A lifestyle projector needs to get the balance between performance and portability just right, and the Hisense C2 Ultra makes a pretty compelling case for itself.
Not only does it focus on convenience and is incredibly easy to set up, but it also delivers a bright, punchy 4K picture and outstanding built-in sound.
And now you can get all of that with a solid discount, too. The C2 Ultra is down to £1599 at Sevenoaks, a £200 drop from the £1799 price we tested it at only last week.
And there's more. You even get an Xbox Design Lab Controller and 1 month of Game Pass thrown in for free, so you can take advantage of the projector's many gaming features.
The Hisense C2 Ultra clearly has portability in mind, and this is reflected in the design. It's compact at 29 x 25 x 25cm (hwd), and even comes with a neat cloth carry bag.
Constantly moving a projector around can involve constant set-up adjustments, but Hisense makes this as smooth as possible. The C2 Ultra can rotate a full 360 degrees on its circular base, for starters, and its cradle design supports a generous 135 degrees of vertical tilt.
The Auto Magic AI Adjusting 2.0 system is also one of the most straightforward AI set-up systems we've seen, with a genuine plug-and-play experience that seldom needs any manual intervention.
The triple-laser DLP projector is rated to deliver up to 3000 lumens of brightness and claims to support huge image sizes of up to 300 inches. The larger you go, the more brightness you lose, though, and we found 100-150 inches to be the sweet spot.
The built-in Vidaa smart platform isn't quite as sophisticated as Google TV, but it does boast all the major domestic and international streaming services as well as Freely.
There's also support for all four HDR formats – including HDR10+ and Dolby Vision – a rarity for a projector, as well as an IMAX Enhanced picture preset.
Gaming features include ALLM, 240Hz refresh rate support, and a measured 34.4ms of input lag in Game mode with a 60Hz signal. Ideal for that bundled Xbox controller, then.
And it's not all features over performance – the picture the Hisense produces is still effortlessly watchable.
As our Hisense C2 Ultra review reads: "The C2 Ultra’s HDR images are bright, for starters, making full use of the available 3000 lumens to deliver images that look both excellently punchy in a dark environment, and strong enough to hold their own, retaining good colour saturation and solidity, even in fairly bright living room conditions."
Our only issue was a cloak of greyness in some uniformly dark scenes, and a moderate level of rainbow effect in bright highlights.
It's the sound that really impresses for a projector, however – the unusually powerful, 40W JBL sound system delivers a remarkable amount of bass, as well as a palpable sense of three-dimensionality for Dolby Atmos.
The Hisense C2 Ultra is absolutely stacked with features as well as being extremely user-friendly. Given how much you get for the price, this really is a bargain – and even more so with £200 at Sevenoaks.
MORE:
Read our BenQ W2720i review
Also read our BenQ TK705i review
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