Variation Reviewed: Hisense 100L9G 4K UST Triple-Laser Trichroma Projector & 100" Screen Package - L9G

When I started down the road of getting a laser TV, I originally just wanted to make the picture bigger. I wasn't looking to make every movie look new again, even for films and TV shows I'd seen dozens of times before. But when I saw the 4K picture of the Hisense L9G, I knew I could never go back to so-called HD, DVD, or even Blue-Ray resolution ever again. I had been immediately and permanently spoiled.



Let me start over. I am your classic cinema fan. Foreign, artistic, indie but I also enjoy the hell out of Marvel movies. In fact, Avengers: Infinity Wars was the very first thing I cued up on my L9G using the built-in Disney+ app. After watching Thanos taunt the sons of Odin and picking my jaw up off the floor, I loaded other films. The detailed 4K format allowed me to see things in Full Metal Jacket I had not seen before! I saw things in The Wrath of Khan I hadn't seen since I watched it in the theater it as a youngster in 1982. Same for The Blues Brothers.



Originally, I just wanted a 1080p picture, no big deal: super easy to generate, not a big processing overhead required. I also didn't want a dedicated physical screen. I knew a projector was the way to go to achieve the screen size I wanted and I even shopped for that special reflective wall paint.



However, when I saw that the L9G's tri-chroma laser did away with the need for that noisy color wheel (which I had previous experience with on a Samsung projection TV in the early oughts), I knew the time was right to upgrade.



In the interest of full disclosure, here are the downsides: if you opt for the cinema screen over the daylight screen, as I did, then you must assemble that screen yourself. You're going to need another pair of hands.



Also, I had previously spoiled myself with full 5.1 surround sound, including a subwoofer. And while I must admit, the 40w sound built into the L9G was damned impressive, I opted instead to take advantage of the eARC hdmi port on the L9G by pairing it with Platin's Monaco WISA 5.1 speakers. Now, my living room is a proper screening room to share with family and friends.



The other thing to be aware of is the fabled "soap opera effect." As a cinema snob, this weighed heavily on my mind. Rest assured. The L9G's "Filmmaker Mode" transforms the viewing area into your local movie theater. But here's the thing you should know: the HDR capability of the L9G will cause you to re-think your position about the so-called "soap opera effect." You doubt me? I doubted it too.



The film that showed me this difference is Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing. I had seen this film about 20 times before. Half of it is daylight, the other half is nighttime. The daylight scenes, when watched in an HDR mode (and there are several modes to choose from), you feel as though you are standing on Stuyvesant Ave in the summer of 1989. To say the effect was amazing is to do a disservice to the word 'amazing.' And again, if you dislike the HDR modes, keep it on "Filmmaker Mode" to preserve that classic 24 frames per second feel!



The only thing I'm thinking twice about is this: maybe I should have gone with the 120 inch screen instead of the 100 inch screen!



The main takeaway: if you're on the fence, let me give you a nudge. Your eyes will thank you for showing you 4K goodness!

 

Variation Reviewed: Hisense 120L9G 4K UST Triple-Laser Trichroma Projector & 120" Screen Package - L9G

This review is of the 120inch L9G. The box is very large, but packaged well. The instructions are clear, and the screen was easy to assemble. I put it together on my own, and had it mounted on the wall in under 2 hours. To setup the projector, I originally used the automatic correction. This did a good job of lining up the image to the screen, but I noticed a significant amount of light bleed at the left and right edges. I opted to do the manual mode instead, and this took several hours to get perfect, but did eliminate the light bleeding issue. I spoke with Hisense about this, and they were taking a look as to why this is happening.



The brightness, image sharpness, and motion was on par with the 86 inch Sony X900F that I was transitioning from. The android interface was quick and worked well. However, I would love to see Netflix added in a future update. There are plenty of calibration settings to work with to get the image dialed in to your preference. The image of the projector is extremely good in a dark room environment. It does wash out the brighter the room gets, but that is to be expected with a projector.



I am giving the L9G an 9 out of 10. The image quality and motion was better then expected. The only reason it's not a 9.5 or 10 is the light bleed issue with the automatic correction, and the absence of Netflix.



I would absolutely recommend this projector to someone looking for a great home theater experience. My wife, who usually does not comment about anything A/V oriented even said that it was really great to watch content on a large screen at home.



Thanks to the projector screen staff for answering all my questions quickly and honestly. Overall a great experience.

