Every projector is a product of compromise. Top-tier 4K projectors can deliver excellent detail and black levels, but usually lack a built-in sound system and cannot be easily moved around.

And outdoor projectors make their compromise clear more than any other projector category, as they must carefully handle the balance between convenience and performance.

With the FIFA World Cup in full swing, more people are looking for ways to watch the winning kick on a big screen from the comfort of their gardens. But no outdoor projector has ever offered the perfect delicate equilibrium between each aspect. I’ve tested my fair share of portable projectors so far and, although nothing has achieved the ideal balance yet, I'm always keeping my eye out for a model that could change all that

So what exactly does the perfect outdoor projector offer?

Portability

To take your projector into the garden and even on the road, it needs to be easy to carry around. Otherwise, you will end up lugging a heavy piece of kit around, which doesn’t make for a practical or fun alternative to watching on your TV screen.

We’ve seen some pretty neat designs in terms of portability that certainly tick this box. Take the Xgimi Mogo 4, for instance, which is a can-shaped projector that weighs just 1.3kg and is only 21cm tall.

You can pull out the main body from the sturdy plastic stand when you want to use it, and its small footprint makes it a great example of the portability I’m looking for in an outdoor projector.

There’s a remote that hangs from the stand that gives you access to the basic controls, such as volume and settings, if you don't want to rely on the larger remote that is also available. It is far from the only model to offer this kind of flexibility, but it's a great example of true portability in the category.

Most outdoor projectors these days also come with platforms such as Google TV, which give you access to the usual streaming suspects, including Netflix, Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video. That makes accessing your favourite TV shows and films simple, although some platforms lack World Cup essentials such as BBC iPlayer and ITVX. You can work around this by casting from another device, at least.

A long-lasting built-in battery

If a projector is small and portable, though, then it understandably must make some sacrifices in other areas. One of the biggest of these is the lack of a built-in battery. Many projectors claim to be portable but, if they don't have a battery, then you are limited to placing it where you can get access to the mains.

Some projectors let you connect a power bank to extend their battery life a little, but that depends on the model's capabilities.

And even if your projector offers a built-in battery, it is often only just enough to watch a few episodes. The Xgimi Vibe One is a small, compact model with a built-in battery, but the brand claims it offers a maximum of 1.2 hours of juice until you need to plug it in. That number is only if you are using the projector in the Eco mode, however. In Standard mode, the battery gave us just under an hour of AV action, which will only give you one half of a World Cup match.

In an ideal world, a projector's built-in battery would be able to last entire game or movie without conking out.

Bright, punchy picture

Of course, the picture needs to be a strong performer in various lighting environments. You might start watching a game at 5pm, where the sun is still blazing during these scorching summer months.

That means you need a projector that can deliver a punchy image that can withstand bright viewing conditions. So far, I have not come across a compact model that can deliver the perfect level of detail, black depth and colour.

Ultimately, that is one of the sacrifices that must be made for the projector to be portable and compact, as there is less room for more comprehensive features. If such a model existed that could expertly balance picture performance and size, it would have a prime spot in our test room.

Immersive sound

Finally, the perfect outdoor projector delivers engaging and precise sound that makes every viewing experience even more immersive.

The closest we have come to this dream is with the Nebula X1 – a 4K projector with a 2.1-channel configuration. We say in our review that the projector's "audio makes it stand out from the crowd, as it is rare we have found a projector that can pack such a punch in terms of bass."

Plus, vocals are clear and relatively emotive, delivering a rich overall sound. This is an outlier in the outdoor projector world, as most of the built-in speakers don't manage much dispersion of sound or punch.

The most recent projector to enter our test room promises to tick every one of these boxes (bar the built-in battery). The Soundcore Nebula X1 Pro claims to be the "world's first mobile theatre system", presenting as an all-in-one package on wheels. Yep, actual wheels. It features four detachable speakers to place around your space, a 4K picture that goes up to a claimed 3500 ANSI lumens of brightness, and a clever design.

We are yet to publish our full review but, suffice to say, the Nebula projector has not managed to claim the crown as the perfect outdoor model.

I never actually expect to find a perfect outdoor projector because – as I said at the start – all of them are a product of compromise. Still, I'm excited to see how close we can get.

MORE:

These are the best outdoor projectors

And here are the best projectors

Check out the best soundbars

Last week was pretty eventful for fans of physical media. Sony announced that in 2028 it will end physical disc production for PlayStation games, meaning you will be able to access future titles only digitally.

In the same week, Sony also stated that users will lose access to more than 500 films and TV shows they bought from the PlayStation Store in the UK due to a content licensing agreement. Can’t we have anything?!

But physical media remains a steadfast necessity to theWhat Hi-Fi? team, with the majority of our AV testing relying on 4K Blu-rays to challenge the latest kit. That’s because they deliver the best picture and sound quality compared with even the top-performing streaming services. Plus, it’s reassuring to be able to hold your favourite movie in your hands without risking it being removed because of licensing agreements and the like.

We are always keeping our eyes out for upcoming discs, and there are three 4K Blu-rays that we cannot wait to get our hands on. These are our most anticipated releases, but which films are you most excited to see on 4K Blu-ray?

Obsession

Curry Barker’s Obsession was made on a budget of around $1 million dollars, but it has just surpassed $400 million globally at the box office at the time of publication. That is pretty jaw-dropping for an indie horror film.

After breaking the mysterious “One Wish Willow” to win his crush’s heart, a young man named Bear finds himself getting exactly what he asked for; but he soon discovers that some desires come at a price.

The result is a chilling yet thoroughly entertaining watch that will have you cowering behind the sofa cushions.

Obsession is not yet available to watch on streaming platforms in the UK (although you can buy it in the US using Apple TV). It is still showing at a few cinemas, but its 4K Blu-ray release has already been announced.

The final artwork is yet to be released so we are not sure yet how it will look on your shelf, but if its artful filmmaking and disturbing cinematography are anything to go by, we should be in for a treat. Let’s just say, we are already obsessed.

Release date: TBC

Project Hail Mary

Who doesn’t love a sentient pile of rocks cracking excellent quips and bantering with Ryan Gosling? Project Hail Mary is a thoroughly gripping watch from start to finish, and that’s saying something considering its two-and-a-half hour run time.

The film follows Gosling’s Grace, a high-school science teacher who becomes embroiled in a last-ditch government effort to save the world from the dimming sun. After being sent to space as part of the operation, he befriends Rocky (the aforementioned sentient pile of rocks) and the two work together to save both of their worlds.

Apart from being an emotional rollercoaster, Project Hail Mary looks absolutely beautiful. It ditches the green screen, unlike most blockbusters these days, and relies primarily on practical effects to portray Grace’s spaceship and the vast expanse of space. That all adds to the film’s sense of realism, especially with Rocky, who was controlled by a team of puppeteers for much of the movie.

And, finally, the film is getting a physical release. The 4K Blu-ray is coming in August, and later in the year there will be a glorious Steelbook design with Kubrick-inspired artwork adorning the collection – although it has already sold out at HMV. Fingers crossed more will become available soon.

Release date: 10 August

K-Pop Demon Hunters

While obsession is the current talk of the town, we cannot forget one of last year’s most popular releases. That’s right, K-Pop Demon Hunters has finally announced its physical 4K release after more than a year, and it is joining the coveted Criterion Collection. There is no release date for the disc just yet, but the excitement is already palpable.

There are only 11 animated films included in the Criterion Collection canon, including Watership Down and Flow, so the Netflix original will be in good company.

The film follows three girls, all part of a K-Pop group named Huntrix, who also just so happen to fight demons. Clue’s in the name, I guess. When they sing as a group, a seal between our world and the demon realm is strengthened for another season. But when a rival boy-band group threatens to destroy everything they have worked so hard for, the fate of the entire world could be at stake.

We use the film, via Netflix, for testing a fair amount already. Its brilliant score has proved to be a great test of any home cinema sound system. And now that it is coming to physical disc, we can’t wait to test with it even more.

Release date: TBC

MORE:

These are the best scenes to test your Dolby Atmos system

Check out the best TVs

And here are the best streaming devices we have tested

If you're looking for the next film to take centre stage in your upcoming movie night, then you will find plenty of contenders on the plethora of streaming platforms at your fingertips.

There are times when you are craving something in particular, but it is nowhere to be found. That's why physical media is still so important. You can be safe in the knowledge that your favourite movies are tucked away on the shelf.

And if you are looking to jump into the world of Middle-earth with your next film night, then we have spotted the perfect Amazon Prime Day deal. You can pick up the complete The Lord of the Rings trilogy in 4K Blu-ray, including both the theatrical and extended releases, for a discounted price of £60 at Amazon.

