The Aurzen Boom Mini is a cross between a high-end mini projector and a low-end room-to-room portable. Its image quality, brightness, and price ($349.99 list) would put it firmly in the first group, except that its size, weight, and emphasis on audio quality all argue for the second. However you choose to think of it, though, it's brighter than less expensive models with otherwise similar features, including Aurzen's own Eazze D1G. And compared with the somewhat more expensive Xgimi Elfin Flip, the Boom Mini can't show rainbow artifacts, which can be a key issue for those who see them easily.

Design: LCD Means Rainbow-Free

The Boom Mini—available in black, off-white, green, blue, or gray, depending on where you buy it—is similar to the Eazze D1G in many ways. But the Boom Mini is brighter, rated at 500 ANSI lumens, and with a notably better sound system (more on that later). It takes advantage of essentially the same one-LCD chip design, using a single red, green, or blue filter on each cell in the LCD to create a 1,920-by-1,080-pixel image. Shining a white LED light source through the LCD sends all three primary colors to the screen at once, avoiding any possibility of showing the red/green/blue flashes (rainbow artifacts) that come from cycling through the colors one at a time, as with single-chip DLP projectors.

A second key difference from the Eazze D1G is that the Boom Mini comes permanently mounted on a stand that lets it pivot over a range of 110 degrees, from just a few degrees down to straight up. This is particularly helpful since—as with most single-chip LCD models we've seen—the lens offset puts the center of the image directly in front of the projector when aimed straight ahead, blocking the view of anyone sitting behind it. The stand makes it easy to position the projector lower and still have the image at the height you want.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

The Boom Mini weighs only 4.7 pounds, but its 7.6-by-9.1-by-7-inch (HWD) size makes it a little awkward to move much farther than room to room or to the backyard. Physical setup consists of little more than plugging it in and connecting to a video source. The auto setup features include auto focus, which worked nicely in my tests, as well as auto keystone correction, fit to screen, and obstacle avoidance. For my formal viewing tests, I skipped the last three, since digital adjustments lower image brightness for any given image size, and they can also add artifacts.

Physical connectors include one HDMI port and two USB ports hidden under a protective rubber cover on the left side of the projector, leaving Wi-Fi as the only choice for connecting the built-in Google TV to your internet-connected network. Note also that you can mirror Google Cast-enabled apps from a phone, tablet, or PC connected to the same network as the projector.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

The Dolby audio system, with two 10-watt speakers, offers impressive sound quality for a small, low-cost projector. It's certainly among the best I've heard in its price range, arguably the best, and better than you'll find in any number of more expensive models. It delivers high enough volume to fill a small-to-medium-sized family room. And, in an unusual touch, there's a manual rotatable volume control on the top of the unit in addition to the controls on the remote. You can also connect an external sound system using either Bluetooth or the 3.5mm audio-out port, and you can use the projector as a Bluetooth speaker for other devices.

As is standard for single-chip LCD models, the Boom Mini can get dust specks on its LCD, so it comes with swabs on sticks for cleaning. However, there was no access panel for cleaning that I could find, and the instructions I found on the website didn't seem to apply to the Boom Mini. As of this writing, my Aurzen contact has been unable to send me instructions about how to clean it.

Performance Testing and Quality: A Gray Area, or Areas

The menus offer far more settings options than typical for the price range, starting with seven picture modes, each of which offers the same list of settings for customization, including Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Hue, Local Contrast Control, and Flesh Tone. I chose Standard picture mode for my formal SDR viewing tests, primarily because it was the default choice, and no other mode offered obviously better image quality. The only change I made was to adjust the brightness setting correctly for viewing in a dark room, which improved shadow detail significantly without raising the black level in dark scenes or washing out bright scenes.

That said, the black level varied across the screen from what looked like internal reflections. Instead of fading to a solid black between scenes, there were areas of lighter and darker grays. The same was true, though not as obvious, for large black areas in particularly dark scenes. This issue can be annoying when watching in dark rooms, but it's largely washed out by ambient light, so if you plan to watch mostly with lights on, it won't matter.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

Aside from the uneven black level, the Boom Mini scored reasonably well for image quality. In my SDR viewing tests, it delivered nicely saturated color and good contrast, and the blacks were suitably dark. Even better, shadow detail held well enough to give a good sense of three-dimensionality to smaller, rounded objects in dark scenes.

Aurzen says the Boom Mini accepts a maximum 1080p/60Hz-resolution input with support for HDR10 and HLG HDR. In my formal tests using a 4K HDR Blu-ray disc, the Blu-ray player reported a 1080p SDR connection, but the projector handled the HDR material well anyway (a trick that only some projectors can manage). In my informal tests, the projector reported an HDR connection with Apple+.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

Note that the Boom Mini maintains the same picture mode settings for both SDR and HDR, so if you want to store custom settings for each, you'll have to switch between modes for each kind of input. I picked Movie mode for HDR because it offered the best color quality. In this case also, I bumped the Brightness setting up a little, but not as much as for SDR. After my adjustments, colors held up well, and shadow detail in dark scenes was noticeably better than for the SDR disc's versions of the same scenes.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

Image brightness for the settings I used was close to what I expect from roughly 400 lumens or a little more. For SDR material, it was bright enough to light up my 90-inch, 16:9 diagonal, 1.0-gain screen in a dark room. However, even in a low level of ambient light, equivalent to a family room with lights on at night, I had to switch to my 56-inch diagonal screen for suitable image brightness, color saturation, and contrast. For HDR material, the overall image brightness fell by enough to affect contrast and color saturation at 90-inch size, even in a dark room, making the 56-inch screen a much better choice.

The input lag is in a range that most casual gamers will find acceptable. I measured it using my Bodnar 4K Lag Tester at 48.7 milliseconds for 1080p/60Hz input.