefulness and aesthetic appeal of these feet, honestly, but they’re well made and certainly help the Titan stand out from the crowd.

High wall/ceiling and floor mount options (the latter of which essentially adds a long pole to the stand) are also available for an extra £350 each.

The remote control shipped with the Titan combines sleek silver metallic and smooth black plastic design elements with elegant button backlighting and a logical layout to attractive and ergonomic effect.

Features

While the Titan’s design does a good job of establishing it as a premium model, it’s the features that really set our hopes high. Particularly striking are its high claimed peak brightness of 5000 lumens, delivered by a dual laser light engine; a monster claimed dynamic contrast ratio of 5,000,000:1; claimed coverage of a seriously high 150 per cent of the DCI-P3 colour spectrum used in most of today’s HDR mastering; and support for all of the main four HDR formats, including Dolby Vision and HDR10+.

As a logo under the lens confirms, the Titan has also earned IMAX Enhanced certification, meaning its picture quality has been deemed capable of doing justice to the special IMAX Enhanced video mastering system.

The projector is also sold as 4K capable. As ever with domestic DLP projectors, this 4K resolution isn’t truly native, depending on Texas Instruments’ XPR system of pixel shifting and ‘double flashing’ to achieve a 4K effect. This 4K effect has been deemed a true 4K experience by the independent Consumer Technology Association, however, and we’ve seen many 4K DLP projectors now deliver pictures that really do appear dense and crisp enough to feel like 4K.

The Titan actually claims an extra 4K advantage over other consumer DLP projectors, too, by using a 0.78-inch imaging chip rather than the 0.47- or 0.66-inch chips commonly used in DLP projectors. This should greatly improve the light efficiency and controllability of all the tiny mirrors mounted onto the DLP DMD device, as well as enhance pixel separation, resulting in potentially more native contrast and a generally more stable, detailed and consistent image.

Xgimi has introduced a couple of promising new proprietary features for the Titan, too. First, its complex multi-element lens design has been specially created by Xgimi to enable more of the light the projector is capable of producing to actually arrive on your screen. Second, the Titan carries Xgimi’s first self-developed 4K-grade AI image processor, the Xgimi X1.

The Titan supports full HD 3D playback if you pair it with optional active shutter 3D glasses, while among its picture presets is a Filmmaker Mode to provide a one-button way of getting the projector to produce pictures designed to get as close as the projector can to the image standards and values typically used in the content creation world.

When it comes to gaming, our resident Xbox Series X confirms that the Titan’s HDMI ports can’t handle frame rates higher than 60Hz at 4K resolution, even with the HDMIs set to Enhanced mode. It does at least hold on to HDR in 4K/60Hz mode, though, and can be set to handle 120Hz at 1080p resolution if you activate the high frame rate feature in the projector’s dedicated Game onscreen menus. Choosing this higher frame rate seems to come at the expense of HDR, though, and there’s no support at any frame rate for VRR.

There is support for ALLM, though, where the projector can automatically switch into its best game settings when a game source is detected. This best game set-up reduces input lag to 32.3ms.

While the Titan doesn’t feature one of the sophisticated fully automated picture set-up systems that increasingly many living room projectors do, it does feature auto focus and auto keystone correction, and the motorised lens system features both more extensive and more finely tuned adjustments than most. Optical zoom is available across a 1.2-1.8x range, and the image can be shifted left, right, up or down over a +/- 100 per cent vertical range and +/- 40 per cent horizontal range.

Xgimi claims the Titan’s 5000 lumens of brightness can drive a screen as large as 250 inches, and it has an integrated 2 x 12W sound system. The projector also supports playback of DTS-HD, DTS Virtual X and Dolby Atmos in the Dolby Digital+ format.

The Titan’s connections are decent for a premium projector. It might have been nice if there were more than two HDMI ports, and if those supported HDMI 2.1 bandwidths, but these are backed up by two USB ports (one USB 3.0 and one USB 2.0), analogue and optical digital audio outputs, plus Ethernet and RS-232C ports for integrating the projector into a wider home control network.

When it comes to integrated smart TV features, finally, the Titan leans towards the dedicated home theatre room projector market by not actually having any. The only thing it offers that’s remotely along those lines is a built-in media player that can handle AV files played from USB drives.

Picture quality

First impressions of the Xgimi Titan are really spectacular. With native 4K HDR content, you instantly feel the impact of both its extreme 5000 lumens of brightness and the extra detail and clarity that we assume is down to the projector’s use of the new 0.78-inch DLP DMD chip.

The brightness is particularly useful to the side of the Titan’s personality focused on living room use, helping it punch its images through even summertime levels of ambient light with enough colour saturation and contrast to leave them not just watchable but actually enjoyable.

The Titan’s colours don’t push into levels of saturation, vibrancy and volumes that some other recent premium projectors we’ve tested have achieved, but we rarely feel as if the colour on offer is struggling to reach the levels required by even the most vibrant content we feed it.

The Titan’s image really does look 4K. There’s a purity and naturalism to its reproduction of fine details and textures as well as a general sense of immediacy and real-life density to its images that’s a notch above anything we’ve seen from the vast majority of other DLP projectors.

This helps to create a strong sense of depth, and the clarity is delivered so effortlessly that the viewing experience feels incredibly natural and immersive. At least when the source content is playing to the projector’s strengths with images that are bright, colour-rich, clean and detailed.

