The Dangbei N2 Mini is a decent projector with a low list price ($229) that fares well against similarly priced competitors, such as the Aurzen EAZZE D1G and the Kodak Flik HD9. Its sealed light engine is a big part of why. Its main shortcoming, though, much like these two competitors, is its low brightness. All three mini projectors are rated at just 200 lumens—bright enough to give you a highly watchable picture in a dark room, but not an impressively large one. If you don't mind sacrificing picture size, the N2 Mini is a solid option for watching TV or settling in for a movie night. Note, though: Beyond the Aurzen and Kodak models above, we've recently tested two additional low-cost models that we'll get into later in this review; all four have different strengths and weaknesses for budget buyers to weigh.

Design: A Dust-Free LCD Is a Dream

The N2 mini is built around a single LCD and a white LED light source rated at 20,000 hours. Dangbei didn't confirm the geometry of the LCD matrix itself, but for most 1080p projectors in this price range, having a single LCD translates to having a 5,760-by-1,080-pixel LCD with a red, green, or blue filter on each cell, or 1,920 (5,760 divided by 3) by 1,080 red/green/blue pixels. Dangbei did confirm the color filters on each cell, a design that guarantees it can't show rainbow artifacts (red/green/blue flashes).

One feature that sets this projector apart from other single-chip LCD models is its sealed optical engine, which prevents pesky dust specks from popping up on the LCD.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

I did spot some moiré patterns in test images. Usually, this results from a mismatch between the number of pixels in the image and the number on the display chip, either because of digital adjustments (which is why we turn those off for our tests) or because the actual number of pixels for the display chip is slightly different than the rating (as with some DLP chips). But according to Dangbei, the cause is a Fresnel lens (one with concentric rings etched into the surface). Fortunately, the moiré will rarely be visible in photorealistic images, though it could be an issue if you use the projector for presentations with finely detailed line graphics or patterned fills.

Physically, the N2 Mini falls squarely in our mini projector category, as a mini tower permanently mounted on a stand. It weighs 3.8 pounds and measures 9.5 by 5.6 by 5.9 inches (HWD) overall with the lens pointed straight ahead. However, you can project an image anywhere from floor to ceiling by rotating the projector through a 190-degree range.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

Setup should be easy enough in most cases, but I ran into one glitch you'll want to avoid. Briefly, Wi-Fi is the only option for connecting to the internet for streaming. (The projector also has an HDMI port on the back, as well as a USB port for reading files from USB memory.) For testing, I always start with my testbed router set not to broadcast an SSID—a mild security measure. But that presented a problem with the N2 Mini. Almost every time I tried to connect to the projector this way, the OS crashed, and I'd have to pull the plug to regain control. Fortunately, there's a workaround: turning the SSID on for the initial setup only. Once I established the connection, I was able to turn the broadcast off again and had no trouble reconnecting whenever I turned the projector back on.

That problem aside, the setup is fairly typical for the breed. The N2 Mini offers the most common auto setup features, including auto keystone correction, screen match, and obstacle avoidance. These digital adjustments will lower image brightness in many cases—that's why I didn't use them for my formal viewing tests—but they're useful if the ambient light is low, so that brightness isn't an issue. The one I left on—auto focus—worked as promised.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

The N2 Mini departs from the streaming pack by using a Linux OS. The apps I tried worked reliably, including a licensed pre-installed Netflix app, YouTube, Prime Video, Plex, and others. There are also apps for mirroring Android, Windows, and iOS devices.

The onboard 6-watt speaker delivered good enough quality for casual use and is loud enough for a small to medium-sized family room. You can also connect to an external sound system using the 3.5mm audio-out port or Bluetooth, and you can use the projector as a Bluetooth speaker for other devices.

Performance Testing and Quality: Best to Tweak the Brightness Setting

The menus offer five preset picture modes, but in my preliminary tests, none of them achieved even decent picture quality straight out of the box. All of them made both dark scenes and midtone-dominated scenes too dark overall, and they lost shadow detail even in brighter scenes. That immediately made Custom mode my preferred choice, as the only one that allows for any changes.

You can also adjust the Contrast, Saturation, Hue, Sharpness, Color Temperature, and Brightness settings. In my testing, Brightness was the only option that absolutely required an adjustment. In preliminary testing, I found no way to set the Brightness to deliver good shadow detail and overall brightness for scenes dominated by midtones without also washing out colors in brighter scenes. The trick is to find the setting that gives you the best compromise for your tastes.

For my SDR viewing tests, I settled on a Brightness setting level that delivered a bright picture overall, good shadow detail, and good contrast in scenes from dark to light. Colors delivered acceptably accurate hues, while color saturation varied from good to merely decent, depending on the scene's brightness.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

The N2 Mini's spec sheet doesn't claim to support 4K input or HDR, although Dangbei says that in some cases it will negotiate a 4K SDR connection at 30Hz. In both our formal tests with 4K HDR discs and informal tests with 4K HDR streaming sources, the projector negotiated a 1080p SDR connection.

There was one surprising feat that the N2 Mini pulled off: In viewing tests, the projector handled HDR versions of scenes at least as well as it handled 1080p SDR versions. The two were similar enough that I couldn't spot any difference, though I might have in a side-by-side comparison. For HDR viewing, I also adjusted the Brightness control, but I set it lower than for SDR content. The N2 Mini doesn't store the HDR and SDR settings separately, which means you have to change them back and forth manually. The good news is that Brightness is the only one you should need to change.

As expected for a low-cost LCD projector, there is no 3D support.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

The input lag was longer than is generally considered acceptable for even casual gaming. I measured it with my Bodnar 4K Lag Tester at 98.9 milliseconds for 1080p/60Hz input—just short of the 100-millisecond, or full 10th of a second, mark.

I found that the image brightness for the settings I chose was close to what I would expect from the 200-lumen rating. In my tests, the image was too dim for extended viewing on my 90-inch diagonal, 1.0 gain screen, but it was suitably bright for extended viewing for both SDR and HDR when using my 56-inch diagonal screen. As a point of reference, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) recommends a range of 55 to 74 inches for a 200-lumen projector in a dark room. With lights on in a family room at night, it was too dim for extended viewing at that size, but suitably bright at 45 inches.