The AAXA M8 Laser Projector ($419) is arguably the biggest a projector can be and still qualify as a palmtop, although if you have small hands, you may think it's over the limit. Either way, the device is light enough to rest on a palm, and even when stored in its bundled carrying case, it fits easily in a briefcase or backpack. It's also equally good for home entertainment and presentations on the road. The fan's a bit noisy, but anything quieter might not effectively dissipate the heat from the tri-color laser engine, which delivers a higher brightness than more expensive options, including the Editors' Choice-winning Anker Nebula Capsule 3 Laser. If you don't mind the fan, the M8 Laser is a strong contender for a 1080p palmtop.

Design: Compact, Bright, and a Little Noisy

Don't confuse the M8 Laser with the AAXA M8 Ultra Short Throw projector. The two share some features, but they're nowhere near as similar as their names suggest. The latter M8 is an ultra short throw (UST) projector, meaning it can beam a large image from just inches away from a screen. The M8 Laser has a standard throw, so as with most models, it has to be much further away than the M8 UST for any given image size. It's also lighter and smaller than the ultra short throw model, which makes it more portable, and it has a built-in battery, so you can use it without a power outlet nearby. AAXA rates the battery life at 1.2 hours in the brightest mode (Boost) and 2.5 hours in Eco mode.

Paired with the laser engine, which AAXA rates at 30,000 hours in Boost mode, is a 960-by-540-pixel DLP chip that puts a 1,920-by-1080-pixel image on screen courtesy of TI's XPR fast-switch pixel shifting. As is typical for current 1080p models, it can accept 4K (3,840-by-2,160-pixel) input to downconvert the image to 1080p. Unlike many, however, it limits the maximum refresh rate for 4K to 30Hz, which means you can watch movies at 4K/24Hz, but can't connect an input source—a gaming console, for example—at 4K/60Hz.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

Setup is straightforward. The M8 Laser doesn't offer most of the automatic adjustment features that are becoming more and more common for projectors, but it does offer digital zoom and automatic vertical and horizontal keystone adjustment. As with any projector, however, these digital adjustments lower brightness and can introduce artifacts, so in most cases it's best to both turn the automatic features off and skip manual keystone adjustment, if you can. The projector measures 1.8 by 5.8 by 5.8 inches (HWD) and weighs just 1.8 pounds, making it easy to fine-tune its position. And although the M8 Laser lacks autofocus, the powered manual focus is all you need to get a suitably sharp image.

I ran into one minor setup issue with a label that partly covered the control panel on the top of the projector. The label on our review unit was so thin that it tore when I tried to carefully remove it, pulling off the top coating in several spots and leaving scraps of paper glued to the surface. AAXA says that this problem has been fixed in later units, but if you run into it, you can scrape the leftover scraps of paper off with a fingernail and use a pencil eraser to remove any remaining glue.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

The built-in streaming feature doesn't require any setup, other than connecting to the internet using Wi-Fi. However, it's built on Android version 9, which is known for having apps with various issues. AAXA explicitly recommends using a third-party streaming stick instead, and says it included the streaming feature only because some commercial customers wanted to add their own apps.

In addition to streaming using AAXA's recommendation—to plug a third-party dongle into the one HDMI 1.4 port—you can also stream material on your phone or other device and set the projector up to mirror it. The M8 Laser supports mirroring through DLNA as well as via Miracast for Android or Windows and AirPlay for iOS. (Android devices and Windows PCs can connect directly to the projector, but iOS devices have to be connected to the same network.) You can also connect a source directly to the M8 Laser's USB-C port to mirror a device. In addition, the projector offers a USB Type-A port and a card slot for reading files from USB memory as well as TF and Micro SD memory cards.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

As already suggested, the M8 Laser's fan noise is more intrusive than typical, combining a high noise level and a somewhat high pitch, so you'll probably want to sit as far away from it as is feasible. The 4-watt audio system delivered high enough volume for a family room, while the sound quality was a little thin compared with most models today. You might want to connect an external sound system or headphones via Bluetooth or the 3.5mm stereo output.

Image Quality: Plan to Tweak the Settings

The menus offer three power settings and five picture modes. All three power settings are available when using either AC power or the built-in battery, but they give the best color accuracy in the brightest (Boost) mode and the worst in the lowest power (Eco) mode, which had an impossible-to-miss green tint. For my viewing tests, I used Boost mode.

In our test suite of image files and PowerPoint slides, all of the picture modes tended to show oversaturated color, particularly for reds and greens. That made Personal mode—the only one that allows any customization—my preferred choice. Lowering the saturation setting toned down the colors to an appropriate level. As a bonus, it turned a greenish yellow into a bright yellow and improved skin tones dramatically. I also saw some oversharpening, which was easy to fix by lowering the setting. After those two changes, the image and color quality for both graphics and photos in our test suite were good enough by most people's standards, making the M8 Laser suitable for any presentation, including one with lots of photos.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

Personal mode also offers settings for brightness, contrast, and hue. Based on my preliminary tests with SDR movies, I kept the same changes I made for presentations and added an adjustment for brightness. The default settings lost far too much shadow detail to make out what was going on in some dark scenes. Raising the brightness revealed more detail, but this is something of a balancing act. The trick is to find the best compromise that shows as much shadow detail as possible without washing out bright scenes. You might even want to adjust the brightness differently for different content. (Think of a baseball game, where shadow detail is rarely an issue, versus a night battle scene in Game of Thrones, where every scene is notably dark.)

Even after my adjustments, color accuracy was occasionally off by enough in our SDR tests to be spotted easily. I saw some oversaturated colors and a blue-green shift in some scenes. However, the colors are close enough for casual viewing.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

The M8 Laser doesn't support HDR or 3D. But very much on the plus side, I saw fewer rainbow artifacts (the red/green/blue flashes that single-chip projectors can show) than with most current DLP projectors. That said, since some people see these rainbows more easily than others, it's always best to buy from a dealer who allows easy returns, so you can test this aspect out for yourself.

Input lag is in the range that most casual gamers will consider acceptable, but on the sluggish side. My Bodnar 4K Lag Tester measured it at 60.8 milliseconds for 1080p/60Hz input.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

AAXA's high brightness rating for the M8 Laser—1,000 laser lumens in Boost mode—isn't useful for making comparisons to other projectors. Laser lumens, like LED lumens, aren't measurable and aren't a standard. The number is based on a presumed subjective sense of brightness. In my tests, the image was roughly as bright as I would expect from about 550 lumens, which translates to easily bright enough to light up my 90-inch, 1.0-gain screen in a dark room. In a family room at night with lights on, the image was arguably usable at that size, but it was dim and had low contrast. Moving the projector closer to the screen, for a 57-inch image, delivered a much brighter, more watchable picture.