The naturalism extends to superbly natural management of grain and appealingly natural-looking judder with 24p movies if you call in the lowest setting of the projector’s motion processing options. Perhaps because of the image’s high brightness, judder feels slightly too pronounced in its ‘native’ form with no processing applied.

The Titan adapts itself to HD SDR content very nicely, too, retaining good shading and colour balance/naturalism despite evidently being designed with HDR in mind.

The Titan also adapts its images well in many ways between its key Standard and Filmmaker Mode presets. The Standard mode is your go-to for bright rooms, but is also mostly a solid option for a dark-room film night if you prefer punchier images to the more accurate ones delivered by the Filmmaker Mode.

The Filmmaker Mode, though, while significantly dimmer, flatter and actually quite a bit softer than the Standard mode, does deliver that creative intent ‘feel’ that home cinema fans will be familiar with.

There are a trio of areas, though, where the Titan’s pictures fall short of the generally high standards it sets elsewhere.

First and worst, its black levels are underwhelming for a projector that sells itself as delivering home theatre in all room conditions. This isn’t a big problem in relatively bright rooms, but home cinema fans who like to really black out their rooms for serious movie nights will at least sometimes be distracted by the greyness that creeps into dark scenes. Especially as the greyness is actually most noticeable in the projector’s most ‘cinematic’ picture presets due to these not aggressively using the projector’s Dynamic Black Level feature.

This feature auto-adjusts the projector’s light output based on constant analysis of the source image, and it really can substantially enhance black reproduction. Unfortunately, though, the Low setting for the Dynamic Black Feature causes lots of subtle image detail to disappear into the darkness, leaving the picture looking hollow and flat, while its medium and high settings can cause the image to look a bit unstable during high contrast shots as the projector becomes a bit hyperactive with its workings.

For us, the Titan’s Dolby Vision Dark mode delivers the best out-of-the-box option for dark room viewing – though this still isn’t as perfect for black levels as we’d have hoped. Plus it relies on the projector receiving a Dolby Vision source, of course.

You could improve the black levels by using a low-gain (0.5 or so) screen, and reducing the projector’s brightness setting also helps a bit – though this obviously reduces the impact of the potent HDR effect that’s arguably the Titan’s biggest selling point.

The Titan’s DLP images also reveal a little rainbow effect during shots that contain stand-out bright objects. This issue is, to be fair, less aggressive than we might have expected with such a bright projector, but it’s definitely there – even to people like us who only consider ourselves to be moderately susceptible to seeing it (sensitivity to the rainbow effect varies from person to person).

The third picture issue is that the so-called Performance mode, where performance appears to mean driving every aspect of the picture to the outer extremes of the projector’s capabilities, is one of the weirdest and most unwatchable picture presets we’ve ever seen.

Yes, it’s bright. Arguably the brightest picture we’ve seen from any projector costing under five figures, in fact. But colours look absolutely bizarre in this mode – about as far from natural and balanced as you could imagine in your wildest AV fever dream – while the projector’s Dynamic Tone Mapping seems to lose the plot pretty much entirely, delivering picture extremes with so little thought for balance and consistency that you’d swear different elements of each frame must have been mastered at different times by different people on different mastering monitors.

The Performance mode also suddenly escalates the Titan’s running noise from practically (and brilliantly) non-existent to a level that’ll have you thinking you must have left the fan oven in the kitchen on.

Of course, you don’t have to choose the Performance mode, thankfully. And in its key Standard, Dolby Vision Dark, IMAX Enhanced and Filmmaker Mode modes, the Titan is capable of delivering generally very enjoyable pictures – especially if, contrary to typical ‘home theatre projector’ practice, you leave a little light in your room.

Sound quality

The Titan’s built-in speakers give good TV sound systems a run for their money. The projector can go as loud as a good-sounding TV, for instance, without starting to sound strained. The speakers project their sound well, too, including towards the distant screen, substantially reducing that eternal projector audio problem where the sound doesn’t seem to be attached to the pictures.

The midrange is rich and full, and the speakers are sensitive enough even under quite heavy pressure to retain great levels of detail and clarity. Even when they’re dealing with shrill treble or heavy beats. The midrange is also able to expand very effectively as escalating action or horror scenes grow in density, layering and volume, avoiding that common integrated TV/projector audio system issue of the sound falling away just when it should be entering full-throated mode.

However, while bass is typically convincing, Hollywood’s deepest bass moments can catch the Titan out a little, with prolonged rumbles sometimes sounding rather coarse against the quite hi-fi feel of the rest of the sound. A faint crackling effect can creep into the most extreme bass sounds, too.

More broadly, while the Titan sounds good overall by projector standards, its audio is a long way from a suitable match for the epic scale of the pictures it produces. A dedicated home cinema system really is the only way to go here.

Verdict

The Titan has enough swagger in both its hardware and software to compellingly back up Xgimi’s latest bid to be taken seriously as a potential home theatre rather than simply ‘living room’ projector brand. Much of the DNA required to get home cinephile hearts thumping is present and correct, and its pictures can look incredible at times.

In the end, though, the Titan perhaps pushes its ‘True Home Cinema anywhere’ bid a bit too far, leaning slightly too hard into the sort of picture abilities required for the ‘storefront displays or digital signage’ applications Xgimi also claims the Titan can support, rather than dedicating itself hook, line and sinker to the home cinema world.

