LG's remarkable CineBeam 4K projector is an intriguing home theatre alternative

By Jim Bray
October 29, 2024

Flat panel TV's are today's staple in home entertainment video devices, but if you want a really, really big picture you'll pay through the nose for one – even though prices continue to drop.

For a more affordable RLS ("really large screen", an acronym I just made up), there are still front projectors you can buy, a wide variety of them in fact, from ultra short throw ones that don't require you to renovate your room, to longer throw ones whose placement is more critical than the others, but who can throw to really, really big screens.

Into this market comes LG's tiny little CineBeam Q 4K projector, a thing so small could fit into a backpack easily. And while it isn't perfect, it's a remarkable thing that offers excellent picture quality and full smart TV features (for better or for worse…) in a package that will only set you back (depending upon when and where you buy it) as little as $1300.

That's pretty darn cheap for something that can do so much!

The CineBeam Q is a 4K DLP (Digital Light Processor) projector that uses lasers to provide the illumination. The laser heart means you won't have to worry about changing bulbs down the road (the projector will probably be obsolete by the time you need to think about such things).

Lasers could also mean you get an incredibly bright picture, but that – unfortunately – is not the case with this unit. I daresay it would be a lot more expensive if it were the case. Alas, there are always compromises.

Still, the projector offers a really nice picture with strong contrast (450,000:1) and great colour, real 4K performance, and of course it's so compact and easy to set up and use that you could take it with you to impress your neighbours (if they have a blank wall or a screen). You could even take it outdoors in your back yard, at the campground or wherever you want, and create your own personal drive in (or walk in or stagger in) theatre.

What it doesn't have is enough brightness to suit me and of course its tiny little speaker will definitely not fill your room with incredible audio.

The latter can be fixed easily by outputting its audio to a real system but there isn't much that can be done about the former. Still, as far as a home theatre projector goes, it's pretty hard to beat this performance and value.

Outputting the audio to a real sound system – or even just a better one – can be accomplished via Bluetooth. We ran it that way into my big Rotel/JBL/M&K system, and it worked just fine.

We used to have a front projector at Chateau Bray, a lovely Epson 1080p projector throwing to a 106-inch screen. It was great, though I didn't think 106 inches were enough (I never do think a screen is big enough…). We sold off that system upon the onset of 4K and haven't replaced it, instead moving everything else upstairs and outputting to a 75-inch panel. It isn't big enough, either, but we're sitting closer now so it helps hide the difference.

The CineBeam Q, LG says, will throw to any screen up to 120 inches. We didn't have such a screen to try, darn it, but I did manage to borrow an 85-inch portable projection screen for the purpose of this review. That screen would have worked great in our back yard for a family "drive in" theatre presentation, but we live at such a high latitude that it stays light late enough that the grandkids I'd want to impress would be in bed anyway.

Which figures.

To fill whatever screen size you're using, you have to calculate the distance from projector to screen, placing the projector where its output will fill the screen completely. This meant swapping temporarily our home theatre from its usual "landscape" orientation to "portrait" – so we could put the screen far enough away to fill the screen – but it worked great!

Setup is child's play. The projector has a carrying handle you can twist around to help aim the projector at the screen better, and hookup is simple via HDMI and, of course, a power cable (no battery is offered, but LG says you can hook an external battery into the USB port). And if you don't want to be saddled with a crummy little speaker (to be fair, it isn't too bad, but there's only so much you can do with such a "Minnie Driver"), as mentioned above you can output its sound to external devices.

There's technology built into the projector that gives you such handy stuff as automatic focus and screen adjustment, which makes setup even easier, and it works well.

The rear panel includes the DC power, HDMI (with ARC) and a USB-C port. The little speaker is back there, too. There's also a ventilation spot for the internal fan and, fortunately, the fan is reasonably quiet.

The remote control works fine, though I found in my temporary installation that I needed to aim it at the front of the projector to get it working best. It's pretty user friendly and straightforward as well.

I generally eschew smart TV features in favour of my Roku units, which are generally much more straightforward to use. LG offers its webOS screaming, er, streaming platform that lets you, once the TV is on your network, stream content from such providers as Netflix, Prime Video, Apple TV+, YouTube and more. LG Channels also offers more than 300 channels of free programming, much in the way Roku, Pluto TV, Plex and others do.

The CineBeam also supports AirPlay 2 if you have at least iOS 12.3 or macOS 10.14.5.

The one area in which I think the CineBeam falls down is overall brightness. It's pretty bright, but a front projector – especially one that purports to be usable out of doors in the elements – should be very bright, not just pretty bright. LG's claimed 500 ANSI Lumens isn't that. Heck, my old 1080p Epson front projector, over a decade ago, claimed 2200 Lumens and I didn't think it was bright enough, either, though obviously it was much brighter than this LG.

That said, I don't think the brighness would be a deal breaker were I shopping in this niche. And in the meantime, the LG is 4K, smart (for better or worse) and incredibly portable. And inexpensive.

So, I guess some compromises had to be made.

The LG also offers "Filmmaker mode" as one of its video modes, and I like this one a lot. It, according to LG, "automatically preserves the director's original colors, settings and frame rates". In other words, it's supposed to project the picture exactly as the director shot it. This is great in concept and it seems to work well, though my calls to George Lucas to come and help me judge it went unanswered.

I really liked this little projector. It doesn't have the video moxie to replace the 4K panel in my viewing room but, that said, it's an excellent value and should be a joy to use in your home-made "drive in theatre" if it gets dark enough early enough in your latitude (I guess there's some latitude there…).

A very nice, very portable unit.