Formovie X5 review: big and bright visuals from a compact laser projector, but there’s a catch

Have you ever heard of the projector brand called Formovie? Unless you keep a keen eye on the global projector market, there is a very good chance that you’re hearing of this brand for the very first time. That’s because Formovie products were not available in India till now. The Chinese brand has just recently entered the Indian projector market, several years after introducing itself on the global stage. In the post-pandemic area, the projector market in India has witnessed substantial growth, and with the increasing demand, it isn’t a surprise that more players are ready to cater to Indian customers.

To give you a background of Formovie, it was founded in 2016 and is a Mi ecosystem company jointly invested by Appotronics and Xiaomi. So far, Formovie has released more than 50 products including laser TVs, laser projectors, LCD projectors, and LED projectors. The biggest USP of Formovie projectors is that they use ALPD (Advanced Laser Phosphor Display) as their light source, which is mostly used in laser projectors in cinema theatres for brighter and more vibrant visuals. This display makes the viewing experience better than regular projectors.

Having spent enough time with the brand’s X5 portable laser projector, I can now share whether you should opt to buy this premium projector at a hefty price of Rs 2,45,000 or go for another option. Without further ado, let’s dive into the review.

Design

The X5 comes with a premium compact design and is available in just one colour – Silver Blue. I was surprised to find out that the projector measured just 217 x 210 x 167mm and weighed 3.98kg. The specifications and features of this laser projector, however, defy its small size. While the sides of the projector are covered in what Formovie describes as “Denmark Kvadrat recycled fibre wrapping cloth,” at the front, it features a “Star glass panel.” The projector looks premium and can easily blend into your room’s aesthetics.

You get a power button on the top, while the back sports the following ports for connectivity:

• One USB 2.0 port 
• 2 HDMI 2.1 (eARCx1 and 4K-120HZx1) ports
• One Audio port 
• One Ethernet port（100M network port)
• One S/PDIF port

The Formovie X5 comes with a remote with excellent build quality. However, the controller surprisingly doesn’t have an input button (to allow change of input source), which is not just common but an important option on any remote. Due to the absence of this button, changing the input source is an ardent task and you have to time and again go to the main menu settings to do it.

Specifications and features

The Formovie X5 is a long-throw laser projector that supports up to 4K UHD (3,840 x 2,160 pixels) resolution with the help of DMD 0.47-inch chip from Texas Instruments and comes with ALPD 3.0 as the light source. ALPD, which stands for Advanced Laser Phosphor Display, is a light source technology that combines the benefits of both laser and phosphor light sources to enhance the performance of projectors. The result is a vibrant and bright image. This technology is also designed to deliver better colour accuracy and a wider colour gamut compared to traditional lamp-based projectors. The X5 comes with HDR support and features MEMC (Motion Estimation and Motion Compensation) for improved image clarity.

The X5 is rated at 2,450 CVIA lumens, as per the company, which is a new measurement standard recently adopted by several Chinese manufacturers. This should not be confused with ANSI lumens, which has been the traditional brightness measurement standard globally. The company has claimed that the projector offers up to 4500 ANSI lumens of peak brightness and covers 110 percent of the Rec.709 colour gamut. However, many experts have proved this to be false, and the most widely recorded peak brightness of this projector is around 2200 ANSI lumens, which means it’s no slouch. The X5 comes with a throw ratio of 1.27:1 and an ideal projection size of 60 inches to 180 inches (although it can project a much larger image if you place it far enough from the screen). For projection adjustment, you get omnidirectional auto-correction for the keystone, autofocus, and automatic curtain alignment. You get an intelligent light-sensing feature that adjusts the brightness on the basis of your surroundings.

The core specs of the projector include a MediaTek 9669 chipset, 4GB DDR4 RAM, and 128GB of eMMC memory. The X5 comes with a power consumption rating of ≦200W and power input of 100-240V @50/60Hz. It features two (12W+6W) built-in DENON-branded speakers (more on the sound quality later) with Dolby Audio and DTS-HD support. As far as connectivity options are concerned, you get Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0/ BLE support. You get a low latency game mode here but with an input lag of 39ms for 2160p/60 Hz signals.