SCORES

• Picture 4
• Sound 4
• Features 4

MORE:

Read our review of the AWOL Vision Aetherion Max

Also consider the Epson EH-LS9000

Best projectors: the best options tested by our home cinema experts

However, Samsung's latest entry-level model makes a solid case. The S85H is a neat entry point to the world of OLED, and is also one of the cheapest new options – especially now the 55-inch model is down to £1199 at Richer Sounds.

This is the lowest price we've seen so far, dropping from the previous low of £1259 we spotted only three weeks ago.

Make sure to use the code TRADE100, and you can save an extra £100 on one of the brightest entry-level OLEDs available.

The S85H sits in the same family as the S99H, which we declared to be the best OLED Samsung has ever produced. A very fine pedigree indeed.

However, with the S99H costing over a £1000 more at the time of writing, the S85H has a much more palatable price and is a good entry point if you're upgrading to OLED for the first time.

Brightness is particularly good for an entry-level OLED, which will be a boon if you're watching in a room with lots of ambient light.

"Switching to Pan, our standard peak brightness stress test due to its atypical 4000 nits mastering, it’s immediately clear that the S85H burns brighter than previous entry-level OLEDs we’ve tested and its main rival, the LG B6," our Samsung S85H review reads. "The setting sun offers a wider range of reds and oranges that show up as pure white on its rival."

Upon further comparison with the B6, we found that the colours of the S85H were a tad bombastic, but it was the TV we were drawn to during a screening of F1: The Movie thanks to the picture’s solidity and three-dimensionality.

The specification is also impressive for the price, with Samsung's ever-reliable Tizen platform packed with apps including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV and more. The latest-gen version is easy to navigate too, with a content bar that automatically curates based on your watching habits.

There's plenty of gaming features too, with four full-spec HDMI 2.1 inputs (even some OLED flagships only have two), each capable of carrying a 4K/120Hz signal, as well as VRR and ALLM.

HDR10+, HDR10 and HLG are all supported on the HDR front, with only Dolby Vision missing. That's hardly surprising, however – the format is absent from all Samsung TVs, including pricier flagships such as the S99H.

The audio, however, lets the S85H down. The 2.0 channel, 20W, Dolby Atmos system offers a reasonable sense of direction and separation, but the lack of bass is immediately apparent. You'll want to invest in a soundbar or sound system for movie watching, but for normal daytime viewing the Samsung should suffice on its own.

If you've got a bit more of a budget, we'd recommend looking at mid-range OLED options such as the LG C6 and Samsung S90F for a little more nuance, extra finesse, and a more natural picture overall.

But if you're very much looking at entry-level, the Samsung S85H is one of the top options right now. It's a brand-new 2026 OLED that's a cut above most similarly-priced rivals, and is now 20 per cent off at Richer Sounds.

MORE:

Read our full Sony Bravia 7 II review

And our full Samsung S90F review

Our pick of the best TVs for every budget, including awesome OLED models

Those are some big expectations to meet, but can it outperform the Award-winning Sonos Arc Ultra? Let’s just say that our current front-runner has been left untroubled by its latest competitor.

Price

The Bose Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar is priced at £1000 / $1099 / AU$1800, which places it firmly against the Sonos Arc Ultra (£999 / $999 / AU$1799).

The Sonos rival is not only a five-star product, but it’s also the current class-leader, having picked up a What Hi-Fi? Award in 2025 for its troubles. If you want the best Dolby Atmos soundbar we’ve tested at this level, the Sonos is the one to beat.

Another close rival is the Sony Theatre Bar 9, which started life more expensive than the Bose when it launched a couple of years ago, but has dropped from £1399 / $1400 / AU$1795 to around the £999 mark if you shop around.

There is the option to upgrade the Bose soundbar to a 7.1.4-channel system by adding a pair of wireless speakers (£300 / $299 / AU$545 each) and one subwoofer (£900 / $899 / AU$1295). We reviewed the former (the Bose Lifestyle Ultra Speaker) in July this year as a standalone wireless speaker, where it received a three-star rating.

Here, though, we are looking at the bar on its own.

Design

The Bose bar has a premium-feeling design befitting its price thanks to a stylish glass top and textured-knit fabric (available in either a black or white smoke finish).

Built into the glass top is a dial to adjust volume, which allows you to control music playback and volume via a combination of tapping and sliding your finger around the inner edge clockwise (volume up) or anti-clockwise (volume down).

That all makes it stand out from the crowd, as we have seen our fair share of non-descript black plastic rectangles pass through the test room.

As you would hope from a premium soundbar, there are a variety of drive units packed into the body. The nine drive units include one full-range 6cm up-firing driver at either end of the bar, which fires sound up at 90 degrees to add height and immersion to movie soundtracks. Note that this means the bar isn’t suited to being under a shelf with a TV above, as this will block the sound.

Across the front of the bar are four full-range ‘racetrack’ drivers that measure around 75mm wide, and two of Bose’s 20cm PhaseGuide drivers, which use special processing to fill in any gaps in the soundfield. There’s also a 25mm centre tweeter for dialogue.

On the rear, you’ll find two of Bose’s QuietPorts, which work with the company’s CleanBass technology and internal digital signal processing (DSP). The brand claims this can deliver low frequencies in a deep, controlled way with minimal distortion.

