Screeneo U5Home projector

I've owned a Screeneo for about a year. I bought a new model from a crowd finding event November 2022. Took forever to finally get delivered but it had been worth every dollar and second anticipated. I primarily use it for Streaming and gaming. And first of its HDR actually works. I've had tvs side by side to see the difference in fluidity of the motion of games or show/movies. So I can tell when I'm looking at full HDR. When gaming it always works, and I don't experience lag from the information being projected. This also has just been projected right on my cream colored wall and it still displays an accurate image through these conditions. It handles light sources well, there is a faint discoloration from the light coming in the room. Ideally you would want to block out all the light. But if you have a reason like I do it's unavoidable but it is not going to seriously degrade your picture quality. The image remains focused as well, the only issue I have had is if I roll over on the remote while sleep and throw it off. There isn't an automatic correction function that I have become aware of, but it doesn't need that much fine tuning to get it make to full sharpness. The interface is great as well. I've used no name Chinese projectors from Amazon. That were half the price and I got what I paid for even though they had good quality images. Having a Google interface now is a welcomed improvement. I have not needed to use it's apps but I have used them and it's as easy as any smart TV. And because it is a familar interface it's easy to navigate and find the settings you are looking for. You can just plug ans play this projector and no need for a PC, streaming device or gaming system. Out the box the audio is 3.5 to 4. It doesn't compare to using an external with a sub woofer. But if you had to you would not feel let down by the sound quality not matching the image. The only real con I have is transitioning to a short throw setup. It is a large projector, you can hear the fan but once my sound gets going its tuned out. And placing it in the optimal place for the largest screen size can get tricky depending on how open your space is. And how tall and wide your surface is. It's a transition you have to adapt to, but if you already switched to projection from monitors...well you should be accustomed to it. These are really the main focuses, I haven't had any issues with it, no burn, no loss of quality. It is still going strong after the entire year I have had it now. Hope you find this helpful.

Color quality is great, sound is great too. I hope a firmware update can boost the brightness without compromising picture quality (I have 2 skylights in my living room that I have to deal with). I found a 120" fresnel (pronounced without the "s") for the price of a 100" screen on Alibaba after MUCH research. Well worth it - game changer in projector screen technology. Attached pic - screen on the right is an LG 86" LED (not OLED - UST projectors can't compete with 2 skylights in the daytime), screen in the middle is my 120" fresnel screen with Phillips Screeneo U5 (pretty awesome in full daylight with fresnel screen, when not comparing to the screen on the right, screen on the left is a Paris Rhone UST projected on the wall with a light cream wall color. Paris Rhone UST and their recommended 100" lenticular screen is pretty good, but a 100" screen and UST pairing isn't as impressive as an 86" LG LED TV and nowhere near as awesome as the Phillips Screeneo U5 and a 120" fresnel screen vs. the 86" LG LED TV. I'm hooked!