That's the cheapest we have seen the trilogy this year, although it's not the lowest price we have seen it drop to since its release. You also have to be an Amazon Prime Video member to snag this deal, so remember to bear this in mind.

If one of the most successful and influential trilogies of the last 30 years has somehow passed you by, let us fill you in.

The first instalment in the series (The Fellowship of the Ring) sees our meek protagonist Frodo's begin his perilous journey to make sure the powerful One Ring does not fall into the wrong hands. In the rest of the trilogy, we follow Frodo and his band of companions as he puts everything on the line to complete his quest.

The theatrical release runs for just under 9 hours, and the extended version comes in at over 11 hours. That's a lot of time to spend with our friends from the Shire.

I've watched the movies countless times, with both versions delivering a masterclass in world-building and drawing me into the magical land of Middle-earth.

You can find the standard versions of the films on HBO Max, but there's no sign of the extended releases on the streaming service. There is the option to buy or rent from other platforms such as Amazon Prime Video or Apple TV, but that does not have the same certainty as holding the discs in your hands.

And then there is the superior picture and sound quality to consider. Even the best streaming service cannot match a 4K Blu-ray's more detailed, sharper image and fuller-feeling audio.

So, if you are sick of searching for the full Lord of the Rings editions on streaming services, then this is a great solution, especially at such a good price of £60 at Amazon.

MORE:

This Prime Day 4K Blu-ray deal lets you watch your movies in higher quality and keep them for life

These are the best Amazon Prime Day deals right now

Check out the best 4K Blu-ray players

The Hisense PL2 delivers a 150-inch screen experience without the need to sacrifice your entire living room to a TV that size. Sounds good, right?

Thanks to a limited-time Amazon deal, you could be the proud owner of the PL2 for a discounted price of $1800. The $200 price cut doesn't make the projector 'cheap', but it's certainly more tempting, especially if you were in the market for one anyway.

We gave the PL2 five stars after having it in our testing room and crowned it one of the winners in our What Hi-Fi? Awards 2025. Snap it up while it's reduced.

But what makes this model worth your consideration? First off, it offers a balanced picture performance, especially when it comes to portraying natural-looking colours and solid dark detail levels.

We say in our review while watching Dune: Part Two: "The additional brightness gives explosions and the desert sand noticeably more impact and vibrancy compared with [its predecessor] the PL1, which was best in class at this price less than a year ago."

The Hisense PL2's Dolby Atmos sound performance isn't quite as impressive as its picture, but the eARC socket makes it a prime candidate to be paired with a separate sound system.

The ultra-short-throw model offers an up to 150-inch image via a laser light system that's capable of reaching 2700 lumens. This makes it an ideal TV replacement, as using the PL2 shouldn't be troubled by the intrusion of ambient light.

Furthermore, it includes the Google TV operating system, meaning support for a wide range of international and domestic streaming apps, including the likes of Netflix, Disney+ and Apple TV+ is built in.

You'll also find HDR support in the form of HDR10, HLG, Dolby Vision and HDR10+.

If you're aiming for a cinematic experience at a scale that exceeds any of the currently available best TVs, then the Hisense PL2 is worth considering, especially at this low price.

MORE:

Here's our review of the Hisense PL2

And these are the best projectors right now

Ultra-short throw projector vs big-screen TV: which should you buy?

Over the past month, our AV test room has been filled with a whole host of home cinema kit ranging from cheap Dolby Atmos soundbar systems to LG's latest OLED TV.

To put these models properly through their paces, however, we need a good number of test discs to challenge them to the fullest. As you might imagine, all of us at What Hi-Fi? are huge movie fans and we watch more films and TV in a month than we would care to admit.

But only some of those discs are suitable for testing the kit in our room. In our monthly Now Showing, we take a look at the most popular content we have been using to test out the newest home cinema models, from superhero blockbusters to tense thrillers. Let's get into it…

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

Words by Daniel Furn

After a rollercoaster in quality with the last few seasons of Game of Thrones and spin-off House of the Dragon, I’m pleased to report that things are good again in Westeros with A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Not just good, but utterly charming – the realism of the previous series is still there, but somehow, so is a sense of fun, humour and light-heartedness.

For the uninitiated, the series adapts George R.R. Martin’s Dunk and Egg novellas, following humble hedge knight Ser Duncan the Tall and the adventures he gets up to with his squire Egg, starting with a tourney in the town of Ashford. As you might be able to tell, the show eschews much of the complexity and subversiveness of the other GoT series for a smaller, more traditional story structure – and is all the better for it.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is also the first Game of Thrones series to launch in 4K and Dolby Atmos on the NOW streaming service. It is also available in these formats on the newly launched HBO Max.

It may lack some of the larger-scale spectacle of its predecessors, but the Westorosi spin-off is still absolutely gorgeous to look at. Rolling hills and meadows, a fire-breathing puppet dragon and a particularly brutal climactic tourney clash all look appropriately stunning, and will look even better on the upcoming 4K Blu-Ray.

Pre-order A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms on 4K Blu-ray at HMV

Stream A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms on HBO Max

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Since the Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer came out earlier this month, I have been tentatively dipping my toes back into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

That has involved flicking through our collection of older Marvel entries and returning to the films that defined my early adulthood. And the one that keeps finding its way into our trusty Oppo UDP-203 4K Blu-ray player is Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.

It follows Chris Pratt's Peter Quill and his ragtag team as they encounter a celestial being named Ego, who claims to be Quill’s father. From the off, the film is filled with heart and humour all while portraying the various planets with the appropriate level of grandeur.

There is one scene that has been playing on repeat for the past few days as we test a portable projector (keep your eyes peeled for the review coming soon), solidifying itself as an excellent test disc. As Quill and his band arrive on Ego’s sparkling ship, the bright white interiors call for high brightness levels to portray the otherworldly nature of the space. If it’s too bright, however, the varying skin tones of the characters in the space can appear washed out and lose a fair bit of detail.

That calls for a careful balance between brightness and detail levels, making it a great test for picture as well as an all-round enjoyable superhero flick. I've got my fingers crossed that the new Spidey can replicate the magic…

Buy Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 on 4K Blu-ray at Amazon

Stream Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 on Disney Plus

Abigail

Words by Alastair Stevenson

Creepy houses, a group of people who can’t leave, a monster that literally makes things go bump in the night. These are all staple parts of the horror genre we’ve seen many times before. But, as the age-old adage goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and that’s exactly the philosophy taken by directors Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettlinelli-Olpin with Abigail.

The plot is simple: a group of professional criminals kidnap a teenage girl and then hide out in a creepy old house while they wait for the ransom. Things quickly escalate as they start turning up dead. Cue a nearly two-hour fright fest full of fun nods to classic horror movie tropes, jump scares and more than a little gore.

While there’s no way I can pretend any of the film, especially its plot, is original, the Hammer Horror influences are all there and done well enough to keep you entertained throughout its run time. Clever use of audio, another staple in horror films, is also present, making certain scenes even more fun if you have a decent surround sound system.

If you’re a horror fan looking for something to watch, check out Abigail.

Buy Abigail on Blu-ray at HMV

Stream Abigail on Apple TV

Hijack Season 2

Words by Harry McKerrell

The second season of twisty-turny Idris Elba vehicle Hijack is a load of enjoyable nonsense, but its prestige production values and recruitment of some major stars – Elba himself and Toby Jones to name but a few – demonstrate Apple TV’s growing commitment to putting the big bucks behind its ambitious streaming platform.

If you can get around Hijack’s outlandish premise, with the sophomore season trading a commandeered airliner in favour of an explosively rigged underground train on the Berlin U-Bahn, there’s a decent amount of fun to be had – and plenty of reward if you’re checking out how well your TV can handle more challenging visual fare.

Given that most of the action takes place inside a crowded underground subway carriage, you’re going to get a great indication of how your screen is handling those deep, inky blacks contrasted with the neon illuminations of exit signs, glowing walkie talkies and Idris Elba’s pristine white gnashers. Oh Idris, you’re a dreamboat!

Speaking of boats, maybe that’s where they’ll set season three…

Stream Hijack Season 2 on Apple TV

Transformers One

Words by Joe Svetlik

Now, before you skip this entry, let me explain. Yes, this is a kid’s film, and yes, Michael Bay – of the moronic live-action Transformers films – is involved. But this origin story succeeds where the live-action franchise fell short – it appeals to fans new and old alike.

There is still plenty of action, the race early on in proceedings proving a real test of your TV’s motion handling. (My ageing set failed, miserably.) But it takes a more cerebral approach, with the focus very much on character development and how Optimus Prime and Megatron became who they are.

The cast is first-rate: Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Steve Buscemi, Laurence Fishburne, Jon Hamm… but special mention must go to Brian Tyree Henry for his turn as a particularly bitter and twisted D-16.