The bar looks at home next to our 55-inch screen, although it would fit equally as well with a 65- or 75-inch model.

Features

There’s no remote control in the box, so you will find yourself relying on the Bose app a fair bit. It offers an intuitive and simple overall experience, letting us set up the bar without much of a fuss.

From here, you can adjust the volume, input, and you can calibrate the soundbar to your space. This is done via the built-in microphones in the bar, and takes just a few minutes. During the process, the soundbar outputs a few test tones to adjust to the space. The soundbar’s presentation improves in scale and clarity once we go through the calibration process, so this is something well worth doing.

In terms of physical connectivity, you are limited to an Ethernet and a single, eARC-compatible HDMI socket. It’s a shame Bose hasn’t seen fit to include any additional HDMI inputs, as it limits the flexibility of your set-up, but this criticism can (and is) also aimed at the Sonos Arc Ultra.

Wi-fi is onboard, and streaming comes via Google Cast, Apple AirPlay 2 or Spotify Connect. The soundbar also supports Bluetooth 5.3. Tidal Connect and Qobuz Connect are not supported by the soundbar (or Lifestyle Ultra Speaker) yet, but we have been assured that these are in the pipeline.

There are no preset modes for movies or music, but you can manually adjust the centre, surround and height channels on the app.

Sound

Let’s start with the positives. The Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar offers a nicely balanced sound that makes for easy listening.

When watching F1: The Movie, the bassy revving of engines as cars zoom around the race track does not stand out from the rest of the frequencies and blends seamlessly. There is a decent amount of weight and power in the Ultra’s bass performance, and it gives the soundtrack a firm foundation.

Dialogue is clean and relatively clear, as we can hear every word during the tense racing scene at the start of the film, even through the crackling headsets of the pit crew.

There is a fairly good sense of detail as we continue with the scene, as the beeping of the vehicle tracker and the scuffle of the pit crew are clear without being distracting. It’s certainly an improvement on the vast majority of TV speakers, and longer listening periods do not make for a fatiguing experience.

However, the Bose soundbar is not without its flaws. The synth-heavy soundtrack and revving engines should grow into an exciting crescendo. But the Bose bar’s timid handling of dynamics results in a flat performance that doesn’t create a sense of anticipation.

Given that this is a Dolby Atmos soundbar, there is not a great sense of scale, either. Watching Blade Runner 2049 when Joi experiences rain for the first time, the width of the sound does not extend much further than the length of our 55-inch Samsung S90H TV screen. The limited sense of height doesn’t make for an immersive experience, either: the rain should be heard overhead, but instead the drops are locked to the screen.

In an attempt to fix this, we go into the app’s audio settings and turn the height and surround channels to their maximum levels. This helps to create a wider sense of space, but the increase in scale information isn’t as obvious as it should be.

Later, as the holographic adverts pop up on the street, the Bose fails to locate individual sounds with any great focus compared with a class-leading rival such as the Sonos Arc Ultra.

We switch to Tidal via Bluetooth to test the Bose’s musical chops. Compared with the Arc Ultra, there isn't a great deal of detail with Yosi Horikawa’s Bubbles. This track starts with a series of bouncing balls of all types, resulting in a cacophony of textures that make for a stern audio test. The Bose struggles here, lacking the insight and precision to differentiate the range of sounds.

Verdict

The Bose Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar offers a premium-looking design that stands out from the crowd. Its audio performance may be undemanding to listen to, but at such a premium price, that is not enough to earn our recommendation. We also demand punch, dynamism and immersion, and in these regards the Bose is sadly lacking.

When a rival such as the Sonos Arc Ultra achieves so much more for the same price, it’s clear that the Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar is no more than an also-ran in this particular race.

SCORES

• Sound 3
• Design 4
• Features 3

MORE:

Read our review of the Sonos Arc Ultra

Also consider the Sony Bravia Theatre Bar 9

Read our Samsung HW-Q990F

Best soundbars: options for every need, recommended by our experts

And not just any Award-winning TV, but our Product of the Year and go-to reference TV, the Sony Bravia 8 II, is now £1949 at Richer Sounds (for the 65-inch model).

So what's not to like? Well, a recent Bravia TV software update has caused problems on several Sony TV models, including our very own TV & AV Editor's Bravia 8 II.

If you purchase the Bravia 8 II, we recommend not updating the system software until the issues are resolved, especially if you plan to use external sources and a sound system connected via eARC. Issues range from audio dropout to lip-sync to Dolby Vision content refusing to play.

However, if you're not planning on connecting any HDMI-equipped sources or you're fine with holding fire on that update, you'll have a wonderfully cinematic TV on your hands.

Use the code TRADE250 to save £250 and get this new low price.

The Bravia 8 II is one of the best TVs money can buy, and delivers an epic cinematic picture, backed up by great sound quality.

"A truly exceptional TV" is how we describe it in our Sony Bravia 8 II review. "Its combination of sizzling brightness, vibrant colours through all degrees of light, terrific shadow detail and razor-like sharpness combine to produce an image with regularly astonishing dynamism, depth and realism."

The Sony Bravia 8 II has been our reference TV since its release for several reasons.

Thanks to its QD-OLED panel, Sony's processing and a custom heatsink, its brightness is a real highlight and makes colourful content such as the Spider-Verse movies dazzle, while still delivering a supremely authentic picture.

