This Portable Projector Is Like Having a Smart TV in My Backpack

Every product was carefully curated by an Esquire editor. We may earn a commission from these links. Here’s how we test products and why you should trust us.Florence Sullivan4 min readShop $249, amazon.comWelcome to the Esquire Endorsement. Heavily researched. Thoroughly vetted. These picks are the best way to spend your hard-earned cash.Increasingly, the people I talk to are not thrilled by their TVs. Televisions themselves are fine; they’re higher quality than ever before. But now that displays typically start at 65 inches, consumers are starting to get rubbed the wrong way by these giant, monolithic black boxes hogging up wall space. This is why art TVs, which can turn to a Monet when you’re not watching House of the Dragon, are becoming so common. But it can also explain why we’re seeing a little comeback for projectors.A portable laser projector is a great way to watch the big game without a big screen, host an outdoor movie night, or take your split-screen gaming night to the next level. Now that I’ve found one I’m obsessed with, it’s going to be hard to leave it at home for the rest of the summer—and with a handle and rechargeable battery built in, I won’t have to.XGIMI has become my go-to fand easy-to-use, “smart” projectors, and the Vibe One is its most adaptable yet. On the surface, it’s a basic long-throw 1080p projector with one HDMI port, one USB port, and a handle. But looks are deceiving. This thing is as capable of streaming as easily as any smart TV. That’s not to mention the fact that it can double as both a Bluetooth speaker or ambient light. It’s an ideal indoor projector for any man cave, but take it outside to the garden party and watch the vibe shift happen in real time. Soon, you’ll be wondering why you’re even keeping your TV anyway.Florence SullivanIt’s a Good, Straightforward ProjectorFor a technology that used to be so complicated, the Vibe One is as idiot-proof as it gets. At the bare minimum, all you have to do is plug it in and hold the on button. Within minutes, you’ll be signed into Netflix and streaming; add 30 seconds if you want to plug in a gaming console to the HDMI. From there, the projector will read the wall in front of itself and automatically adjust to be as close to a perfect rectangle as possible after any movement of the projector. Someone drunkenly knocks it during movie night? It will keystone on its own. This is supported by audio by JBL, probably the best at doing good sound on a budget.In theory, all of that makes for an amazing time, but you don’t really know until you put it to the test. For me, this meant packing the Vibe One in my suitcase for a long weekend visiting high school buddies in Vermont and, when I arrived, hooking it up to ye ol’ Xbox 360 to play Halo 3. It was a blast from the past, and because we had a large enough wall, all four of us had a TV-sized section of screen as our quarter. Plus, since it doesn’t output in 4K, it’s really the ideal way to play split-screen games (especially older ones) in the modern era.And when it came to the onboard sound, my most critical audiophile best friend was complimentary of the audio quality, saying he’d watch a movie without even needing to hook up his fancy sound system (unless, of course, it was Blade Runner or anything directed by Christopher Nolan).Shop $249, amazon.comFlorence SullivanLike a Smart TV, but BetterBut you don’t really need to plug in a 20-year-old gaming console, or anything, to get the full experience here. When you first boot up the Vibe One, you immediately go to a Google TV interface identical to what you’ll find on most modern TCL and Hisense flat-screens. It’s a familiar home screen that will quickly launch you right into any of your favored streaming apps, and with the included remote it’s really the same as watching a smart TV—only you can make yours as big or small as you need. And when you’re done, it’s compact enough to be stored and forgotten about until next week. In the meantime, your living room wall is free to display your full, uncompromised aesthetic vision.Shop $249, amazon.comFlorence SullivanIt’s Perfect for PartiesThe best part of all of this is when the sun starts setting, you can take the party outside. The built-in handle prioritizes portability and the battery gives more than an hour of charge for video playback—plenty of time to finish that extra-long season finale. If you have an outdoor screen, it’s really as easy as pointing the projector from wherever you’re at and the auto adjustments will do the rest. Need a bigger image? Just move it back.Once the viewing party ends, that’s not all for festivities. In lieu of going back inside to find another speaker, you can flip the projector back into storage mode and it will essentially function as a JBL Bluetooth speaker for the next few hours. Connect your phone and let the jams begin—the speaker’s ambient light will illuminate the night’s memories as the sun goes down. You can even adjust the light color or pattern with the remote control. It’s enough for up to four hours of music and lights on a full charge without needing access to an outlet, turning any old backyard into a night to remember. This summer—and especially when the evenings cool off this fall—I’m not packing anything else in my bag. I won’t need to.Shop $249, amazon.comPhotos by Florence Sullivan