The action is handled with a light touch by director Josh Cooley (who also helmed the Oscar-winning Toy Story 4), and the humour is a lot less frat boy than the live-action Transformers flicks. Well worth a watch, especially if you grew up loving the toys.

Buy Transformers One on 4K Blu-ray at HMV

Stream Transformers One on Apple TV

MORE:

These are the best scenes to test your Dolby Atmos system

Check out the best projectors

And these are the best Dolby Atmos soundbars

It is undeniable that video streaming services offer a fair few positives. They save a whole lot of space in your home rather than storing a bunch of physical discs, and give you access to a vast array of content at the touch of a button.

But one of their biggest issues comes in the shape of the ever-increasing costs – making their libraries of TV shows and movies ultimately less accessible.

Most recently, Amazon Prime Video's ad-free tier went up by $2 in the US and the platform has also removed 4K content from the package included with a Prime membership.

It is far from the only service hiking its costs, with the likes of Disney Plus, Apple TV, and Netflix all jumping on the price hike bandwagon.

That's why it is particularly exciting to see Netflix's most-watched TV show of all time finally get a physical 4K Blu-ray release, meaning I don't need to keep paying for Netflix just to rewatch my favourite show.

The Duffer Brothers' Stranger Things series was a cultural phenomenon as soon as the first episode hit the small screen back in 2016, and only grew in popularity until it concluded late last year after five seasons.

While some of the early Stranger Things series have had a physical release, this is the first time the whole series has been released in a definitive collector's edition complete with a whopping 25 discs.

That means Stranger Things fans don't have to hang onto their Netflix subscription to re-watch the entire season. This is especially tempting when you consider that you can only get the best picture quality with the more expensive streaming tiers.

The deluxe edition of the set is available for £220 / $270 on 4K Blu-ray or £200 / $250 on Blu-ray. The special edition, which is less comprehensive than the deluxe edition, comes in at £160 / $220 on 4K and £150 / $200 on Blu-ray.

With the deluxe package, there is a range of extra goodies included, plus beautiful artwork adorning every inch of the box. You will find five double-sided posters featuring original artwork by illustrator Kyle Lambert, an exclusive d20 die, and an art book including original design sketches, concept art, and storyboards. And that's just for starters.

Of course, the 4K Blu-rays should also offer the ultimate version of Stranger Things in terms of picture and sound quality, thanks to the removal of Netflix's streaming compression, but we'll need to watch them ourselves before confirming that.

It's also worth noting that Dolby Atmos sound is only available for series four and five, while the remaining seasons are limited to 5.1 surround sound. That's the same as the Netflix streams, but it's a bit of a shame that the opportunity hasn't been taken to upgrade the previous seasons to Atmos.

The initial cost, especially for the 4K Deluxe edition, feels quite hefty. But, with the landscape of streaming services becoming more and more inaccessible, it is certainly reassuring to be able to hold the series in your hands and know it is yours – and free to watch whenever you so choose.

As Netflix has an ever-rotating selection of movies and TV shows, it's great to see that some of its top series are getting physical releases, ensuring you don't have to increase your monthly outgoings in order to watch your favourite shows whenever you want.

MORE:

Netflix is culling a bunch of its originals

Stranger Things creator Ross Duffer urges fans to set their TV up properly, including avoiding vivid mode like the plague

These are the best Dolby Atmos soundbars

I do my best to stick to 4K Blu-rays where I can, but streaming now takes up the majority of my casual viewing.

There are plenty of reasons for this; quite a lot of the shows I'm watching right now, such as the so-far excellent third season of Shrinking on Apple TV and the hilarious HBO show I Love LA which is exclusive to Sky currently, aren't available anywhere else, and I could risk serious spoilers waiting for a physical release that may never come to fruition.

Furthermore, my schedule often revolves around sporadic trips around the globe to see the latest TV, home cinema and AV releases, meaning I'm far away from my Sony A80L OLED TV and UBP-X700 4K Blu-ray player. Here is where I revert to downloading shows to my iPhone 16 Pro or iPad Air 5th Generation.

Editor's note: Please forgive our senior staff writer's humblebrag...

As mentioned in a prior Adventure in AV that I wrote back in December of last year, I've dropped Netflix Premium in favour of Apple TV, and I haven't looked back since. Since then, I've continued to dig into Apple's excellent content library, and truthfully, I've barely touched Netflix.

Apple TV has become a close ally of mine on my travels, and I've been using it a lot at home as well, which has led me to a realisation that I hadn't considered before. Simply put, Apple TV just looks fantastic regardless of what screen I'm watching on.

I've watched the likes of F1, The Studio, Shrinking, The Morning Show, Slow Horses and Knife Edge: Chasing Michelin Stars on various screens, from my iPhone's 6.3-inch display to my TV's 65-inch screen, and many other displays (OLED and LCD) in between, and the content has looked consistently great regardless.

This likely has something to do with Apple TV's higher bitrate capabilities. Whereas Netflix, Disney+ and Prime Video average between about 10 and 25 Mbps, Apple TV averages around 25 to 40 Mbps; and with more available data, we get better quality video and sound.

Better still, downloading Apple TV content to watch offline with the high-quality download setting applied is a treat. Based on experience, content doesn't appear to be as compressed compared to the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime, which once again results in a much better picture experience.

Now, I should address the elephant in the room (or in my instance, the plane cabin). I predominantly use the Apple TV app on an Apple iPhone; therefore, I'd expect the optimisation between the software and hardware capabilities of my iPhone 16 Pro to be top-notch.

Streaming on an Android device may yield slightly different results, though I have streamed Apple TV content to the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra (review coming soon) and didn't notice any sort of noticeable image downgrade during my viewing.

If you're jumping between screens at the same frequency as I am, then I'd once again recommend Apple TV for the best picture quality. Apple's content library has also caught up in recent years, so you'll find plenty of good shows and movies to watch as well.

MORE:

Check out our picks for the best streaming services for movies and TV

As well as the best streaming devices

And the best smartphones for movies and music

It's been 1219 days since Apple announced the current version of the Apple TV 4K.

Since then, the five-star streamer has won four What Hi-Fi? Awards (including three coveted Product of the Year Awards), and it fended off competition from the likes of the Amazon Fire TV Cube 3rd Generation and Google TV Streamer.

On a personal level, the Apple TV 4K (2022) is one of my favourite AV products on the market, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to get the very best streaming picture from their 4K TV. The same can be said for audio, in which the Apple TV 4K is best in class based on our testing.

The slick user interface that ditches ads is, of course, the cherry on top. So what could a next-generation model bring to ensure a meaningful upgrade over the highly coveted existing model?

There are three things on my wishlist, and while they're not huge asks, they would take my excitement for this upcoming streamer to a whole new level.

More processing power

The most prominent rumour surrounding the supposed 2026 Apple TV 4K is that it will feature a much newer processor compared to the chipset found in the current model.

The Apple TV 4K (2022) features the A15 Bionic processor, which can also be found in the iPhone 14; however, insiders and rumours seem to be mostly pointing towards this being replaced by the A17 Pro from iPhone 15 Pro Max.

That might not sound like a huge upgrade, but considering that the A17 Pro chip gave the iPhone 15 Pro the ability to play console-quality games and access Apple Intelligence, it could be the perfect fit for the new Apple TV 4K.

Furthermore, this processor has recently found a home in the latest iPad Mini, meaning Apple clearly deems it to be powerful and future-proof enough to feature it in newer products.

HDMI passthrough

The Amazon Fire TV Cube 3rd Generation is far from a perfect streamer, but it does have one feature that I think every streaming box should accommodate; that being an HDMI passthrough socket.

Considering many will choose a streaming box to completely bypass their TV's built-in operating system, it would be nice for Apple to add a passthrough socket so users can select another input device – a games console or 4K Blu-ray player, for example – directly from the rather lovely, ad-free tvOS home page.

This will, of course, require Apple to tweak the chassis of the TV 4K, though we should remember that it has done this before. Despite looking similar, the latest and previous generation boxes sport different dimensions, with the newer model removing the fan and shrinking the casework slightly.

As for the port-selection, Apple already offers two different options for the TV 4K. The 64GB version only includes power and HDMI connections, whereas the 128GB model adds an Ethernet socket.

An additional HDMI socket may be a bridge too far, and could result in a bulkier box, but considering the current model is already fairly petite and non-obtrusive in my media unit, I'd take a bigger box for added functionality.

A new (but still premium) remote

If there's one thing I truly do love about the Apple TV 4K, it’s the premium aluminium remote. Compared to the plastic handsets found on the Google TV Streamer or Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max 2nd Generation, the Siri Remote blows them clean out of the water thanks to its luxurious feel and satisfyingly clicky buttons.

