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Xgimi Titan Noir Pro – Design and Features
The Xgimi Titan Noir Pro is a looker. Xgimi has shown a knack for fairly elegant-looking lifestyle projectors that step away from the dated designs that look more at home in an office. The Titan Noir Pro follows that trend, combining smooth metal and stylish grilles. It looks less at home on a coffee table than some of Xgimi’s other models, but it’s still somewhat tame for a high-end home theater projector.
It’s also shockingly small and light for a projector delivering as much as it does. I’ve tested models like the Epson LS12000 and Sony Bravia Projector 7, and those things were big units that took up a huge swathe of my mantle and took some care to heft up there. By contrast, the Titan Noir Pro is only 9.1 inches tall, 11.3 inches deep, and 14.9 inches wide, and some of that size comes from the metal legs it stands on. It’s also just 16.75 pounds, and that frankly feels almost too light for a projector aiming to provide so much brightness.
Aside from the legs that the Titan Noir Pro stands on, it’s a tame design. It’s really just a box with various vents for air intake and exhaust, a couple of speakers directly in the front. The lens sits off to one side at the front flanked by a few extra sensors for handling things like autofocus, auto keystone, and an eye-protection tool that dims the output when someone is in front of the laser projection. That last feature is useful, and this model has a special version that tries to only dim the light around where it detects a person’s head, though it doesn’t do a great job compensating when lens shift has been used on the projection.
One major advantage for the Titan Noir Pro is its optical system. The optics of the projector offer zoom and lens shift to a considerable degree (throw ratios range from 0.98:1 to 2.0:1, and the projection can shift 50% horizontally or 130% vertically in either direction). This makes it possible to set the projector in one spot and shrink and move the projection to where it fits quite easily without sacrificing a single pixel. By contrast, many projectors advertise convenient automatic screen alignment but do so digitally, cropping the projection to fit and lowering the resolution you see as a result.
On the back of the Titan Noir Pro are most of the ports you’ll need. There are three HDMI ports. One of them offers eARC for audio, though there’s also a 3.5mm and an optical audio output port. There are two USB-A ports for local media or powering streaming sticks. The projector includes a LAN port and Wi-Fi connectivity, though you might not get much use out of either because the projector lacks Google TV or the like.
Xgimi does include a large styrofoam carrying case that’s helpful for protecting the projector on the go and keeping its remote and power brick all together. That power brick is unfortunately very large and heavy. It would have been convenient to have the power supply integrated into the projector, but I’ve begun to suspect some brands keep them external on premium products like this so they’re easier to replace in the event of failure.
The remote included is also helpful. It provides simple controls for easy navigation of the settings and offers backlighting on a few of the primary buttons. The remote also includes four customizable shortcut buttons that let you quickly access specific settings you’ll use often. The volume buttons are easy enough to feel out in the dark of a home theater, but both the volume and shortcut controls don’t get any backlighting.
Xgimi Titan Noir Pro – Software
Many of Xgimi’s projectors come with a built-in streaming OS like Android TV or Google TV, but not the Titan Noir Pro. It somewhat feels like it has Google TV built-in, because a lot of the menus are similar, but that’s all the operating system handles: settings menus. This means you’ll need to connect video sources (or a USB drive) to get anything out of the projector, but it also makes for a very responsive system that allows for quick changes to settings and faster bootup.
It might have been nice to see a fuller operating system baked in, but in a time when LG monitors are delivering adware and operating systems are plugging large banner ads on startup, I’m starting to think that maybe the better default is actually to not include one. Xgimi could have at least provide a landing screen, perhaps with previews of each HDMI input source, which can be helpful when you – like me – never remember which device is connected to which HDMI port.
One setting I wish the projector supported is the option to skip HDMI 1 as an input source. That port handles eARC audio output, so there’s a good chance it will be used for audio output exclusively in many setups, but the projector still lets you select it was an input source even when it’s handling eARC (sure, some eARC audio devices can also pass through video, but I don’t think most are used in that way), Since HDMI 1 is the first input source the projector boots, too, it won’t be useful at all for folks who just have that connected to their sound system.
Xgimi Titan Noir Pro – Gaming and Performance
The Xgimi Titan Noir Pro is simply brilliant. I’ve been using and testing projectors for a long time, and the Titan Noir Pro may be the most well-rounded and capable model I’ve put my hands on.
To start, its adjustable optics make a perfectly sharp picture easy to get without having to fuss much with where the projector is positioned. Whether low on a coffee table, mid-way up the room on a desk, or perched high on a mantle, I could easily get the projector images squared away on my wall or projection screen using the zoom and lens shift controls. From there, autofocus can sharpen the image quickly and effectively.
Not needing keystone adjustments is huge, as these not only cut into the usable image but also introduce latency, and for gaming, that’s just unacceptable.
That said, the out-of-the-box defaults aren’t exactly the best. I’m always surprised to see high-end projectors like this come running heavy motion interpolation by default, and the Titan Noir Pro is no exception. It introduces unsightly artifacts and awkward motion in a lot of cases. If you’re gaming, the projector will likely automatically switch to game mode that disables this, but with a streaming stick connected, it doesn't.
