I’ve been loving the JMGO N1S Ultimate projector over the past few weeks. It’s super bright and easy to use; just place it on a table, point it at a wall, and watch some movies. It really is that simple with an all-in-one lifestyle projector like this.

However, its ease of use may be the very thing keeping it from being the perfect unit in some dedicated home theatre setups.

That said, if you want a great projector with a super bright lamp that supports HDR, it will be hard to pass this one up. This N1S Ultimate even comes with a nice (albeit large) carrying case, and some cool features like a smart radar that can detect when you walk in front of the screen and dim the picture so it doesn’t blind yousomething my eyes are extremely thankful for.

Lifestyle The top specs

This is the top-end projector JMGO currently offers. Its selling features are the above-average 3,500 ANSI lumen brightness, its Google TV operating system, and the easily adjustable gimbal base.

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The brightness is self-explanatory, and JMGO has tweaked its laser this year to eliminate the weird sparkle some laser projectors display. The picture is rich, contrasted, and very bright, but it still has a pretty good handle on HDR and gives a decent dynamic range. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have Dolby Vision, but it does support HDR 10, and JMGO says it can output ten percent more than the standard 10-bit colour codec to help colours pop. The colours are really nice, but with projectors, brightness is king, and for this unit, I’ve been running at 7/10 since 10/10 brightness is almost too much in a pitch-black room whenever I’m watching SDR content. With HDR, 10/10 is better since it helps the bright highlights pop.

The Google TV OS is nice to look at and offers the standard projector settings so you can keyframe, zoom, shift, and change the perspective of this projector with ease. The OS isn’t bad by any means, and since it’s Google TV, you can access all the streaming apps you’d expect, like Netflix, Crave, CBC Gem, Prime Video, Plex, etc, but I did find that the Android Plex app would crunch black levels into a grainy mess so I mainly used this connected to my Apple TV 4K. The included remote is nice, too, but I miss the dedicated autofocus button from the Dangbei projector I tested before. The N1S Ultimate does have better autofocus, so I don’t need to dive into the settings as much, but for projectors, having that dedicated button is great. The JMGO remote does have more controls, which is nice, and those include buttons for switching inputs, pulling up a quick menu and one for settings. This is handy for set-up after you’ve moved it since you’ll need to readjust some things. The dedicated settings button also means you can open the Settings and Picture options from anywhere, which is helpful for colour tuning.

The thing that is going to be the most decisive among people is the built-in gimbal base. Don’t get me wrong, it works super well, and the projector can adapt the picture surprisingly fast as you move it around. This base lets you spin the projector from left to right and tilt it up and down, which is perfect if you have it on a table in front of you, but if you want to use the projector on a stand or a tripod, you’re out of luck. JMGO sells a stand for $220 USD (roughly $296 CAD), but it seems more geared for at-home use than outdoors since it has a small footprint.

JMGO uses the gimbal’s foot to store things like the power jack and the on-off button, so you can’t remove it since it’s wired to the projector’s hardware. There’s no quarter-twenty screw hole on the bottom either, so you can’t position this one on a tripod or with a lot of off-the-shelf ceiling mounts. This is likely fine for most users, but for people with established projector setups, it’s harder to integrate this one unless you have a shelf it can sit on, or a huge/stable coffee table.

I’ve had to place mine on my mantle to the right of my couch, and the keystone feature works well enough that we can still project a huge screen at this off-angle. However, there’s a bit of light overshooting as the N1S Ultimate works to fit a rectangle screen in the trapezoid of light I’m projecting at the wall from this slant. Using it on a coffee table is much more straightforward, but since my living room is pretty narrow, it doesn’t let me get the giant screen I want from a projector. Speaking of the giant screen, you can easily push this up to 200 inches, but JMGO recommends 4K viewing at a maximum of 180 inches. In my testing, I usually have it around 115 inches inside and 150 inches outside, and it’s been fantastic on both of my screens.

If you have the device in front of you, the dual 10-watt speakers are pretty good, and you can easily use them to get pretty immersive sound out of this all-in-one unit. However, I found them fairly spacey, and you can tell they aren’t outputting a huge amount of power. Outside, I find them even worse, and I need to have them at 100 percent to be useful. Ultimately, if you spend over $2,799 USD (roughly $3,780 CAD) on this projector, you probably want to hook up a decent soundbar or surround system to ensure an immersive movie experience. However, the built-in speakers will work in a pinch if you’re travelling or using it on a table in front of you.

The N1S Ultimate has two HDMI 2.1 ports, one of which is eARC, so you can easily hook it up to most modern soundbars. However, you’ll have to deal with a long cable running across your room once you do. There’s also a 3.5mm AUX jack for audio output, but no optical audio port. I’ve been using mine with two Apple HomePod minis, and while the audio isn’t as dynamic as a soundbar or two full-sized HomePods, it does allow me to have decent stereo sound in the front of my room without running cables across the floor or ceiling.

Lifestyle Who is this for?

If you want a bright projector you can use in a bit of ambient light the JMGO N1S Ultimate is an incredible option, but make sure you can fit a projector with a built-in gimbal foot like this into your setup.

For the odd movie night, this is also a solid option. Its carrying case makes it easy to pack up and put away when you’re not using it, but if you want a permanent home theatre setup, it’s hard to justify this one since it really begs to be set up on a table in front of the viewers, which won’t be for everyone.

When it comes to all-in-one units, the JMGO N1S Ultimate is hard to beat, and its maximum 4k screen size of 180 inches, superior brightness and built-in speakers make it versatile for use inside, outside, for meetings or lectures. I’ve been using it mainly inside and only took it outside three times, but all-in-all this is a fantastic option that makes movies pop.