Between its compact chassis and its highly variable real-world pricing, the JMGO N1S 4K defies some of the usual assumptions about what a 4K room-to-room projector is—and costs. The N1S 4K is the entry-level 4K (3,840-by-2,160-resolution) model in JMGO's N1S series of room-to-room projectors. Its size and weight would be at the low end of the range for even a 1080p model, and it's rated for a color gamut (range of colors) that's 10% larger than the full range defined in the spec for 4K UHD projectors. And its list price is a little hard to pin down. The projector's webpage shows it at $1,299, but JMGO says it's "permanently discounted" to $899—which is what Amazon shows as its list price—while the actual selling price can be even lower.

Even at the lower price, the N1S 4K doesn't offer enough to replace the Anker Nebula Cosmos Laser 4K SE as our top pick for a budget 4K room-to-room model, but it's a solid alternative that can put less of a dent in your bank account. Keep an eye on those shifting prices.

Design: Light, Small, and Easy to Set Up

The N1S 4K looks like a shrunken version of a typical 4K room-to-room model. The projector itself is a near-cube, permanently mounted on a gimbal stand that allows it to tilt up or down over a range of 127 degrees. There's no motion for horizontal adjustment, but if you need to swivel it left or right, it's light enough, at 4.9 pounds, to turn easily using one hand. The size is just 7.5 by 7.3 by 6.6 inches (HWD) overall by my measurements, with the projector pointed straight ahead.

Like most of its competitors, the N1S 4K uses a display chip with a native resolution of 1,920 by 1,080, but it puts a full 3,840 by 2,160 pixels on the screen using TI's XPR fast-shift pixel shifting. As noted, the color gamut of the tri-color laser light source is rated at 110% of the BT.2020 (a.k.a. REC.2020) spec for 4K UHD projectors and TVs. JMGO rates the light source's life at 30,000 hours.

(Credit: M. David Stone )

I didn't run across any surprises in the initial setup. Just plug in the power cord, turn it on, and follow the on-screen instructions to set up the fully integrated Google TV. Wi-Fi is the only option for connecting to the internet via your network for streaming. For other sources, you can connect to the one HDMI port or the one USB port (for reading files from USB memory) on the back panel, or take advantage of the built-in Chromecast for connecting from Android and iOS mobile devices on the same network.

JMGO provides a full set of automatic setup features, including auto focus, auto vertical and horizontal keystone, auto screen-fit, and smart object avoidance. In addition, you can use manual keystone adjustment and digital zoom. Like always in my testing, the only one of these I used for my viewing trials was auto focus. The other features I tried, however, worked as advertised. Just keep in mind that using any of these digital geometry adjustments to square off the image or change its size will lower the brightness and can introduce artifacts.

(Credit: M. David Stone )

The Dolby audio system is built around dual 5-watt speakers, and it supports Dolby Digital Plus and DTS-HD. The combination delivers decent sound quality and suitable volume for a small-to-medium-size family room, but if you need higher volume or better quality, you can take advantage of Bluetooth or the HDMI port's eARC support to connect to an external audio system. (There is no 3.5mm audio out.) You can also use the N1S 4K as a Bluetooth speaker for another audio source.

One other welcome feature is that the box the N1S 4K ships in can serve nicely as a protective carrying case.

Image Quality: More-Than-Acceptable

The menus offer six predefined picture modes, with the same six names showing for both SDR and HDR input. Each picture mode offers much the same settings options, with only a few exceptions. For example, frame interpolation (shown as "MEMC" on the menus) isn't available in Office mode, so that entry is grayed out.

In addition to the picture-mode names remaining the same for both SDR and HDR input, the setting options remain the same. However, JMGO says that the projector stores the settings for each separately, and in my tests, I was able to use the same picture mode for both SDR and HDR input, set the gamma setting differently for each, and have the gamma switch back and forth automatically between the two settings every time I changed between the two types of input.

(Credit: M. David Stone )

My preliminary tests left me without an obvious best choice for which picture mode to use for my viewing tests. Movie mode offered better color accuracy and good shadow detail, while Standard mode offered better shadow detail with good enough color and a brighter image. Depending on personal taste, you could reasonably prefer either mode. I picked Standard, but I made two changes to the default settings, adjusting the Brightness setting (meaning black level) correctly and turning off frame interpolation. Even at its lowest setting, the latter introduced an annoyingly obvious soap opera effect that made filmed material look like digital video.

After my adjustments, SDR image quality was easily good enough by most people's standards. Most would find the colors acceptable, too; the black level was suitably dark; and shadow detail was excellent, letting me see all the fine points I know to look for in the dark scenes of our test clips. The contrast in bright scenes was low, making colors look a little flat, but the image quality overall was still more than acceptable for the price.

The one potential issue I saw was relatively frequent rainbow artifacts (the red/green/blue flashes that single-chip DLP projectors are prone to). If you tend to see them easily and find them obtrusive, be sure to buy the projector from a source that allows easy returns, so you can evaluate the problem (or lack thereof) for yourself.

(Credit: M. David Stone )

For HDR viewing, I also chose Standard mode, turning off frame interpolation once again. The image quality (including the disposition toward rainbow artifacts) was roughly the same as for SDR, except that the contrast in brighter scenes was improved enough to be noticeable. That also helped give colors more pop.

The 3D support, using DLP-Link glasses, works with any of the picture modes, but you have to turn it on manually and choose between left-right, top-and-bottom, and Blu-ray 3D formats. I didn't see any crosstalk in my tests, and the 3D motion artifacts I saw were significantly less obvious than typical today.

Gamers will appreciate that lag times are easily short enough for casual gaming. Using the ultra-low-latency setting, I measured it with my Bodnar 4K Lag Tester at 18.3ms for 4K/60Hz input and 18.4ms for 1080p/60Hz. JMGO says it also supports 240Hz, but the projector wouldn't sync with my test equipment at that refresh rate.

(Credit: M. David Stone )

The N1S 4K's brightness rating is 1,100 ISO lumens. However, as with many projectors, using the brightest setting introduces enough green bias to the image that you probably won't want to use it unless you absolutely must. For the settings I used, Movie mode was roughly as bright as I expect from about 550 to 600 ISO lumens, while Standard mode was closer to 725 to 775 lumens. Both were easily bright enough to light up my 90-inch, 1.0 gain, 16:9 screen in a dark room, while Standard mode also delivered a quite watchable 85-inch diagonal picture in a family room at night with lights on. The image was even watchable, though washed out, at that size on a bright afternoon.

That said, note that for my official viewing tests using discs and a Blu-ray player, the image brightness for HDR was far dimmer than for SDR at the same image size, forcing me to use a much smaller image for HDR, at 56 inches diagonally. The good news is that I did not see this issue with HDR in my ad hoc streaming tests.