Devices View

TCL is an enormous, vertically integrated TV manufacturer: TCL runs its own factories and invests tens of billions of dollars in building its own display panel fabs in China. (TCL also has enormous mobile and home appliance divisions.) Like most big brands, TCL initially ignored the surge of portable projectors out of China because they didn’t initially target TV buyers, but it is now dipping its toes into the market as the product category grows and we start seeing some cannibalization of traditional entertainment displays. TCL is late to this trend; Samsung went first with the Freestyle launched at the …

Portable cannister projectors are not only becoming a big business, they allow small companies like XGIMI or (what was a small company) Anker/Nebula to move up the value chain. These companies, mostly coming out of China have names that you may not have heard of that nevertheless have sold hundreds of thousands or even millions of devices. Yaber was formed in 2018, shipped its first projector in 2019, and claims it hit over two million units sold by 2022. As it moves upmarket, Yaber sought out stylistic collaborators to stand out, and it launched a Keith Haring version of one …

The market for portable cannister pico-projectors is still niche, but it has attracted the attention of larger brands like Samsung and LG. LG’s first entry strikes a nice balance between performance and design. LG’s take on the portable smart projector leans heavily on design, with premium specs for the category, but still aiming at plug-and-play use cases rather than full-on home theater. The CineBeam Qube HU710PB (which LG blessedly refers to as “CineBeam Q,” so I will, too) is a relatively compact rectangle with a rotating stand that doubles as a carrying handle. LG has finished the CineBeam Q entirely …