One thing to keep in mind is that the projector (even the variant sold in India) runs the FengOS 3.0 smart platform out of the box. This means that you will be treated to the Chinese operating system as soon as you boot up the device. However, just like with the global variant, the brand is bundling an Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K with the projector to offer a completely separate user interface in English. While I didn’t find this to be too big an issue, there is one caveat associated with the primary platform. Whenever I had to change the projector settings, I had to switch to FengOS settings to make all the changes, before switching back to Fire TV OS. This is a major annoyance because if you’re watching a live match, you’ll have to miss certain parts because you can’t access the projector menu unless you go to FengOS first.

However, the saving grace is that the projector’s remote can be used to control Fire TV OS as well. This avoids the hassle of keeping both controllers by your side every time you want to use the device.

Viewing experience and sound

Formovie X5 is not your run-of-the-mill projector. We are talking about an incredibly competent device that can even be used to cast video in a full-sized cinema theatre. To give you a glimpse of what this device is capable of, I’ll embed a video below that showcases it projecting a whopping 1800 inches of video onto a building with impressive colours and brightness levels.

 

But putting aside the sheer size, let’s talk about how it fares in regular use. The first thing you need to know about Formovie X5 is that it is a long-throw laser projector with no mechanical zoom to increase the size from a short distance. This means, the farther you go from the screen, the larger image you will get. So if you’re planning to buy this projector, you should ensure that you have enough space in your room to place a projector as far away as possible to get the required display size. Going by the calculations shared online, you will need to be at least 111 inches away from the screen to get a maximum projection size of 100 inches. Keep in mind that the manual zoom option is still available and you can reduce the image size as per your requirement.

The Formovie X5 provides seven picture modes: Custom, Game, Display, Sports, Standard, Movie, and Showy. Notably, these picture modes are applied universally to both SDR and HDR content. Unfortunately, you cannot do separate calibration for any of the modes (not even custom) for SDR and HDR content. This means you will need to do this calibration each time you switch manually or you will have to custom-tune one of the modes for HDR and one other for SDR content.

One of the things that you will notice right away with the X5 is that the image is brighter than some of the other projectors you can find in this price range. The brightness modes available with the projector are Day, View, Night, and Silent. Out of these, View and Day modes offer the maximum brightness and Silent mode offers the least brightness. However, I found the Silent mode to be the most colour-accurate mode out of the box. In other modes, the colour accuracy was quite off the mark and you either get a green or blue tint.

Thanks to the high brightness level, the projector can be used with some amount of ambient light. However, to appreciate the true quality offered by the X5, you need to place it at an ideal distance and height in a room with controlled lighting. With native 4K UHD resolution and HDR support, the projector truly shines in terms of image quality and I faced no banding issues either.

With its two (12W+6W) built-in DENON speakers, the projector offered enough sound for me not to immediately switch to a soundbar. Now that’s an impressive feat since most projectors with built-in speakers do need external speakers. So even if you don’t have a soundbar or a capable speaker system, I can confidently say that you would still be fine with the sound on offer here. However, if you really want a more immersive experience with a decent speaker setup, the multiple connectivity ports on this projector (also including an eARC port) come in quite useful. 

Verdict

Formovie X5 is an ideal fit for a home theatre and in comparison with some of the more premium projectors, it comes at a very reasonable price. It offers bright 4K visuals and can cast as big an image as you can possibly want in your required setup. With impressively loud built-in speakers and a long-lasting light source, the X5 is a compelling product. However, as the projector ships with a Chinese user interface as default, you will have to deal with constant switching to the Fire TV OS. Th process is made even more complicated by the lack of a dedicated input button on the projector’s remote. Further, the colour calibration options are somewhat limited. Apart from these minor issues, the X5 is a solid projector for small business owners or users who want a home theatre setup with a massive screen.

Editor’s Rating: 7.5 / 10 

Pros: 

• Compact and premium design
• Bright and detailed 4K visuals
• Impressive and loud built-in speakers
• ALPD 3.0 light source

Cons:

• Chinese FengOS default user interface
• Input button absent on remote
• Limited calibration options

The post Formovie X5 review: big and bright visuals from a compact laser projector, but there’s a catch first appeared on 91mobiles.com.

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