And I couldn't forget about the capacitive swipe-enabled touchpad at the top of the remote. If you're a fan of the old iPod click wheels, then this interface should feel right at home, and it works a treat to scroll through the tvOS interface.

That all being said, I'd love for Apple to take things up a notch with the next-generation TV 4K. A motion-activated backlight would be a nice touch, and a customisable shortcut button that I could assign to a streaming app of my choice would be a bonus, too.

Currently, the TV button on the Siri Remote can only be customised to either take you to the Apple TV app or the home screen.

Only time will tell if Apple decides to finally launch a new streamer at its "special Apple Experience" on the 4th of March. While my hopes are high, I've been let down by many Apple Events before.

MORE:

Check out our picks for the best streaming devices

Read our full Apple TV 4K (2022) review

And here are the best OLED TVs

Today, I invite you to put on your rose-tinted glasses and cast your mind back to a simpler time, long ago, in which streaming services were heralded as the saviours for those sick of paying through the nose for pricey television subscription plans – Sky TV for example.

It's hard not to think back to the early 2010s and not tear up at the blissful memories of streaming simplicity, when a very modest direct debit left your bank account in exchange for what felt like an infinite library of ad-free content to choose from.

Netflix ruled the roost, capturing the hearts of many when it launched in the UK back in 2012. And it got a welcome 4K upgrade two years later, which split the service into two easy-to-understand tiers – Standard or Premium.

As the years progressed, we had the likes of Amazon Prime Video, Disney Plus and Apple TV take the remaining mainstream spots. At the same time, niche services such as Mubi, Crunchyroll and Shudder delivered content for cinephiles, anime fans and horror fiends, respectively.

Fast forward to today, and those days are well and truly behind us. Streaming services have become the very things they set out to destroy, with rising monthly costs (Netflix Premium now costs a staggering £18.99 per month), and ads forced upon users unless they cough up for the higher-tier options.

It's all a bit of a mess. And, quite understandably, the masses are becoming jaded by the increasing list of services taking up spots on their bank statements. Many feel betrayed by streaming becoming the very thing it set out to destroy.

In the words of Obi-Wan Kenobi from Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith: “You were the chosen one! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them! Bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness!”

But what's this? Much like Darth Vader's story throughout the Star Wars saga, we have an unexpected tale of redemption on our hands; and it's coming from a truly unexpected and ironic place.

Who is better suited to solve the issue of fragmented streaming services than the very company that is mostly responsible for it in the first place?

That's right, Sky has stepped in with an upgrade to its Ultimate TV package – and it centralises most of our streaming needs into one easy-to-access place.

Sky already bundles in Netflix Basic with Ads with all of its TV subscription packages, but its Ultimate package (which also includes many of its own channels) will now include Disney Plus, Hayu, and HBO Max when it launches in March.

That package will cost £24/month, which seems pretty reasonable if you break it all down. All the services mentioned above are the basic, ad-supported tiers; still, if you were to buy them all separately, you'd be paying £5.99 for Netflix, £5.99 for Disney Plus, £4.99 for HBO Max, and £5.99 for Hayu.

That's a grand total of £22.96 in itself. And that's not factoring in the full Sky library you'll also get access to, including live and on demand content from the likes of Sky Atlantic and the upcoming Sky One relaunch.

Suddenly, Sky doesn't seem a bad option for anyone who is already shelling out for multiple services. And for those who constantly lose track of what they're paying for (myself included), this all comes as one easy-to-manage package.

Admittedly, it doesn't include the likes of Apple TV or Amazon Prime Video, but with Sky advancing its included streaming offerings now, it's not out of the question that we could see these services get added to Sky's roster down the line.

It's an ironic twist in the ongoing story of streaming services. Originally proclaimed as the answers to Sky's pricey packages, it's almost impressive how quickly the likes of Disney, Amazon and Netflix have incinerated their goodwill.

Only time will tell if the streaming landscape clears up or becomes even more convoluted.

Considering we're only a month and a half into 2026 and we already have a new service launching with four separate tiers (thanks, HBO Max), I'm betting on it being the latter. Which is why I'm all for Sky’s simple option to rein in these services a bit and put them all under one roof.

MORE:

Read our full Sky Stream review

As well as our Sky Glass Air review

And check out the best streaming services for TV and movies

Whether it's the first battered CD you bought or a 4K Blu-ray of your favourite movie, there’s nothing quite like being able to hold your favourite content in your hands. In the world of home cinema, however, the huge rise of streaming services is making that more of a rarity for an increasing number of us.

While subscribing to streaming platforms can save a bit of money compared with buying a physical copy of what you want to watch, there are several drawbacks.

For starters, 4K Blu-rays offer better overall audio and picture quality due to their higher bitrates and lower compression compared with streaming.

But there’s an equally worrying concern that comes with streaming that only highlights the importance of physical media right now: the ability for your favourite content to disappear in the blink of an eye. And that's been shown perfectly by Netflix's latest decision.

According to What’s On Netflix, the streaming service will be removing a whole host of its original content from the platform. That includes two classic animated TV shows, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power and Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts. Both are well loved by audiences, with the former receiving 100 per cent on the Rotten Tomatoes' Tomatometer for multiple seasons.

The British black comedy show The End of the F...ing World will also be removed from the site. It’s still available (free) on Channel 4 for UK users, but for those in the US you will have to buy individual episodes on Apple TV or Amazon Prime Video.

Of course, there's a strong probability that many of the shows will be passed around to other streamers, but the issue remains that many of these entries are without 4K Blu-ray, or even DVD, releases.

It's also quite a faff having to switch between different streaming services to access your favourite content, especially when there's no physical alternative. On top of that, there are so many platforms on the market, and having a subscription to multiple services can really rack up the cost.

When I find a show or film that really speaks to me, I try to make the effort to buy it in physical form so I know I can watch it at any time, no matter the decisions of studios and streaming services.

And, with talk of Netflix buying Warner Bros possibly further limiting what the streaming service releases on 4K Blu-ray, the importance of physical media has never been clearer.

We can only hope that streaming platforms see this, too.

MORE:

Are 4K Blu-ray discs better quality than streaming?

Here's our review of Apple TV 4K

These are the best scenes to test your Dolby Atmos sound system

Music and video streaming just keeps on getting more expensive, but this year I think it reached a tipping point. With Netflix, Disney+, Spotify and Apple TV all putting up their prices, the current model seems unsustainable – how much can people really pay for their entertainment?

If you're feeling the pinch, I'll share a trick that can still let you binge yourself silly without paying the same high prices. But more on that later.

The only way is up

In October, Spotify increased its prices for the third time in 15 months. What makes it even more galling is that the firm held the price of its Premium tier at £9.99 for years prior to 2023. You now pay £3 more a month than you did before July 2023 – an increase of £36 a year.

Admittedly you now get Lossless quality as part of the package, which Spotify announced the month before its latest price rise. But it's still a lot more to pay, especially when you consider the other price rises we've seen this year.

Disney+ also raised its prices for the third time in three years. The Standard tier – the cheapest without ads – is now £9.99 a month, but if you want 4K and HDR, it'll cost you £14.99.

In August, Apple TV+ (as it was then known, prior to its name change) raised its prices by £1 a month. That might not seem like a big increase, but how's this for context: Apple TV is now twice as expensive per month as when it launched in 2019. Yowzer.

Rounding out our list, Netflix was the first streamer to hike its prices this year, and by a whopping £2 a month for its Standard tier.

Considering that the average Brit subscribes to 3.3 streaming services, you can see how these costs soon add up.

Unless, that is, you find a way around them.

Pause for thought

Time was you could take advantage of a free trial, but now most services have grown wise to that and eliminated them. But there is another way.

Just cancel one or more of your services for a time. Then wait until there's a decent amount of stuff on there you want to watch, resubscribe, and then cancel again once you've binged it all. It's simple to do, and could save you a packet.

I have subscriptions to Disney+, Netflix and Prime Video, as well as a Sky Q box. Prime Video and Sky are paid for annually (Prime Video as part of my Prime subscription), and so can't be paused. But there's nothing to stop me cancelling Disney+ and Netflix.

Except for my children, that is. But if it wasn't for them constantly chaining Bluey, Spidey And His Amazing Friends, Is It Cake? and more, I would do it in a heartbeat.

It makes perfect sense. I haven't watched anything on Prime Video since The Assassin back in July, so if I could pause my sub, I would. It would also let me watch at my leisure – with the latest series of Only Murders In The Building, Disney+ dropped new episodes weekly, but if I only reactivated my subscription once they were all live I wouldn't have to wait seven days between episodes.

I could happily go large chunks of the year without Netflix, as Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery is the first thing I've been interested in watching on the service in months. (And yes, I have been able to resist Champagne Problems.)

