I have always been drawn to the promise of an ultra-short-throw projector. The advantages are obvious: it is easy to set up, people are less likely to block the image when walking past, and the light is less likely to shine directly into someone’s eyes.
I once really wanted the PHILIPS Screeneo U4. It looked small and convenient, but it was not sold in Taiwan. Later I saw similar models, such as the OVO KS1, but I have never had a good impression of OVO, and it was not cheap either, so I did not buy it.
I had also read unboxings of Samsung’s The Premiere 5, such as this one: 三星 The Premiere 5 超短焦雷射智慧投影機開箱體驗 近距離就能投放 100 吋大畫面 還有獨特觸控投影功能. The price, however, was simply too high.
So every now and then I would search for ultra-short-throw projectors online. By that I mean relatively affordable, portable models, not home-theater units that easily cost well over NT$100,000. Later I found the Optoma Photon Go. It looked pretty good, but unfortunately it has a built-in battery, which goes against one of my personal rules.
Then I found the Yaber K300S. Its shape is close to the Optoma Photon Go, and it does not have a battery. However, this company’s product specifications are extremely confusing. The lumen figures on its official site, Amazon, and Zeczec crowdfunding page (Yaber T1 Pro) are not consistent, which lowered my trust in the brand.
There was also the LG CineBeam S (LG CineBeam S 小銀河 Ultra 超短焦 4K 微型投影機). On paper it looked very appealing, and among the models above it was the only one with 4K resolution. I just did not feel like spending the money during the Zeczec campaign.
The shortlist I put together at the time looked roughly like this. This table is more of a personal buying note than a strict specification sheet; brightness units are not always labeled consistently across brands, and ANSI, ISO, LED lumen, and HK lumen should not be treated as interchangeable.
| Model | Subjective impressions / pros and cons | Brightness labeling | Power / battery | Key features | Questions I had at the time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Samsung The Premiere 5 | Already purchased. I like Samsung’s OS, remote, and the exterior design of The Premiere 5. I do not like that sharpness enhancement is very aggressive by default, and that the system UI’s sharpness and color cannot be adjusted together with video playback. Samsung also does not have Bahamut Anime Crazy, but I later ended up watching mostly Hami Video, so the app gap was less serious than I expected. I also felt the UI looked reddish and the image edges were slightly warped. After lowering video sharpness, the video became acceptable, but I still prefer the EF12’s image. | Samsung’s overseas official materials list 560 ISO lumens. Some Taiwan pages only write 560 lumens without clearly stating ISO. | No built-in battery; supports USB-C PD power and AC power. | About 0.23:1 UST; FHD; Tizen; detachable stand; without the stand, about 1.8 kg, 136.7 x 200.9 x 139.1 mm. | Image quality is not its strength. What Hi-Fi was lukewarm about color accuracy, detail, and overall refinement. The UI color / sharpness seems to run through a separate system pipeline, so video Picture Settings do not fully apply to the UI. |
| LG CineBeam S PU615U | The paper specs are better, but the boxy shape made me worry it would be easy to damage while traveling, so subjectively I preferred The Premiere 5. The webOS app ecosystem was another practical concern, especially because Bahamut Anime Crazy does not have a native webOS app. | 500 ANSI lumens, clearly labeled by LG. | No built-in battery; 65W USB-C power, and LG explicitly says it can be powered by a 65W power bank. | About 0.25:1 UST; 4K; RGB laser; webOS; about 1.8-1.9 kg; about 110 x 160 x 160 mm. | Reviews generally praise its color, contrast, and image-quality potential, but keep criticizing the brightness. After sorting this out, I do not think it is especially dim among these models. Rather, for UST / living-room expectations, 500 ANSI lumens is still not enough to fight ambient light. |