The Bravia 8 II also looks stunningly cinematic straight out of the box, as Sony's presets are just that good and don't require any tinkering – we recommend Dolby Vision Dark for Dolby Vision content, or Professional for everything else.

All of these elements also work well with Sony's new AI processing helping to make the image exceptionally three-dimensional.

The Bravia 8 II is also one of the best TVs we've ever heard, thanks to Sony's Acoustic Surface Audio+ setup.

It's balanced, weighty, dynamic, and even manages to sound impressively spacious too.

We'd still recommend a dedicated audio system if possible to do that amazing picture justice, but by flatscreen TV standards, the Sony is very impressive.

As a flagship OLED, the Bravia 8 II is also packed out feature-wise. There's support for Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG HDR formats, as well as Dolby Atmos and IMAX Enhanced certification.

For gamers, there's support for 4K/20Hz, VRR and ALLM, as well as a Dolby Vision Game mode. There are only two full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 sockets, however, one of which doubles as an eARC port, so you may have to switch cables if you have several high-speed gaming consoles.

The Sony Bravia 8 II is a phenomenal TV now at a phenomenal price of £1949 at Richer Sounds. We'd just caution against updating your software for the time being.

MORE:

Read our full 55-inch Sony Bravia 8 II review

Also consider reading our Samsung S99H review

We rate the best gaming TVs available right now for all budgets

These days, I very rarely get to go to football matches.

I'm an avid Spurs fan (yes, still), but between the costs involved and family life obligations, I make it to the glorious Tottenham Hotspur Stadium just once or twice a season at best.

I therefore do the vast majority of my football watching at home, and I'm lucky enough to do so with a system capable of taking advantage of the excellent picture and sound formats now available.

Pretty much every match that Sky broadcasts is available in 4K with HDR, and the crispness and vibrancy are generally lovely to behold. But while 4K and HDR undoubtedly make a match look better, they don't fundamentally change the feeling of watching one. No degree of sharpness or punch gets around the fact that you're still viewing the game through a screen.

The accompanying Dolby Atmos sound, though, is a different story.

With Dolby Atmos, I can turn the volume up and be transported to the stadium. I can hear the crowd all around me, audibly pick out individuals yelling abuse at the ref, and the theatrical yells of pain as yet another player takes a dive come through with a realistic sense of distance.

If I could turn off the commentary (something Sky doesn't currently offer) and find a candle with a stale beer and body odour scent, I could well forget I was in my living room.

The impact of Atmos is far more pronounced with football than with my other sporting passion, Formula 1.

Don't get me wrong, noise is a big part of the F1 experience, from the neeeeeee-OW of the cars racing down the straight to the fizzing whirr of the wheel guns. But F1 broadcasts aren't designed to put you in the stands in the way that football broadcasts are, so the addition of Atmos adds relatively little compared with the 5.1 and even stereo delivery.

For me, with F1, the joy of the UHD broadcast comes in the form of the extra definition and detail in the cars, the gorgeous vibrancy of the gleaming paintwork and the searing brightness of the sunlight sparkling off the surface of the yacht-packed Monaco marina. It's a real feast for the eyes and ears, but I never feel like I'm there.

With football, though, Atmos can make me feel like I'm in the crowd at the stadium, and that's a far bigger change to the viewing experience than simply making the picture sharper or brighter.

Now, if only Sky would let us turn off the commentary. Especially when Spurs are playing badly.

Not that that's going to happen so often this season, you understand...

MORE:

As a fan of both football and F1, I'm nerdily excited about this new Sky feature

Here are the best Dolby Atmos soundbars and the best surround sound systems you can buy right now

A few of my favourites have made it into our AV room as test discs for the latest home cinema kit, including Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse and the motion capture extravaganza Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes.

And there’s one brilliant animated film that has just celebrated a special milestone, and I decided to revisit it to mark the occasion.

Kubo And The Two Strings is the fourth feature from Laika Studios, best known for its adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, and it just turned 10 this year.

Apart from having a spunky teen as its titular character, the two films could not be more different. Set in Ancient Japan, Kubo is searching for his late father’s mystical suit of armour. With the help of his companions Monkey and Beetle and his magical musical powers, he must vanquish evil spirits hell-bent on foiling his plans.

Like all of Laika’s films, Kubo is created using stop-motion animation, where the filmmakers incrementally change the position of physical objects between frames.

This hard work certainly pays off, as every frame is packed with creativity and beauty. Its colourful aesthetic makes for a great test of brightness and vibrancy for your TV or projector.

It’s not afraid to go dark, either. When the evil twin spirits catch up with Kubo in a spooky forest, the atmospheric shadows of the trees and the swooping of their black capes challenge your system’s ability to portray dark detail. Without the right handling, the spine-tingling scene can be tinged with a black crush or disappointing greys.

The score is also an excellent test of your sound system. Dario Marianelli’s soundtrack incorporates instruments from Japan such as the stringed shamisen, which Kubo plays in the film, as well as more traditional Western instruments. Kubo shows off to the townspeople his talents for controlling the world around him with his shamisen, and the score calls for careful handling of dynamics to capture the energy of the scene.

After re-watching the film for the first time in a while, I will now be reaching for it more often when in the test room. It might not offer the same realism as live-action movies, but the stunning colours and expressive soundtrack still mean it holds its own among our test discs.