You don't have to cancel all your subscriptions. You could even cycle through each one at a time, rinsing Disney+ for a month, then Netflix, and so on. By the time you get back around to Disney+, it's bound to have a fair amount worth watching.

So take a deep breath, and hit pause on your subscription. Unless you have to be the first to see a new series, and can avoid spoilers, it's a simple way to save a few pounds. Remember: with streaming services, you're only ever renting the content, it's never really yours to own. And the second you resubscribe, it's all there again, with more besides. It's like you were never gone – but your bank balance says otherwise.

MORE:

The best streaming services for movies and TV shows

8 of the best Netflix alternatives for film fans – and (nearly) all have free trials

Spotify Lossless isn't as good as its rivals – but that won't matter for most people

If you're looking for a projector to upgrade your home cinema system, choosing an ultra-short-throw model can be a great decision. After all, they are ideal if you are short on space, as they can project a large image when positioned inches away from your projector screen.

And we have spotted a big discount on one of the best UST models on the market right now. The Award-winning Hisense PL2 projector received a five-star rating from us when we had it in our test room, impressing with its balanced picture and excellent feature offerings.

It's currently available at Sevenoaks Sound & Vision for £1199, chopping a whole £800 off its original price. That's not the lowest price we have seen it drop to (Black Friday saw the model's cost fall to £959), but this is still a brilliant saving on such a top-performing model.

To get this discount, you will need to apply the code GDHI200 at checkout.

But what makes this model worth your consideration? First off, it offers a balanced picture performance, especially when it comes to portraying natural-looking colours and solid dark detail levels.

We say in our review while watching Dune: Part Two: "The additional brightness gives explosions and the desert sand noticeably more impact and vibrancy compared with [its predecessor] the PL1, which was best in class at this price less than a year ago."

The Hisense PL2's Dolby Atmos sound performance isn't quite as impressive as its picture, but the eARC socket makes it a prime candidate to be paired with a separate sound system.

The ultra-short-throw model offers an up to 150-inch image via a single laser light system that's capable of reaching 2700 lumens. This makes it an ideal TV replacement, as using the PL2 shouldn't be troubled by the intrusion of ambient light.

Furthermore, it includes the Vidaa operating system, meaning support for a wide range of international and domestic streaming apps, including the likes of Netflix, Disney Plus, Apple TV+ and BBC iPlayer, is built in.

You'll also find HDR support in the form of HDR10, HLG, Dolby Vision and HDR10+.

If you're aiming for a cinematic experience at a scale that exceeds any of the currently available best TVs, then the Hisense PL2 is worth considering, especially at this low price.

MORE:

Here's our review of the Hisense PL2

And these are the best projectors right now

Ultra-short throw projector vs big-screen TV: which should you buy?

As we near the end of 2025, I can conclusively say that this year has been a bit of a strange one for streaming services.

Even as we enter the final weeks of the year, we're hearing news regarding the official UK launch of HBO Max, and it appears that Netflix is poised to acquire Warner Bros.

The biggest streaming surprise of 2025 for us, however, came from our very own Awards judging process. We took stock of our favourite streaming services.

After a year of middling content, price increases, and, most crucially, 4K HDR streaming issues, we decided that Disney+ shouldn't take home the Award for "Best video streaming service".

Instead, Apple TV snatched the Award, and for good reason, too. We don't give out a "most improved" Award, but if we did, Apple TV would be a shoo-in, thanks to its much broader library of high-quality content compared to when it launched back in 2019.

I've dabbled in Apple TV (formerly Apple TV+) over the years, watching the likes of The Morning Show, Slow Horses and Silo. However, there's still a lot that I was curious to catch up on, including Shrinking (see our latest edition of Now Showing for my thoughts) and Severance (which I admit I'm yet to watch).

There's also been a new crop of shows for 2025, including The Studio and, most recently, Pluribus; both of which are stellar.

So, with all of this in mind, I decided the slash my Netflix Premium subscription back down to the basic advertisement-inclusive tier that's included with my Sky Stream package.

And I'm happy to report that I don't regret my decision in the slightest.

Truthfully, I've been wary of Netflix's middling content library for quite some time, and locking 4K HDR behind the top tier (which has risen to an astronomical £18.99 per month here in the UK) is a frustrating trend that is sweeping the world of streaming. We have Netflix to thank for that.

Regardless, I'd like to get back to what's making Apple TV my streaming weapon of choice.

The quality of the content on Apple TV seems to be a cut above, probably thanks to the fact that each show has a considerable budget behind it. Selling a boatload of iPhones, iPads and AirPods each year will, of course, allow Apple to boost the budgets of its original programming; however, it's nice to see the company invest that into making high-quality productions.

Everything looks and sounds superbly slick on Apple TV, and with 4K, Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos included as standard at a fraction of Netflix's asking price for Premium, I can easily forgive the lack of third-party content.

Better yet, the writers, directors and talent that Apple TV attracts are second to none. Take The Studio, for example, which includes an onslaught of A-listers, all of whom shine in their respective roles.

I deemed The Studio to be "one of the best TV shows I've watched in years" during one of our regular What Hi-Fi? Team AV discussions where we discuss what we're currently watching, and I stand by that assessment. Conversely, it's been quite a while since I've felt anything near that for a Netflix Original show.

I've also been pleasantly surprised by the range of content that Apple offers. It's diversified its offerings since launch, meaning there is now a solid range of non-scripted shows and movies. I've just started to tuck into Knife Edge: Chasing Michelin Stars, which is a treat for foodies.

Apple is also leveraging its platforms to involve huge musicians such as Billie Eilish, Mark Ronson and Bruce Springsteen for documentaries and recordings of live performances.

It's been one of the more overlooked services compared to the likes of Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video, but I think it's time to change that.

Apple has been working away in the background to expand its content offerings, and in doing so, it's quietly become the best streaming service for your money.

Sure, the services I mentioned above have swathes of third-party content, but as someone who values quality over quantity, I have no qualms about making Apple TV my number one streamer.

Netflix remains on my roster, and I'm sure there are some hidden gems that I'm yet to watch, but it's no longer at the top of my list.

MORE:

Read our full Apple TV review

As well as our picks for the best streaming services for movies and TV shows

As well as the best OLED TVs

When it comes to streaming services, there's an abundance of platforms to choose from, and it can become pretty expensive fast.

Each one has its own unique offering from extensive libraries to original content, which makes it hard to decide which one(s) to pick.

• View our pick of all the best Black Friday deals

But, in a fairly unprecedented move for one of our favorite streaming services (so much so we even gave it a What Hi-Fi? Award), there's a discount to be had – and it's a really good one.

For Black Friday, Apple TV is available for just $5.99 a month for six months. That's over 50% off its usual price. But, you'll have to be quick as the offer is only available until Dec 1st, for new and select returning subscribers.

But, what do you get in exchange for your money? Well, whilst Apple TV was a little 'late' to the streaming platform game, it's certainly caught up in terms of content.

And while Apple TV still can't quite match other streaming services for quantity, it's a cut above when it comes to quality.

Streaming bitrates for Netflix, Disney+ and Prime Video average between about 10 and 25 Mbps, Apple TV averages around 25 to 40 Mbps, and even stretches to 45 Mbps at times. This results in an all-round better picture quality.

This led our expert testers to say: "Compared with even the best Netflix, Disney Plus and Amazon Prime Video streams, content from Apple TV looks noticeably sharper, cleaner and more detailed."

Whilst picture quality is impressive, so is the content on offer with an increasingly strong roster of original TV shows and movies including Severance, Slow Horses, For All Mankind, Shrinking, Ted Lasso, and Silo.

And while the movie library is a little less extensive, in our full review, we said: "Overall, though, there’s more than enough quality content on Apple TV for most people to feel that they’re getting strong value for money out of their subscription cost."

Sonically, Apple TV delivers Dolby Atmos soundtracks at 786 kbps, in line with rival streaming services, which is still very good in its own right.

We considered $12.99 a month to be a good value price already, giving it a What Hi-Fi? Award as the best streaming service money can buy.

Now that it's just $5.99 for six months, it's even more of a winner in our book. Don't delay though, it's only available until Dec 1st for new and some returning subscribers.

Black Friday quick links

• AirPods Pro 2: $80 off
• Amazon: up to $20 off Fire TV Sticks
• Best Buy: save $1000 on Samsung soundbar
• Bose: save up to $100 on headphones, speakers
• Crutchfield: big savings on hi-fi separates
• Fire TV Stick 4K: save 33% on streamer
• Klipsch: save up to $300 on speakers and subs
• NAD amplifier: save $900 at Crutchfield
• Roku Streaming Stick 4K: was $50 now $39
• Samsung: save up to $2000 on QLED TVs
• Sonos: big money off speaker bundles
• Target: up to 35% off headphones
• Walmart: up to 65% off TVs
• World Wide Stereo: up to 60% off AV

Owning a complete home cinema system is the stuff of dreams, isn't it?

