TCL Launches Its First Portable Home Entertainment Projector

While TCL is currently making waves with its unprecedented range of king-sized (85 inches and above) TVs, it turns out these these aren’t the limit of the brand’s home cinema ambitions. It’s also just announced that it’s joining the increasingly popular portable projector market in the cute, compact shape of the Projector A1.

The Projector A1’s design manages to add another distinctive beat to a portable projector market now packed with increasingly weird but often wonderful looking contenders by wrapping a two-tone blue and black finish around a vertically-standing little (5(w) x 7.6(h) x 10.4(d)in) body that features a sleek built-in silvery metal carry handle you can push through the projector’s body to make it a stand you can use to angle the picture up on to your screen or wall.

The design is enlivened by a cute light animation down its sides too, while grilled finishes on the Projector A1’s front and rear edges reveal the presence of two separate stereo 8W speakers (for 16W total) capable of playing up to Dolby Digital+-level sound. TCL is so confident in the Projector A1’s audio abilities, in fact, that it’s equipped it with support for Bluetooth music streaming, a bass boost feature, and AI Audio, Standard, Movie, Music, and Sport sound preset options.

Inside the Projector A1 is a full HD resolution LCD optical system, illuminated by LEDs capable of delivering up to 360 ISO Lumens of claimed peak brightness. As we now expect to find with portable projectors, the A1 features an advanced auto set up system that can take care of focus, keystone and screen alignment without any manual intervention. So in theory, at least, you can just plonk the projector down wherever you want it to go, turn it on and have it automatically deliver a straight-edged image even if the projector isn’t hitting your wall or screen straight on.

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The projector supports front, rear, front ceiling or rear ceiling positioning, and TCL claims that it’s capable of delivering image sizes from 45 all the way up to 120 inches. I suspect given the 360 ISO Lumens of maximum brightness it can produce that at 120 inches the Projector A1’s images might not be very bright - but the 120-inch image claim does allow the Projector A1 to claim a level of big screen experience beyond anything even TCL’s size-obsessed TV division has yet delivered.

As well as the previously mentioned Bluetooth (5.1) support, the TCL Projector A1 supports built-in Wi-Fi - which is pretty handy given that it joins most modern mobile projectors in carrying a built-in smart system. In this case, Google TV, complete with the wide range of streaming apps we’ve come to expect from Google’s smart platform. Google TV also provides built-in Chromecast support and screen mirroring, as well as Google Assistant voice control via a mic in the Projector A1’s remote control.

Connections include an HDMI port, a USB port and an Aux output, while a built-in low latency Game mode extends the Projector A1’s capabilities beyond movies and music playback.

TCL claims, finally, that the Projector A1 is designed for both indoor and outdoor use, and ships it with a carry case to make transporting it safer.

The Projector A1 is available now with an MSRP of $499.

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