It look like a small home speaker. You know… the kind that’s small enough to move around at home, but not quite compact enough to be portable. Except, it’s not a speaker. Instead, the LG CineBeam S is the outfit’s newest ultra-short throw (UST) projector.
That’s right, they managed to cram an entire UST projector into that tiny enclosure, allowing you to bring big-screen viewing to the living room while taking up minimal space. It’s feature-packed, too, delivering everything from 4K visuals and cinematic audio to an expansive color coverage and more.
The LG CineBeam S is a compact UST projector, measuring just 4.3 x 6.3 x 6.3 inches (width x height x depth). That means, you can easily set it up even in crowded media cabinets. Since it’s a UST projector, there’s no need to create a large distance between the device and the projection surface. Instead, it can produce a 40-inch image at just three inches away, with a maximum screen size of 100 inches, which you can get by placing it just 15 inches away. Very convenient. It uses a triple-laser light source, which gives red, green, and blue their own channels, respectively, all while offering 154 percent coverage of the DCI-P3 color space for accurate color reproduction.
The projector can beam images in stunning 4K (3,840 x 2,160), with support for different types of aspect ratio, so you can watch any type of content on it. It boasts a 450,000:1 contrast ratio, which LG claims creates strong separation between light and dark areas, although brightness is limited to 500 ANSI lumens, so you’ll need a relatively dark room to enjoy whatever it will beam onto your wall. It comes with a remote, as well, allowing you to easily make adjustments (including moving the picture around) on the fly.
The LG CineBeam S supports both HDR10 and HLG for more stunning colors in content that uses them, all while coming with a Film Maker mode (delivers content the way the director intended) and a 4K upscaler for legacy media. It runs webOS, so you can get the wide selection of streaming apps already available on LG’s smart TV platform, with support for AirPlay 2 and Screen Share for playing content from iOS and Android devices, respectively. Want to connect a separate media player or a game console? Not a problem, as it comes with an HDMI eARC port, although framerate tops out at 60Hz. It also comes with two USB-C ports for connecting accessories (e.g. keyboard, controller).
Despite the compact size, this is not intended for portable projector use, so there’s no battery onboard. Yep… you will have to plug it in like every home projector out there. Other features include dual 4W speakers for built-in audio (you might want to connect it to a soundbar, though), automatic focus adjustments, automatic keystone correction, screen scaling and shifting via the remote, eight different color presets for matching the output with your wall’s color, and quiet operation that, the outfit claims, tops out at 29 dB.
Ethan Brooks
A decade in digital publishing has taught me one major lesson the best articles are the ones that respect your time. I cut straight to the chase with well structured, punchy pieces designed to give you the exact answers you need without the runaround.