     

Variation Reviewed: Hisense 100L9G 4K UST Triple-Laser Trichroma Projector & 100" Screen Package - L9G

First impressions, to the point, it's stunning! From the vivid colors and crisp image to the sheer size of the screen we've been thoroughly impressed so far. Everything we've thrown at it from IMAX enhanced movies, NBA games, to 4K Xbox games have looked and performed flawlessly. More in depth thoughts on our use case, setup and experience below but the short and sweet is we're beyond happy with the purchase. Please excuse the organization in the pictures, we're still waiting on the final cabinet stand to arrive but wanted to make sure we had ample time to take advantage of the 100 day return promo. We purchased the Hisense 100L9G to replace a 60" Samsung LED TV that's experienced 2 failing video boards in the short span of about 3 years.

After living with red vertical lines for months I knew I wanted to replace it with not only a bigger screen but to also move away from a panel TV if possible. We took a long look at both Epson and Samsung's UST offerings before eventually settling on the Hisense as it seemed to be the best balance across the color/brightness, throw distance, input lag and general system features that were most important to our primary use cases of a mix of movie watching, sports, and semi-regular casual gaming.

We paired it with the soft cinema screen option as it would be installed in our basement theater room that is fully light controlled.

Screen Setup:

The screen assembly was mostly straight forward, though there were a few inconsistencies from the included instructions. Most were small such as one of the initial right angle brackets had an additional hole on one leg not depicted in the instructions and it was unclear which orientation it should be installed, it didn't end up mattering but still tripped us up a bit.

The worst being the orientation of the screen in the protective roll. Following the depiction in the instructions on how to unroll the screen resulted in the screen actually rolling out upside down which made for an extra challenge of flipping it over without introducing any folds or damage. Once assembled, mounting the brackets and hanging the screen were straight forward thanks to the included template.

Projector Setup:

Basic setup of the projector itself is well... basic. Set it on your stand and plug it in. From there following the on screen prompts to get it connected to your network if you're using wifi is all straight forward. Once that's done we launched into perfecting the projector/screen alignment. This was admittedly fairly tedious to get just right. Making slight adjustments to the various feet and turning the projector ever so slightly to make sure the picture is parallel on the screen. We wanted to minimize any sort of geometric correction needed from the software so we spent extra time on this.

We eventually got there, but I'm definitely not looking forward to doing it again once our final cabinet arrives. On paper I was a bit unsure of the throw distance in terms of how far it would push the project out into the room, in practice though it turned out to not be a big deal at all for us and is just a few inches further than our previous cabinet.

Experience:

Once things were successfully installed, we started off by getting the Android TV configured with our regularly used apps. This is where one of the system's current drawbacks creeps out. If you're used to Android TV via the newer Chromecast, there's some discrepancies in available apps. Most notably, as others have pointed out there's no native Netflix app currently, though there seems to be some crumbs in the settings section that suggest it may be coming soon and Hisense's other UST offering does feature Netflix so it may just be a matter of time. In the meantime we're using a separate Chromecast for Netflix and the F1TV apps that are missing from the native system.

From there we gave things their first real test with an IMAX enhanced movie from Disney+. Everything was stunning. Even in the energy saving picture mode the brightness and colors looked great. The image was crisp and clear all the way to the corners and the playback was smooth. We tried various levels of ambient lighting throughout the viewing and the ALR screen performed well, with only a minor bit of wash out when the full room lights were on 100%.Next up was to try out some sports, we switched the picture mode over to sports and threw on an NBA game. Same experience, things looked great. The playback in the fast action was crisp and clear and the overall image quality was superb.

The last test was some gaming. I had always heard horror stories of the input lag of projectors making gaming a frustrating endeavor, especially anything requiring a fast reaction response.

While the Hisense didn't have the input lag performance of the Epson offering it works great!

     

Variation Reviewed: Hisense 120L9G 4K UST Triple-Laser Trichroma Projector & 120" Screen Package - L9G

After reading some reviews and talking to Brian about the L9G we decided to give the Hisense a shot. So worth it. It’s super bright and the 4K image looks sharp.



Ive seen lots of comments about building the screen, but as a DIYer the screen wasn’t any harder than a piece of IKEA furniture. It took a bit of fine movement to get everything aligned perfectly, but once it was complete we spent over an hour watching 4K content on YouTube just smiling.



We talked to the kids about going to the movies now that everything is opened back up, but they said they’d rather camp out and watch a movie at our house instead. I can’t blame them, with a 10 foot screen we always have the best seats in the house now! Literally everyone who’s come over and seen it has had projector envy. You won’t regret making the jump!

Variation Reviewed: Hisense 120L9G 4K UST Triple-Laser Trichroma Projector & 120" Screen Package - L9G

Loved working with the guys from projectorscreen.com! Top notch customer service and were great at determining my needs. Screen and projector are great! Can’t imagine going without it…..