But did you realise you could buy such a thing for a little over £500 this Black Friday?

• Check out all of the Black Friday deals at Amazon
• Richer Sounds Black Friday event
• Sevenoaks Black Friday deals
• Peter Tyson: Black Friday event

Well, it's true! By combining two amazing Black Friday deals – on five-star components, no less – I've built a system that includes a 4K Mini LED TV and a complete Dolby Atmos soundbar system for just £538.

The system

• TCL 50C6KS Mini LED TV: £349 at Amazon
• Hisense AX5125H Dolby Atmos soundbar system: £189 at Amazon
• Total cost: £538

The TV

The TCL 50C6KS is our favourite budget 50-inch TV – and it has the What Hi-Fi? Awards 2025 gong to prove it.

What really wins you over is the picture: deep, inky blacks – rare on a sub-£500 TV – combined with really strong brightness and vivid, convincing colours thanks to its Mini LED backlight and Quantum Dot panel.

Shadows look rich, HDR highlights pop nicely, and there’s a surprisingly good amount of detail even in dark or complex scenes.

On top of that, it supports the full spread of HDR formats – HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, HLG – so you can access all of your content in the highest possible quality.

Google TV is built in, so all of the big, global services (Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV, etc.) are ready to go, and TCL has gone out of its way to add all of the UK's main catch-up apps, including BBC iPlayer.

Not that you'll need it, but the built-in sound also over-delivers for the money: surprisingly detailed, decently spacious and with Dolby Atmos support – more than you’d expect at this price.

Sure, it isn’t perfect: the screen is 60 Hz only, so it can't handle 4K/120Hz gaming (though the gaming experience is otherwise very good, it has to be said).

Motion is also a little soft, and on rare, extremely bright highlights, there’s a little clipping or slightly blatant dimming-zone transitions.

But honestly, those felt like tiny trade-offs at the full price of £419, let alone the Black Friday price of £349 at Amazon.

The Dolby Atmos soundbar system

You no longer have to spend a fortune and mix-and-match lots of different components to get a full home cinema system. Instead, you can get it all in one box, and for less than £200.

The one-box system I'm referring to is the Dolby Atmos-friendly Hisense AX5125H.

This isn't just a soundbar, but a full 5.1.2-channel system that includes a soundbar, a wireless subwoofer and two wireless surround speakers.

The result isn’t just louder than your TV’s built-in speakers, it’s genuinely cinematic: Dolby Atmos and DTS:X soundtracks come alive with solid impact, plenty of bass and a sense of space that makes films and shows far more immersive. Importantly, voices remain clear, even during heavy-duty scenes.

For the money, this is simply the most complete surround sound setup you’ll find.

Setup is refreshingly simple: HDMI eARC gets you going in minutes, no fuss. The hardware feels solid, and though the design is no flashy showpiece, it’s compact enough to sit naturally below most TVs (including the TCL C6KS) and doesn’t look toy-ish.

Sure, there are some limitations. The sub can get a little over-enthusiastic now and then, which in the busiest action scenes can make bass slightly boomy and even muddy dialogue a little. And while the package is excellent for movies, for stereo music or nuanced sound-mixes, it doesn’t quite reach high-end levels.

Again, though, those were minor issues at the original price of £249, so they really pale into insignificance with this £60 discount.

Black Friday quick links

• Amazon: browse all of today's best deals
• B&W speakers: save £200
• Bluetooth speaker: 48% off five-star JBL
• Bose QC Ultra Earbuds: save £100
• Bravia 8 TV: save 34% on 55in Sony TV
• Denon AV receiver: save £500
• Dolby Atmos soundbar: down to £299
• ELAC Debut 2: five-star speakers now £199
• Headphones: Sennheiser Momentum 4 now £169
• LG C5 55-inch: lowest-ever price at Richer Sounds
• JBL soundbar: now better than half price
• John Lewis: £500 off LG and Sony OLED TVs
• Richer Sounds: browse Black Friday deals
• Sevenoaks: £150 off Award-winning speakers
• Sony headphones: now just £29
• Stereo amplifier: Cambridge Audio now £299
• TVs, movies, home cinema: browse the best deals
• Vinyl: 3 for £66 at Amazon
• Wireless earbuds: Award winners now £75

In a world where streaming is increasingly becoming the main way we watch our favourite movies and TV shows, it can be tricky to decide which service is worth your monthly subscription.

Firstly, there are so many on the market, from big hitters such as Netflix and Disney Plus, to more niche platforms such as BFI Player (for indie films) and Shudder (horror movies).

And with all those options, it can be hard to know which services deliver a great selection of shows and movies but also – if you're like us – with good picture quality and sound.

So we have good news, to help you make that decision. We've spotted an eye-catching deal on our 'best video streaming service', as made office by our recent What Hi-Fi? Awards.

Apple TV (formerly known as Apple TV+) is available for just £4.99 a month for six months, down from its usual price of £9.99.

That saves you a total of £30 for that period before it goes back up to its regular cost. This gives you a decent amount of time to enjoy its offerings and decide whether you want to continue, all at a discounted price.

You can take advantage of this deal if you are in the US as well, as the price has dropped from $12.99 to $5.99 per month.

But what's so special about Apple's streaming platform? First off, its high-quality streaming performance really sets it apart.

It has a higher streaming bitrate compared to Netflix or Prime Video (which averages between 10 and 25 Mbps), as Apple TV averages around 25 to 40 Mbps and can even stretch to 45 Mbps.

We say in our review: "Compared with even the best Netflix, Disney Plus and Amazon Prime Video streams, content from Apple TV looks noticeably sharper, cleaner and more detailed."

We’re not talking 4K Blu-ray levels of crispness and control, of course – discs can exceed bitrates of 100 Mbps, after all – but Apple TV gets closer than any of its mainstream rivals.

In terms of sound, the service delivers Dolby Atmos soundtracks with a satisfying amount of immersion and control.

There are some great shows and movies, too. When it comes to TV shows, it offers the likes of Severance, Black Bird, Platonic, Shrinking, Ted Lasso and Pluribus, all of which have scored highly with critics and audiences.

Then there’s Slow Horses – one of the very best TV shows of the last few years, at least as far as the What Hi-Fi? team is concerned.

Its film offerings are less impressive, however, but films such as Coda, Killers Of The Flower Moon, Tetris and Finch are still on the menu.

If you want to save some cash while getting access to this Award-winning streaming service, this is the time to do it.

Black Friday quick links

• Amazon: browse all of today's best deals
• B&W speakers: save £200
• Bluetooth speaker: 48% off five-star JBL
• Bose QC Ultra Earbuds: save £100
• Bravia 8 TV: save 34% on 55in Sony TV
• Denon AV receiver: save £500
• Dolby Atmos soundbar: down to £299
• ELAC Debut 2: five-star speakers now £199
• Headphones: Sennheiser Momentum 4 now £169
• LG C5 55-inch: lowest-ever price at Richer Sounds
• JBL soundbar: now better than half price
• John Lewis: £500 off LG and Sony OLED TVs
• Richer Sounds: browse Black Friday deals
• Sevenoaks: £150 off Award-winning speakers
• Sony headphones: now just £29
• TVs, movies, home cinema: browse the best deals
• Vinyl: 3 for £66 at Amazon
• Wireless earbuds: Award winners now £75

In the last few years, we have seen the coffee table projector market skyrocket.

The appeal is obvious: these models can deliver huge cinematic thrills in your living room, but can also be tucked away in a cupboard when not in use.

With smart platforms and speakers built in, they're essentially complete home cinemas in neat little boxes.

Here, we have two of the latest and greatest 4K models side-by-side for direct comparison.

The Epson EF-72 is one of the most stylish models we've seen, and is designed to provide “flexible and immersive entertainment that’s ideal for any space”, according to the company.

The Hisense M2 Pro is perhaps sporting a more divisive design, but it's smaller than the Epson and is, says Hisense, capable of delivering "depth and nuance like no other".

Those are bold statements from both competitors, but how do they actually perform? We've tested both models side by side in our dedicated AV test room, so we can tell you which one comes out on top. Let's get cracking...

Epson EF-72 vs Hisense M2 Pro: price

The Hisense M2 Pro launched for £1299 / $1299 / AU$2495, but it's now widely available for a much lower £949 / $1000 / AU$1595.

The Epson EF-72, on the other hand, launched for the lower price of £1150 / $1000 (it's not available in Australia) but hasn't been discounted quite as heavily. Current pricing is £999 / $950.