Well, I have been drooling over USTP tech for quite some time. I know we're approaching almost a decade of the consumer-facing UST tech, but I'd only really become aware of them in the last five years or so. I was sorely tempted by LG and Samsung's offerings, but the prices were really putting me off. Even the attractive-by-comparison pricing of the Formovie Theater was still too steep for my student loan-emburdened pockets. And then I learned of the Philips Screeneo crowdfunding campaigns. I came very close to pulling the trigger with the Screeneo U4. But a few discreetly posed questions to an A/V contact from my old days with Sony convinced me me to steer clear. The "geriatric tech" in the U4 and its lack of features would give rise to regret. There was a UST "wave" coming, and laser would be driving it. Plus, with so many options coming soon, the market was going to become more crowded any day now; the economies of production scale would kick in, and that I would see options comparable to the best in the business from companies I trusted, at prices I could afford. I'm not an A/V tech or professional, and I have little basis for comparison on which to judge, but let me tell you: I'm stoked I waited. My Philips Screeneo U5 arrived on April 22nd, and to say that I am just absolutely blown away, would be nothing short of criminal understatement. Even my partner - who is notoriously indifferent - is hashtag humblebrag to his friends and social media acquaintances. The experience is just...wow. There are absolutely some external factors that may be unimpartially swaying the facts in the U5's favor, but I'll get to those in a moment. For perspective, I'm upgrading from a 2019 Vizio 50" V505-g9 LED tv. The V505-G9 absolutely was not a bad tv for what was paid. I also own a Sony KDL-46NX810 and a Samsung 65" curved UN65HU9000FXZA, which are in the game room and living room, respectively. And yes, I know it's hardly fair to compare the difference of experience between a four-y/o $450 LED tv from a budget brand to a brand-new $1,800 $3,635 Laser USTP from an established high end mid-range brand. It's like going from a ten-year old Kia Rio to a brand new Lexus IS. Everything about the experience is going to be different. For one, I was an Architecture & Design student at Northeastern University and the son of Danish aesthetes. I value the lines of my spaces. I also value space. I do think it's important to remark - I'm surprised by how light it is. The Samsung UN65 is a beast at around 68 lbs, and my Sony NX810 is just over 45 LBS The U5 AT 21.38 lbs weighs almost exactly as much as the Vizio V505-g9's at 21.3 lbs. I was able to set up the U5 to throw an approx. 86" image on my bedroom wall - because that's what I can manage with the constraints of the space. Anytime you are making a sizable jump in image size you're going to have a wow factor. There's a reason people go to the movies. They want that larger than life, reality-escaping experience they can't get at home. Well, with at home projectors improving, their ANSI lumen numbers creeping higher and higher,, and their MSRP creeping lower and lower, TV makers and Movie Theater owners had better take notice because if my skin is goosebumping at 86", I don't want to allow myself to imagine the taboo pleasure of 100", 120", or even 150"! To call this picture anything less than the crispest, sharpest, most vivid, beauty-in-the-detail-minutest that I have ever seen would be an injustice. Is it the best possible picture, ever? Like I said, I'm not an expert. Of course I'd notice if you twiddled with the image settings and held the button on the remote down on the Gamma, tint, sharpness or any of those other settings until the number went to the extreme and couldn't go any further. Would I notice if you went in and nudged those settings one iota? No. I'm sure there are purists and those with A/V expertise who would point out 101 dalmatians flaws after looking at the U5's picture for only 30 seconds. But to me, someone who can absolutely distinguish between 480, 720, and 1080p; and as someone who felt the 2160p of his 2014 Samsung was visually better than the 2160p of his 2019 Vizio... I can find no flaw with what I see thrown up by the U5. I'm re-watching movies I haven't seen in forever so I can re-experience them with the cinematic cast I've been missing. I even watched my 2003 DVD of Kiki's Delivery Service (because the late Phil Hartman's unedited ad-libbed performance as Jiji is the one concession to their no edits policy I'd push Studio Ghibli to accept, and you can only hear it on the 2003 DVD release) and the upscaling and improvement to the image was stark and undeniable. For someone in this budget range, I feel absolutely certain that I've captured a true cinema experience in a home-sized form. Now, is there room for improvement? I'm sure there is. In everything, there is always room for improvement. I've only glanced at the display model 8k TVs in the stores, and those are just something else. And soon we'll have 16k, and 32k, etc. But really, I think, until 8K becomes the minimum display standard in another ten years or so, 4K will satisfy the needs of most general home cinemagoers. And that's without the external aspects I mentioned. To complement my greatly upgraded visual experience I also invested in a Sonos surround system (a sub, the arc, and two One SLs). It was far more than I would have wanted to spend, but I have no patience for wires and cords, and I justified that, if I was going to invest in a wireless system, I would have been upset with myself to have opted for something subpar and then regretted it later. This isn't a Sonos review but I'll say that the spine-tingling, room shaking sound, I have thoroughly ruined myself for accepting anything less. Between the scale of the picture, the image quality, and room-filling sound, I can't ever go back. Now, there are some things I am frustrated by, but these are limitations that I don't believe or Philips fault - save one, and I gather that's more a technical limitation, or maybe the tech doesn't exist yet. The full settings of the projector seem only to be accessible from the home screen. On any other screen, press the settings button on the remote and you're presented with a drastically abridged settings menu, for picture and sound. I am somewhat crestfallen by the keystone correction feature. Perhaps I just haven't spent enough time with it, but I do wish it was a 10 or 12 - heck, a 16-point capable correction-capable, and the directions in which I could "tug" or "tuck" the image were omnidirectional. But I'm sure someday they'll develop laser-mapping auto keystone correction tech and you'll just go in and fine-tune it after it auto-detects the surface onto which you're projecting. I like Android TV. I'm thoroughly entrenched in the Google ecosystem so adapting to Android TV was painless. But there are some minor bells & whistles that are either absent, unavailable without an as-of-yet unimplemented update, or will never come. For example, the irritating absence of Netflix. I'm aware that's a Netflix decision, but it's just dumb. Two, I can't seem to figure out how to get the U5 linked to Google Home for voice commands and Home app control, if that's even possible, or I'm missing something obvious. The low power "sleep mode" is easy to set up, but using the remote control to wake the U5 back up is defying intuition. You hit the power button on the remote when it's gone to sleep because you took a few minutes too long grabbing a snack, nothing happens. More times than I care, I've had to wonder if it's waking up or just mocking me. 6 times out of 10 I end up going over to the unit and pressing the power button manually. Ugh! Would it have killed them to include more than only two HDMI ports? Especially since one's being taken up by the eARC out to my surround. Really, Philips? And, you know, composite isn't completely dead, yet. How about a displayport...port? An option to have the unit in white would have been nice. I'm not looking for reasons to dislike the unit, but neither am I going to allow myself to sound like a Philips projection unit fanboy who just got done licking the last few drops of the Kool-Aid from the pitcher. I will acknowledge that the price of this unit has essentially doubled since I purchased it, elevating it out of the budget-conscious realm from which I was fortunate enough to be able to pluck it, but I think, as aforementioned, you will see the UST projector category become more widespread as the appeal of having a titanic-sized image with almost none of the drawbacks draws more and more of the public to it, and consumer demand will see prices become more accessible. These are just my opinions based on my - amateur - experience. If I had to give it a score, I'd say Picture: 8.5 out of 10. User interface: 7.5 /10 Ports: 3/10 (if 1 additional HDMI, 5; if 2 additional, a 7) Hardware: 7.5/10 Bells & Whistles 7.5/10 Ease of use: 8/10 Overall I would rate it a 7/10

The projector is great when it's working! Great picture, great quality, great sound! Even using it on a cheap $250 screen it looks great! Mine unfortunately, gets these bright spots all the time. I have reached out to Philips. I have sent it to their "repair" center as well! But, because they couldn't duplicate the problem it's not defective. As soon as I got it back the bright spots returned see attached photos. I have to constantly change the picture settings to get the spots to go away. I would have easily given the projector itself 5 stars. The reason for the one star is because they couldn't fix it or send me a new one. If you have an issue with the projector please reach out to customer service before the 30 days upon receiving the projector.