Laika’s much-anticipated new release, Wildwood, is coming to cinemas at the end of the year, and I will certainly be watching to see if it can reach the same glorious heights as Kubo.

MORE:

Check out the best scenes to test your Dolby Atmos system

Here are the best TVs

And these are the best soundbars we recommend

As staff writer Robyn Quick noted in her latest opinion piece on the topic, they encompass a constantly evolving library of films that we use to gauge everything from a projector’s ability to retain dark detail to a surround sound system's handling of dynamics.

Each disc is handpicked, usually for a specific scene that is particularly challenging in at least one of the performance metrics we care about while testing.

The evolving nature of film means that most discs only have a short shelf life, as we always look for modern titles to use, so our reviews feel fresh and relevant to what people are actually watching. But now and then, a scene is so challenging the disc hangs around for a while.

For example, Pan is a horrible movie we continue to use because it’s mastered at an atypically high 4000 nits – making one specific scene a particularly great way to test any TV or projector’s peak brightness.

Then there's Blade Runner 2049. The booming synth soundtrack during scene two has challenged many a speaker system and soundbar, turning them into a distorted, spluttering mess over the four-ish years we’ve used it.

Forced to watch and listen to these scenes over and over and over again in our windowless viewing rooms, the films are etched into our psyche.

Why am I bringing this up now?

Because one such film, and by extension test disc, that I have used more times than I care to count, is turning 10 years old. And glutton for punishment that I am, I felt the need to revisit it and see if it’s still as accomplished as I remember.

The film in question is Don’t Breathe, which launched in theatres on 26th August, 2016.

Editor’s Note: There are some spoilers ahead.

Directed by Fede Álvarez, the film flips the home invasion dynamic, seeing delinquents break into a blind Gulf War veteran’s house, hoping to rob him, only to suddenly find themselves trapped and the ones being hunted.

The film is relatively famous in horror circles, as evidenced by its 87 per cent Rotten Tomatoes score. But recently it has largely been overshadowed by newer horror movies and lost to the mists of time.

That year, 2016, was an awkward one. The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray format only officially launched in February 2016 and, although Dolby Atmos existed, it wasn’t widespread on streaming or physical media by any stretch of the imagination.

So, unsurprisingly, Don't Breathe is not available on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray and, even on modern services, it is usually in 1080p and limited to 5.1 surround sound, not Dolby Atmos.

So, I went in with managed expectations after buying it in HD on Amazon Prime Video (the 4K Netflix stream is only available outside the UK right now).

But blow me down if I wasn’t impressed as the film played, and it reminded me why I watched it so much, many moons ago: its stellar audio.

Horror is a genre that naturally lends itself to sound. But with Don't Breathe, the sound team did something truly special, creating an encompassing, immersive sense of dread that uses every trick in the book to make you feel like you are in the house with the delinquents, being stalked by the blind killer – especially if you have a good enough home cinema speaker system to do it justice.

Just be warned, I mean it when I say “good” sound system, as even now the film’s intense mix, which uses massive shifts between dead silence and sudden loud noises with laser precision, requires a speaker with excellent dynamics and audio imaging. A decade on, it’s still beyond basic TV speakers. I know that because I checked using my LG C2.

And one scene in particular drilled this point home as I watched.

I’m talking about the “don’t make a sound” scene featured in the above clip. The intruders break cover, thinking they’re safe, only to be confronted by the veteran. The tension jumps to a Spinal Tap 11 as they freeze in place, doing everything they can to stay quiet and not alert him to their presence.

Yes, it doesn’t have height channels, due to the lack of Atmos, but the sonic image the film creates is truly terrifying. Incredible localisation and character-centric panning make you feel like he’s walking around you as the sound moves from left to right, following his movements.

The intense mix, which includes subtle tells (the quiet shuffle of a step, muted breaths and grunts from the killer as he goes about his business, unaware they’re there), is all delivered with a finesse and accuracy you don’t often experience; so much so that I urge any AV nerd to watch it a second time with their eyes closed.

On a good system, you won’t need the image on screen. The audio alone will put you there, in the intruder's shoes. You'll hear every movement as he walks past, then behind you. Your pulse will rise as you then hear the sound of his breath and feet, and the terrifying ruffle of plastic as he starts to wrap and drag a body on the floor across the room.

Then the payoff as it all goes quiet, the director and audio team creating an intentional vacuum, leaving you alone in uncomfortable silence just before a floorboard creaks directly underneath you, as one of the intruders takes a step backwards, catching his attention.

As each sound lands, it tells you exactly where he is and what he's doing.

Yes, other movies have done this – I recently penned a similar piece celebrating a particularly excellent example of a similar use of sound in Hokum – but Don’t Breathe is still worth celebrating, especially considering how long ago it was made.

For me, it shows, as we’ve said many times before, that technology is only one part of the film experience. Atmos and other tech like it can deliver improved experiences; ones that were not possible 10 years ago. But it's not a silver bullet: it still requires a good mix and clever execution to shine.

And films with good audio don't necessarily need an upmix or remaster to still be fun to watch. If it's well done, a 5.1 experience can still be truly breathtaking (see what I did there?).

Don’t Breathe is a great example of that, and one I’d strongly recommend to any horror or home cinema fan, even now.