The projection itself is simply stunning, though. The Titan Noir Pro is fantastically bright. I played through several 007 First Light challenges, including some that took place at night, even while light came in from outside my living room. I was content watching movies and TV without even turning off all the lights, too.
Of course, the Titan Noir Pro looks even better in a dark space. It’s normally too bright to actually use in a dark room (think lights out and blackout curtains in place). But it features a dual-iris system that can clamp down to reduce the overall light output while ramping up contrast. The result is a picture that still can dazzle with highlights while showing off a deep black floor. On a lot of projectors I’ve tested, I can see black letterboxes no matter what’s on-screen, but with the Titan Noir Pro, I could almost never see the letterboxes.
All the brightness and contrast comes by way of an RGB laser light source that simply dazzles when it comes to color output. While a projector may never match an OLED display in terms of contrast, RGB laser light sources offer simply staggering color gamut. The colorful scenery, costumes, and bending effects in the live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender show are stunning to see on the Titan Noir Pro. With support for HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, the Titan Noir Pro has you covered for high-end formats. It’s too bad it’s a little early for Dolby Vision 2 support.
Those visual chops come along for gaming, too. I played through hours of 007 First Light on the Titan Noir Pro, and it kept up brilliantly. The story beats were all rendered with cinematic flair, the projector making it seem all that much more like a movie. Latency was negligible while running at 4K/60Hz, but the projector can also drop down to 1080p/240Hz and enable VRR (AMD FreeSync Premium). In that setting, I smashed through the fast-paced action setpieces of the game with imperceptible input lag, making it easy to dash for cover and snap to enemy targets. I normally game on fast OLED monitors with keyboard and mouse, and gaming on the Titan Noir Pro didn’t feel like it held me back one bit. The Xgimi Horizon 20 Max has some similar capabilities at a lower price and will likely work well if you’re mostly after brightness, but the Titan Noir Pro’s black levels are on another level.
Alongside the great visual performance, the Titan Noir Pro is surprisingly quiet. Though it has a good deal of power to contend with, I never heard its cooling system even from a few feet away.
Impressive though the visuals may be, audio from the projector is nothing to get excited about. The speakers can put out a bit of volume, but they don’t create a sense of space, don’t have deep sub-bass, and are too focused in the mids, creating a harsh sound at high volume. They can do in a pinch, but you’ll absolutely want to pair the projector with speakers to get the most out of it.
Xgimi Titan Noir Pro – Testing
Analyzing a projector is a little more difficult than a display, since you can’t simply set up a colorimeter on the lens, and anywhere else the colorimeter will either block the light it’s meant to measure or capture ambient lighting as well. That doesn’t make it impossible to evaluate, but less precise. Still, with my colorimeter set up a foot in front of a 1.1-gain white projector screen, it measured the Titan Noir Pro at 93% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space and 85% of the BT.2020 color space. Having seen my fair share of ultra-colorful displays, I’d say those measurements are on the low side of what I’m actually seeing from the Titan Noir Pro.
Brightness is a little more direct to measure. I displayed a full white screen and averaged the brightness across nine points to find the Titan Noir Pro putting out 4,375 lumens. That was with the Standard picture setting and iris fully open, which thankfully doesn’t lead to a picture that’s overly blue or green as some projectors in their highest brightness modes do.
Contrast is more difficult to measure but not impossible. Switching to a test pattern for measuring contrast with two bright white squares in opposite corners and black everywhere else, I measured an average 4,870 lux for the white areas and just 5 lux for the black space, coming out to a 974:1 contrast ratio. That’s already incredible for a projector, but the Titan Noir Pro still has some moves to bust out.
With its iris shut down as far as possible, its brightness goes down considerably, but its contrast jumps. The same test produced an average 1,238 lux in the corners and 0.77 lux in the center for a 1,608:1 contrast ratio. Here is where we get to the challenge for epic projectors like this: you need to optimize the viewing area as well. A lot of light will bounce off your wall or screen, reflect throughout the room, and land right back on the screen, elevating the black levels. By blocking out most of the projection with a black velvet fabric that absorbed most of the light but had a center hole to allow some of the projected light through, I was able to measure the black center point at an even lower 0.19 lux with all settings otherwise the same as above. This would put the contrast at an exceptional 6,518:1 in a thoroughly light-controlled room.
Mark Knapp is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything electronics and gaming hardware. He has over 10 years of experience in the tech industry with bylines at PCMag, Reviewed, CNET, and more. Find Mark on Twitter @Techn0Mark or BlueSky at @Techn0Mark.
Verdict
The Xgimi Titan Noir Pro is phenomenal. Its RGB laser projection is a sight to behold, and it has the versatile optics to ensure that projection is perfected for a huge range of setups, letting it work around you rather than forcing you to work around it. It provides an exceptional way to enjoy both movies and games, especially thanks to its support for an ultra-responsive 1080p/240Hz mode and VRR. It delivers brightness that can hold up in bright rooms and black levels that call for special room treatment to make the most of. Even at its full $4,999 price, it’s an amazing option that’s competing with projectors far more expensive. If it ever goes on sale near its early-bird Kickstarter price, I’d have a hard time recommending anything else.
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