That places both of the projectors firmly in the premium coffee table projector market, so they come with high expectations.

Given that the Hisense is the slightly more affordable projector in the UK and the Epson is marginally cheaper in the US, we're calling this round a draw.

**Winner: Draw**

Epson EF-72 vs Hisense M2 Pro: design

Epson's projector really stands out from the crowd, leaning into the lifestyle element of the category.

Sporting a sturdy stand and base, the projector has a trendy Scandinavian feel, with a wooden top and cloth fabric wrapped around the body.

The underside features funky coloured lighting, with users able to select a range of different ambient light modes by pressing their hands to the top – nice if you don't want to watch movies in pitch blackness or are using the projector as a Bluetooth speaker or simple mood light.

You can tilt the EF-72 upwards 90 degrees and downwards by 15 degrees, so you can display content on the ceiling, floor or at an angle.

The Hisense M2 Pro takes a different approach, offering a design not unlike something out of a sci-fi movie. Its silver cube-shaped body is supported by a flat base that can be tilted a full 360 degrees.

You can also mount this model on the wall or ceiling, or use the base to position it on a table.

With the Hisense weighing in at 3.9kg and the Epson at 4kg (about the same as a bowling ball), both models are relatively light and easy to move around. It's worth noting, though, that neither projector has a built-in battery, so they can't be considered fully portable.

The M2 Pro's remote has a premium feel with a sleek finish, a responsive D-pad and various streaming shortcuts. The Epson's black remote is more plain and plasticky, but it's perfectly usable and has a similar layout to that of the Hisense.

The Epson has a throw ratio of 1.20:1, whereas the Hisense offers 1.0 to 1.3 via the flexible zoom feature. This means you can get a larger image from a shorter distance.

Despite the Hisense's more flexible throw ratio options, the Epson takes the crown this time for its luxurious feel and unique design.

**Winner: Epson EF-72**

Epson EF-72 vs Hisense M2 Pro: features

So what features do these projectors offer?

First off, both the Hisense and Epson models feature Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, as well as a USB port. The two projectors also have a single HDMI input that doubles as an eARC connection.

While both projectors are presented as 4K models, neither has a native 4K resolution. Instead, both employ pixel shifting technology to deliver a 4K effect.

This is entirely expected at this level, and pixel shifting is capable of delivering excellent results when used effectively.

The Epson and the Hisense models both support HLG and HDR10, but the M2 Pro goes beyond this to include HDR10+ and Dolby Vision.

Both the EF-72 and M2 Pro have built-in smart platforms: the former features Google TV, while the latter has Hisense's own VIDAA system.

In each case, you get access to the apps of the biggest streaming services, including Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Disney+ and Apple TV, but the Hisense also offers the BBC iPlayer app in the UK, whereas the Epson does not.

Neither of the projectors supports Dolby Atmos but the Hisense does support DTS Virtual X, which the brand says delivers "distortion-free, immersive sound".

In terms of screen size, Epson claims the EF-72 can go up to 150 inches whereas the Hisense model can supposedly reach up to 200 inches. It claims to go brighter as well, quoting 1300 lumens of brightness, where the Epson can offer up to 1000 lumens.

The Hisense's more advanced HDR support and brightness levels pip the Epson to the post here.

**Winner: Hisense M2 Pro**

Epson EF-72 vs Hisense M2 Pro: picture quality

Now for the main attraction.

The Epson offers a perfectly likeable, colourful picture that is easy to live with.

When watching Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, we say: "The colours with this disc look pleasingly punchy and warm, while still being nicely balanced. Flaming torches held by the apes look fierce and vivid against the dark background, and the green of the leaves in the forest later on appears earthy and natural."

Its motion handling is smooth and, for the most part, still maintains the sense of natural movement, making for distraction-free viewing.

But the Hisense M2 Pro simply offers a crisper, punchier image that the Epson cannot match.

The contrast is excellently controlled and, when watching Civil War, we find that "tracer bullets across the night sky look fantastic, retaining a precisely controlled burn".

In terms of motion handling, the Hisense also matches the Epson by offering a smooth but authentic sense of movement.

The Hisense model delivers impressive black levels, too, and without crushing shadow detail.

It's this combination of deeper blacks and brighter highlights that ultimately gives the Hisense M2 Pro the win in this round.

As pleasant as the Epson EF-72 is, it's hard to escape the feeling that it's playing things a little safe. There's nothing strictly wrong with that, but the Hisense adds dynamism without adding any obvious deficiencies, so it's all gain with no pain.

**Winner: Hisense M2 Pro**

Epson EF-72 vs Hisense M2 Pro: sound

Neither the Hisense nor the Epson deliver jaw-dropping audio quality, but we frankly wouldn't really expect them to.

Epson once again plays things a bit safe, with the EF-72's single 10W speaker delivering a "rather flat and uninteresting" sound, despite the 'Sound by Bose' label.

It does manage to portray voices well by keeping them warm and balanced, all with a reasonable amount of bass to portray the emotion of each scene. But the sound remains quite localised and struggles to create much of a sense of immersion.

The Hisense M2 Pro's two 10W speakers, meanwhile, offer reasonable separation between dialogue and background noise, and provide some sense of directionality.

But its low end is a little too weak and it can suffer from sibilance and distortion during more demanding scenes.

While the Hisense offers a better overall sound than the Epson, neither can deliver movie soundtracks with anything like the scale necessary to do justice to the epic images, so in both cases, we recommend adding a dedicated sound system.

**Winner: Hisense M2 Pro**

Epson EF-72 vs Hisense M2 Pro: verdict

There's a lot to like about the Epson EF-72. With its charming living room-friendly design and warm, cinematic picture, it is a welcome addition to the coffee table projector category.

But the Hisense M2 Pro trumps it in terms of image quality, most significantly by delivering brighter highlights and deeper blacks, resulting in a punchier and more solid-looking picture.

Add the better sound quality and slightly lower price (in the UK at least), and you have a fairly straightforward decision.

**Overall winner: Hisense M2 Pro**

MORE:

Here's our full reviews of the Epson EF-72 and Hisense M2 Pro

Check out the best projectors right now

2025 has been an interesting year for streaming services, to say the least.

Music-wise, we have seen Qobuz deliver its answer to Spotify Connect and Tidal Connect with the imaginatively titled Qobuz Connect (which has proven to be a hit with hi-fi manufacturers). And – after an eternity of waiting – Spotify finally launched a higher-quality audio option with Spotify Lossless; it only took eight years of patience.

What hasn't changed, however, is our pick for the best music streaming service, which remains the ever-faithful and excellent-sounding Tidal. While the likes of Qobuz and Apple Music are nipping at its heels, in our opinion Tidal represents the perfect balance of value and performance.

Last year, Tidal opted to simplify its pricing structure, meaning you can access CD-quality streams, Dolby Atmos tracks and Sony 360 Audio titles for just £11 / $11 / AU$11 per month; that's higher-resolution streaming and more features at a slightly cheaper price than Spotify Premium (£11.99 / $11.99 / AU$15.99).

And with a rich, full-bodied and detailed performance, Tidal becomes our pick for the Best music streaming service for the tenth year in a row. A decade of Awards for Tidal should put into perspective how highly we regard this streaming service, and while there are good alternatives out there, none has managed to dethrone Tidal as of yet.

Moving on to the streaming services that handle our movies and TV shows, we have seen far fewer developments, though we do have a new service to take the title of Best video streaming service.

Disney Plus has suffered from periodic issues relating to HDR playback, and Netflix's Premium subscription tier (which covers 4K, Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos) has been raised to a staggering £18.99 per month here in the UK.

That's why we have reassessed Apple TV (formerly Apple TV+). Despite a fairly weak debut, it is now an absolute gem of a streaming service. It has taken Apple six years to properly flesh out the service's content library, but with award-winning shows such as Severance, Slow Horses, The Morning Show, The Studio, Ted Lasso and Silo now available on the platform, the lack of third-party content becomes much less of an issue.

We do wish that its film content was a bit stronger. Still, there are a number of Oscar-winning titles on the list, such as CODA, Killers of the Flower Moon and Napoleon.

Best of all, Apple has taken the Tidal approach in offering one simple subscription tier that covers everything. £9.99 / $12.99 / AU$15.99 per month gets you 4K streaming with no ads and Dolby Vision HDR, and Dolby Atmos included – Netflix could really learn a thing or two from Apple.

Two services rule this list; one is a newcomer, another a seasoned veteran – but which one will take home the prestigious Product of the Year title?

MORE:

Read our full Apple TV review

As well as our full Tidal review

And check out our picks for the best streaming services for movies and TV

It has hardly been a month since Apple launched its flashy new iPhone 17 line of smartphones, and yet its website is now littered with new products all sporting a new M5 chipset.