Even on my home system, which features a four-star Hisense PX3 UST projector and JBL Bar 1300 soundbar system, it was a blast – so much so that I’m now trying to persuade the team to watch it in our viewing rooms, with the KEF R Meta 5.1 Speaker System and Denon AVC-A1H AVR we recently reviewed handling the audio, for our next team movie night.

Trust me, you won’t regret giving it a watch – unless you’re a scaredy-cat, like my partner, who told me fairly bluntly they “did not care for it” after seeing the infamous turkey baster scene (watch it and you’ll see why).

MORE:

These are the best Dolby Atmos soundbars we’ve reviewed

We rank the best surround sound systems

Our picks of the best projectors for serious movie fans

Choosing between the best projectors isn’t always as simple as picking the model with the highest star rating. Your room, viewing habits and preferred content can all determine which projector will ultimately give you the better experience. We mention all this, because it’s particularly true of the Sony VPL-XW5000ES and Optoma UHZ78LV – two fine projectors worthy of your attention.

The Sony is a native 4K projector built primarily for serious movie watching in a darkened home cinema, while the Optoma combines much greater claimed brightness with broader HDR support, 4K/120Hz gaming and more accommodating installation features.

We’ve thoroughly reviewed both projectors in our dedicated testing rooms, assessing their design, features and picture performance using our established testing process. As a result, you can rest assured that by the time you’ve read everything below, you’ll know precisely which one deserves that coveted spot at the heart of your home entertainment setup.

Sony VPL-XW5000ES vs Optoma UHZ78LV tech specs comparison

Sony VPL-XW5000ES vs Optoma UHZ78LV: price

The Sony VPL-XW5000ES launched in 2022 at £5999 / $5998 / AU$9990, while the newer Optoma UHZ78LV landed in the UK at the same £5999 price (it’s not due to be sold in the US and hasn’t yet made it to Australia).

The Sony has, at the time of writing, reached a price as low as £4249 in the UK. The Optoma, in contrast, currently costs full price. That gives the Sony a clear value advantage at the time of writing – though it’s only one part of the puzzle…

** Winner: Sony VPL-XW5000ES **

Sony VPL-XW5000ES vs Optoma UHZ78LV: design

Neither projector is compact, but the Optoma packages its considerable brightness into a surprisingly manageable chassis. It’s lower and shallower than the Sony, although it’s also a little wider. The Optoma weighs 11.5kg, so is lighter than the Sony too, which should make handling it during installation somewhat easier.

Its design is functional rather than beautiful. The blocky black chassis looks serious and suitably premium, but lacks the Sony’s more distinctive sculpting. That might not matter once the projector has been ceiling-mounted or otherwise placed out of sight, but a little more ambition in the design would still be great to see.

As if to prove that point, the Sony has a much more characterful design, with a pronounced, angled, roof-like top and a choice of black or white finishes. It also runs impressively quietly, even when working hard with HDR material, thanks to its effective cooling system.

The Optoma is similarly unintrusive in operation. Optoma claims a maximum noise level of 28dB, and we found that it remained impressively quiet even in its brightest modes.

Overall, both feel like substantial, purpose-built home cinema projectors. For us, the Sony is more visually distinctive, but design is subjective, and far from the most important factor of a projector to consider…

** Winner: Draw **

Sony VPL-XW5000ES vs Optoma UHZ78LV: features

The Optoma’s headline feature is its claimed peak brightness of 5000 lumens. That comfortably trounces the Sony’s 2000-lumen rating and helps the UHZ78LV produce a punchy, colourful picture even when there is a significant amount of ambient light in the room.

Its triple RGB laser system is also claimed to cover 98 per cent of the DCI-P3 colour space and 96 per cent of BT.2020 without requiring a brightness-reducing colour filter. Sony’s Triluminos Pro colour engine, meanwhile, is claimed to cover 95 per cent of DCI-P3.

The Sony counters with its native 3840 x 2160 SXRD imaging chips. The Optoma uses pixel shifting to produce the 8.3 million pixels required for a 4K image and meets the Consumer Technology Association’s definition of 4K, but it can’t match the innate crispness and solidity of a genuine native 4K system.

Sony’s X1 Ultimate processor, meanwhile, further strengthens its picture credentials. Its features include Reality Creation, object-based resolution enhancement, object-based HDR remastering and the Dynamic HDR Enhancer, which identifies bright highlights and boosts their intensity without adversely affecting other elements of the picture.

Having said that, the Optoma offers substantially broader format support. It handles HDR10, HLG, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, while the Sony is limited to HDR10 and HLG. Dolby Vision is still rare among projectors and proves to be a meaningful advantage for the Optoma, rather than merely another logo on its specification sheet.

Optoma’s projector is also better equipped for gaming. Its three HDMI inputs comprise two HDMI 2.0 sockets and one HDMI 2.1 connection, with the latter supporting 4K signals at 120Hz. We measured input lag at 34.9ms in Low Latency mode and 18.1ms in Ultra Low Latency mode using a 60Hz signal.

The Sony’s two 18Gbps HDMI 2.0 inputs top out at 4K/60Hz, although it can accept 1080p at 120Hz. Its input lag was measured at 21ms with a 4K/60Hz signal and 13ms at 1080p/120Hz with its fast-response feature engaged.