| Yaber K300S / Black Shark K300S | It looked very attractive at first because it is also a small UST projector and has no built-in battery. Later, because Yaber’s specification labeling is confusing and the brand does not feel transparent enough, I gradually stopped trusting it. With Taiwan pricing around NT$28,000, the value was not dramatically better, so it did not feel worth taking the risk of unclear information. | The most confusing one. I saw claims such as 600 ISO lumens, 1000 ANSI lumens, and even 1500 ANSI from Taiwan retailers. Yaber’s own pages were inconsistent too. | It appears to have no built-in battery. Public information points more toward AC 100-240V, about 100W, unlike LG where USB-C PD support is clearly stated. | About 0.18:1 UST; FHD; RGB laser; Google TV; about 1.8 kg. | The biggest issue is opaque brightness units and numbers. I originally suspected the 1000 lumens might actually mean LED lumens. My conservative reading is that its real brightness class is probably close to or slightly above LG / Samsung, and I would not treat 1000 / 1500 ANSI as confirmed hard specs. |
| Optoma Photon Go | I was very interested in it, especially because it is a small UST projector. But I clearly dislike built-in batteries, so its main selling point became a downside for me. | Optoma Taiwan lists 1200 HK lumens. Optoma Europe materials also show about 650 lumens. Third-party reviews often treat it as being roughly in the 650 ANSI class. | Built-in battery, around 1.5 hours; this is the part I dislike most. | Small UST, RGB triple laser, Google TV; can project 100 inches from about 25 cm away. | HK lumen is not an ANSI / ISO standard. After cross-checking Optoma’s own regional materials, I think it is more reasonable to understand it as roughly 650 ANSI class. Reviews seem to find the concept interesting, but the image quality does not fully justify the price. |
| LG PF1000UG | I once saw an opened-box unit for NT$17,900. It is an older but still capable UST projector, not a modern portable smart projector. | Older official materials / databases usually list 1000 lumens / about 1000 ANSI lumens. | Traditional AC power, without the mobile PD power behavior I care about. | 1080p, LED, UST; around the 2016 generation and now discontinued. | The pros are decent brightness specs and a low price. The cons are old age, noticeable fan noise, an outdated system, high input lag, and aging risk for an opened-box / old-stock unit. I do not think NT$17,900 is especially sweet unless the condition and warranty are both good. |
After buying the Samsung Freestyle V2 (Samsung Freestyle 2nd Gen: A Simple Unboxing), my impression of Samsung projectors improved quite a bit. Samsung also does not have Bahamut Anime Crazy, but I later ended up watching mostly Hami Video, so that did not really get in the way. One day I saw a discounted unit on Shopee, and it also came with a Music Frame LS60D WiFi / Bluetooth wireless speaker, so I made an impulse purchase. The final total was around NT$33,000.
After actually using it, I honestly regretted it a little. The reasons were: first, it is not cheap; second, its colors feel less comfortable than the EF11, and even worse than the Samsung Freestyle V2; third, I did not expect an ultra-short-throw projector to be so sensitive to the wall surface. If the wall is uneven at all, the image warps, while a normal projector is not nearly as sensitive.
So the walls in my home are actually not that suitable for an ultra-short-throw projector. At one point I even considered selling it at a loss, but I figured it might be hard to sell, so I ended up keeping it.
Since I decided not to sell it, I might as well try to find its strengths.
Its advantages are still portability and ease of setup. I usually bring a projector when I travel, and compared with a normal projector, Samsung’s The Premiere 5 is easier to set up. So I later started bringing The Premiere 5 on trips.
However, an ultra-short-throw projector cannot project onto the ceiling.
The original charger is 100W, but it is huge and not very travel-friendly. I bought a MONITORMATE MP-31 140W GaN, which has a small screen that shows power draw. A static image at the lowest brightness draws about 40W, while the highest brightness draws about 55W.
As for the Touch Stand, I have never taken it out to use it.
By the way, I still have not sold that Music Frame LS60D WiFi / Bluetooth wireless speaker. Rough.
Note: This article was machine-translated from Traditional Chinese.
