LG Cinebeam Q review: Close, but no HDR

The ultra-portable projector race heated up this year, and the LG Cinebem Q is the LG’s top contender. The tiny new projector has ultra-sharp 4K picture quality and a compact form factor, but that small size does mean it has underpowered speakers and needs a fairly noisy fan to keep it cool. The screen only peaks at 500 ANSI lumens, so compared to some other projectors, it won’t hold up that well in semi-lit rooms.

This minuscule projector is geared toward being put away, pulled out and taken on the go, but during my testing, I’ve been using it full-time in my living room. The vivid colour impressed me, but I needed to tweak the settings heavily to get a picture quality I was happy with. Once I set it up, it was a treat to use, but an extra 500 ANSI lumens and a little more space for better fans and more ports would have made this machine perfect.

Setting it up

I placed my unit on a shelf behind and to the left of my couch, and the CineBeam’s software did a good job of automatically adjusting the picture’s angle and the autofocus. The focus is what surprised me the most and was pin-sharp every time I moved it. The angle of the screen usually needs a little software keystone adjustment, but it was always very close to square. This adjustment is easy to do, but it’s a bit weird that LG’s projector-specific settings are labelled as ‘installation wizard’ instead of something more self-explanatory, like ‘projector settings.’

I also love the look of this projector and the integrated handle, which flips around to be the foot of the unit. It allows you to adjust its height in a really appealing way. That said, its small form factor limits it in a few ways, and I’m not sure it’s worth it. It gets hot and noisy and can’t fit in very great speakers, which doesn’t make it the perfect all-in-one projector it promises to be.

Out of the box, the picture looked okay but rather dull, especially at full brightness. While I usually have my displays on the standard settings with a few tweaks to colour accuracy, I ended up using LG’s Vivid mode, which looked okay but that made it hard to dial in skin tones. On top of that, due to the limited brightness, HDR content did have a few moments where it looked more blown out than I would have liked. I also had to keep the brightness below 75 percent to retain a good contrast ratio. This means while the projector is rated for 500 lumens, you’ll actually be getting less since the picture’s contrast degrades a lot when you have it at 100 percent.

LG’s motion-smoothing technology (TruMotion) is turned on by default and each app acts as its own input. This means you need to turn it off and then make sure to choose the option to ‘apply this to all inputs’ to make sure it’s off for every app. This also applies your colour settings across the board. Once you do this, motion smoothing also remains off, even when you plug and unplug the projector which is great since it’s meant to be portable and moved around.

One of the main drawbacks I had with the system is that it’s pretty targeted at movies and TV shows. Since there is only one HDMI eARC port on the back, you can only plug in one thing at a time, which for me was usually my sound system. This meant when I wanted to play Xbox or Switch, I needed to unplug the sound and use the underwhelming speakers integrated into the projector. You can connect Bluetooth speakers or modern soundbars wirelessly to the CineBeam Q, but it would have been a lot more straightforward to simply install a second HDMI or even an AUX on the back. Especially since the speakers inside are barely passable. They’re 3-watt drivers, and they struggle to fill my living room even when maxed out at 100 percent. No matter what, you can still hear the gentle hum of the cooling fan while watching content when using the built-in speakers too.

There is a USB-C port on the back that you can use for a USB-C to C display or to power the projector with a portable battery. I tried using a USB-C adapter and an HDMI-to-USB-C cable to use the port with HDMI devices like my Xbox, but neither worked. While I like the ability to power the projector over USB-C, the device still comes with an older-style barrel connector for plugging it into the wall. I think it would have made more sense to just use USB-C for wall and portable power, and then add two HDMI ports instead of the current port selection.

Smaller issues

Like many TVs’ built-in software, the CineBeam Q menus have more lag than you’d like. While it’s usually easy to say that you can skip this with something like an Apple TV box, you probably won’t want to on the CineBeam Q since it only has one HDMI port.

Beyond the menu’s slowness, the projector only has an IR receiver for the remote on the back, so if you have the projector behind you as I do, the remote is even laggier since you need to point it directly at the projector for it to work. With my other projectors, the remotes connect through Bluetooth, and they’re much more seamless than the IR implementation. If you have the projector on a table in front of you, it’s better, but I don’t recommend this since you have to have a very stable table for your projector not to shake as you walk by it or use the table to hold snacks and drinks.

The initial setup was also fairly annoying. When I tried to create an LG account on the projector so I could download apps, it kept failing. Then, I needed to go to the LG website on my computer to create one, then go back to the projector, and log in. I was able to get it working at the end of the day, but it was a lot more of a hassle than it should have been and not a great first impression.

Finally, this last gripe is one that I have with all LG TVs and projectors except for the OLED lineup. With all projectors and NanoCell TVs, the screen savers you get with the TV are five pretty average stock images. They’re not terrible photos, but it’s really annoying that you can’t change them unless you have an OLED TV. On top of that, I find that there’s a lot of bloat in the WebOS software. It’s usable, but not as clean as Google TV, or Roku. While it hasn’t launched in Canada yet, it seems likely that LG will pump in more advertisements to its software over the next few years as well.

Conclusion

This 48,000 mAh battery dropped down to 37 percent after one two hour movie.

At the end of the day, this projector gets the job done, and from looking around, it appears that it’s often on sale for between $1,000 and $1,300, which is a pretty solid price for this picture quality. That being said, it’s not necessarily cheap, and buyers should be aware of the limitations a single HDMI port will offer if they plan to use a high-quality sound system and an external device like an Xbox or Apple TV.

That said, being able to run it off USB-C power makes it really easy to take on the go if you want a projector to use when camping. The fact that the Bluetooth speakers worked without any noticeable sound lag was also reassuring. I would have also loved for LG to add a quarter-twenty screw jack on the bottom to make this easily mountable on a tripod to make it even more portable given its small size.

Overall, if you can get this device for $1,000, you’ll be more than happy with it, and its small size makes it easy to store. Plus, it looks pretty solid. However, as I wrote above, be warned that the fans are louder than you’d want if you’re using it indoors and on a table in front of you. It’s also not very bright, and if I was given a choice, I’d buy a brighter 1080p projector at this price. The 4K sharpness is nice, but compared to my (more expensive) but brighter JMGO projector, you lose a lot of details in the shadows simply because the brightness and contrast on the CineBeam Q are quite lacklustre.

The CineBeam Q is $1,274 on Amazon, but only $999 at Visions and if you can get it for an even $1,000 I think its fairly solid for that price.