Installation is another significant advantage for the Optoma. It offers motorised focus, zoom and lens shift, alongside a 1.6x zoom and a throw ratio of 1.25:1 to 2:1. The Sony’s zoom, focus and lens-shift controls are all manual, and we found its lens-shift wheels particularly loose and imprecise. Its lack of motorisation also means there is no lens-memory function.

Overall, Sony’s native 4K system and exceptional processing are hugely important, but the Optoma is brighter, supports more HDR formats, is easier to install, and offers 4K/120Hz gaming. Unsurprisingly, it wins this round fairly convincingly.

** Winner: Optoma UHZ78LV **

Sony VPL-XW5000ES vs Optoma UHZ78LV: picture quality

The Optoma’s brightness isn’t merely impressive on paper. In rooms with ambient light, it produces a bold, vibrant picture that retains far more colour and impact than most dedicated home cinema projectors.

Bright highlights have terrific intensity, while the combination of strong colours and deep shadows gives large-scale images a tangible sense of depth. During the battle for Washington DC in Civil War, blazing light sources and darker areas combine to create an arresting, cinematic image. It’s impressively crisp, too. Fine facial textures, environmental details and subtle lighting effects are reproduced cleanly, without the picture immediately appearing over-sharpened.

The Optoma also offers HDR, Filmmaker Mode and IMAX Enhanced presets for standard HDR material. We prefer IMAX Enhanced for viewing in a dark room, despite its initially darker and softer appearance, but the projector never entirely abandons its taste for spectacle.

Colours can look slightly more saturated and skin tones warmer than they should, while the overall picture sometimes feels as though it is pushing for impact rather than settling into complete neutrality.

Dolby Vision improves matters considerably. Dolby Vision Dark introduces a more restrained balance, while Dolby Vision Bright combines extra punch with impressive control and is our preferred mode overall, even in a darkened room. Dolby Vision Cinema works well in ambient light, although we recommend disabling its default motion processing.

The Optoma’s compromises become more apparent with SDR. Its Cinema mode is too bright and vivid for authentic dark-room viewing, while Reference looks somewhat cool and green. Careful adjustment produces a much better picture, but there remains a slight sheen and vivaciousness that doesn’t always suit the material.

Its single-chip DLP design can also produce occasional rainbow artefacts, particularly when bright objects appear against dark backgrounds. Motion is generally handled well, but there are rare traces of unwanted smoothing even with motion processing disabled.

In contrast, Sony’s offering delivers a fundamentally different kind of picture. It lacks the Optoma’s searing brightness, but in a dark room, its images are more natural, nuanced and authentically cinematic.

Black levels are excellent, with dark scenes appearing deep and neutrally toned. Sony’s Dynamic HDR Enhancer also gives bright highlights impressive impact without compromising the rest of the image, although its High setting can clip detail and is best avoided. We found the Middle setting offered the most satisfying balance.

Native 4K material looks exceptionally detailed, dense and three-dimensional as well. The combination of Sony’s SXRD panels, Reality Creation processing and Digital Focus Optimiser produces a solidity and natural crispness that the pixel-shifting Optoma can’t quite match. Upscaled HD material is excellent, too.

Motion is another major strength. Sony’s True Cinema setting gently reduces the distracting judder associated with 24fps content without introducing the excessively smooth appearance or processing artefacts found on many rivals.

Colours are beautifully balanced, controlled and nuanced, too, giving the Sony a sense of authenticity that the Optoma achieves only intermittently. There are rare occasions when the Sony struggles with very dark scenes containing extremely bright highlights, but these moments are uncommon and don’t significantly undermine its performance.

Overall, the Optoma is the stronger performer in a room with ambient light and can look superb with Dolby Vision material. For critical movie viewing in a dark room, however, the Sony offers superior sharpness, motion, colour accuracy and overall authenticity.

** Winner: Sony VPL-XW5000ES **

Sony VPL-XW5000ES vs Optoma UHZ78LV: verdict

This comparison is closer and more nuanced than the projectors’ respective five-star and four-star ratings might initially suggest.

The Optoma UHZ78LV has some significant advantages. It is vastly brighter, supports Dolby Vision and HDR10+, accepts 4K/120Hz signals and is considerably easier to install thanks to its motorised lens controls. In a room that can’t be fully darkened, it’s likely to be the more satisfying projector.

It’s also a hugely entertaining performer. Its pictures are bold, vibrant and packed with impact, while Dolby Vision helps it achieve a more controlled and authentic balance than it generally manages with HDR10 or SDR.

For a traditional dedicated home cinema setup, though, the Sony VPL-XW5000ES remains the better projector. Its native 4K system produces sharper and more solid images, while its superior motion handling, balanced colours and greater subtlety create a more convincing representation of the filmmaker’s intent.

At the time of this comparison, the Sony is also significantly cheaper in the UK. It’s officially available in the US, where the Optoma isn’t due to be sold, while Australian pricing for the Optoma has yet to be confirmed. Yes, Sony’s manual lens controls, limited HDR support and lack of 4K/120Hz are frustrating, but once it is installed and a film begins, its picture quality outweighs those shortcomings.

So choose the Optoma if you regularly watch with bright ambient light, need Dolby Vision, or want 4K/120Hz gaming. For the most authentic and accomplished movie performance in a dark room, though, the Sony retains its well-deserved crown.

** Overall winner: Sony VPL-XW5000ES **