That includes a new edition of the Tandem OLED-touting iPad Pro. And that's certainly a cause for celebration even if the new Vision Pro and MacBook Pro are less of interest to us AV enthusiasts.

Either way, I'm disappointed by the announcements Apple didn't make. You see, the company's final launch window of the year tends to be in October, where it has, in previous years, launched fresh Macs and iPads.

Curiously, it opted not to live-stream this announcement and instead quietly unloaded the new products onto its website with fairly minimal fanfare.

With that in mind, I've had to face a difficult truth: I probably won't be getting a new Apple TV 4K this year, will I?

After an onslaught of rumours that claim that Apple is ready to launch a new version at any moment, and with the current Award-winning model hitting its third anniversary in three days, I really thought that the Apple TV 4K 2025 would break cover this month.

Apple even updated its streaming service recently, changing its name and giving it a "vibrant new identity" – convincing me it was primed to launch a new contender for our best streaming devices list.

While I'm about ready to throw the towel in, it turns out not all might be lost. According to reputable Apple insider and Bloomberg Editor Mark Gurman (via 9to5Mac), Apple may be doing a double-drop of new products this week.

He successfully predicted that the M5 MacBook Pro, iPad Pro and Vision Pro would launch this week, and he also referenced a new Apple TV 4K, HomePod Mini and AirTag 2 on that list.

Therefore, with half of that list being announced today, it's not out of the realm of possibility that Apple could drop another bunch of devices later this month, or even later this year.

Ultimately, I'm where I started – waiting in Apple TV 4K limbo, though I do have a pinch of hope that my waiting will be rewarded soon.

MORE:

Read our full Apple TV 4K (2022) review

As well as our Google TV Streamer review

And our Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max (2nd Generation) review

Apple has rebranded its streaming service with "a vibrant new identity", and it involves a confusing name change.

The tech titan snuck the reworked streaming service name into the announcement that the 2025 blockbuster F1 The Movie will be available to stream on the platform from Friday, the 12th of December.

Right at the bottom of the press release, Apple says "Apple TV+ is now simply Apple TV", meaning the service has dropped the "+" from its name.

While it's certainly a cleaner look, it will also make things even harder to distinguish within Apple's streaming repertoire.

Apple TV can now refer to one of three things: the streaming service, the digital store where you can buy or rent films and TV shows, or the streaming box that you connect to your TV via HDMI.

Furthermore, that "vibrant new identity" is already beginning to make an appearance, as users who have updated their Apple TV 4K to the tvOS 26.1 beta software have reported (via MacRumours) a colourful new app icon that's replaced the previous monochromatic look.

The same branding has begun to crop up on Apple's streaming press site, too, which you can see here.

So why has Apple made this change? It's hard to tell; however, with reports mounting of a new Apple TV 4K streamer, this brand refresh is certainly adding fuel to the fire.

MORE:

Read our full Apple TV+ review

And check out our Apple TV 4K (2022) review

Here are the best streaming services for movies and TV shows

The Hisense M2 Pro (aka the Hisense M2TUK Pro) is one of the latest wave of coffee table projectors aiming to offer movie fans a home-cinema-in-a-box experience.

What makes it interesting is that it is by far one of the smallest and lightest we’ve seen, weighing a very portable 3.9kg.

Add to this competitive pricing, and the M2 Pro becomes an alluring prospect for any movie fan looking for a decent projector that’s quick and easy to use on the fly for the odd movie night, without needing to be a permanent fixture in the lounge.

But, with the market increasingly choc-a-bloc full of rival products, many of which have fallen just short of earning that hallowed fifth star from our reviewers, is this enough to make the M2 Pro succeed where others have failed?

Here’s what we found after thoroughly putting it through its paces in our viewing rooms.

Price

The Hisense M2 Pro sits in the lower-mid segment of the coffee table market, costing £1299 / $1299 / AU$2495 at launch. Since then, its price has already dropped, with many retailers offering it for £999 in the UK at the time of publishing.

And while that’s still a lot compared to most portable units, including the £509 / $499 Xgimi Mogo 4, which more casual projector buyers may also be considering, it’s actually quite competitive in the realm of more 'serious' models.

The price places it firmly below the five-star BenQ X3100i, for example. This costs £2099 / $2399 / AU$3599. Hisense's step-up sibling, the Hisense C2 Ultra, is also considerably more expensive, launching with a hefty £2499 price tag.

It also lets it hit a currently under-served segment of the market, with the only direct rival we’ve tested recently that’s like-for-like being the four-star Epson EF-72, which costs £1150 / $1000.

Build

The Hisense M2 UK Pro ticks all the right boxes from a design standpoint.

It’s a small, unassuming box, with a spherical glass lens at its front and speakers at its sides, and it's bolted onto a square swivel stand.

The stand is hinged, which makes it easy to adjust the angle of the image. There's also a common thread adapter in the base, which opens up the possibility of mounting the projector to the ceiling.

A few years ago, these swivel designs weren’t in vogue, with most makers assuming you’d get a separate stand or relying on switches on the bottom, most of which only had one angle and height option.

So, unless the stars aligned and it sat naturally at the exact angle and height you needed, at whatever distance you placed it, things weren’t optimal, even with auto correction. The M2 Pro does, of course, have that, too, in the shape of Hisense's custom AutoMagic AI Adjusting System 2.0.

The unit’s 1.0 to 1.3:1 throw ratio is also suitably flexible to let it function in most living rooms and bedrooms. This lets it throw up a 65-inch image at distances between 1.4m and 1.9m.

From there, screen size grows in line with the amount of space you give it until capping at 200 inches at a 4.4m-5.8m throw distance. Optical zoom functionality also lets you scale down as required.

The combination works a treat, with the auto correction in particular delighting our testers. Within minutes of plugging it in, we had managed to get the image perfectly projected onto our screen.

As an added perk for those who want to store it out of sight when it’s not in use, the M2 Pro even comes with a carry/storage case, which is a nice touch that shows a lot of thought has been put into its design.

This remains the case with its small but intuitive remote control, which comes with a backlight – something most projectors at its price don’t have, despite their focus on being used in dim conditions.

Features

The M2 Pro is packed with a fairly reasonable specifications sheet that should tick all the boxes for its intended market, at least if films and TV shows are your primary focus.

The headline feature is its use of Hisense’s Trichoma Laser technology. This is a fancy way of describing the DLP light source it uses, which aims to improve picture quality using three individual lasers to create the red, green and blue parts of the image. We’ve seen this on numerous other projectors, including last year’s Hisense C1.

This, plus AI wizardry provided by its image processing, lets the M2 Pro deliver 110 per cent coverage of the BT.2020 colour gamut favoured by creatives and a 0.9 Delta E score (anything below 1.0 is considered pretty amazing by home cinema standards).

But before you get too excited, as ever, Hisense has kept quiet about what specific settings are required to hit those levels of accuracy.

For people unwilling to invest in a projector screen (something you really should do, as it makes a big difference to picture quality), there’s also AI-powered colour correction, which aims to make the M2 Pro work better when used with a plain wall.

Brightness levels are also impressive, with a claimed peak of 1300 lumens. This is 300 lumens higher than its direct rival, the Epson EF-72, which peaks at 1000 lumens. This potentially makes it better suited to the sort of bright environments that a semi-portable projector might be expected to perform in.

HDR support is superb, with the M2 Pro working with all four of the currently available formats: HLG, HDR10, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision.

The use of Hisense’s VIDAA platform is also, generally, a positive. The OS is intuitive to navigate, not as ad-heavy as many rivals, and includes the BBC iPlayer app in the UK. Most rival projectors use the Android/Google TV platform, and precious few manage to deliver the iPlayer app.

Add to this support for all the usual suspects, including Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, and it will serve most people’s needs – especially in the UK, where Freely is also supported.

The sound system supports the Dolby Audio and DTS Virtual X surround-sound formats, but Dolby Atmos isn’t on the cards. This isn’t a dealbreaker, though, as that’s to be expected on a projector in this class.

There are a couple of minor annoyances to contend with, however.

First, it has rather limited physical connectivity. Around the back, you’ll only find one HDMI 2.1 input, a single USB 3.0 and a power connector. That’s it. So if you want to connect a Blu-ray player and games console, you’ll have to be willing to swap cables in and out fairly regularly.

The other minor point of interest is that, despite featuring what Hisense refers to as an HDMI 2.1 socket, the M2 Pro doesn't support gaming at 4K/120Hz. This is normal for projectors at this level, but the mention of HDMI 2.1 raised our hopes.

Instead, it will only run games at a max of 60Hz in 4K, which will be a minor annoyance for gamers, as current generation consoles won’t be able to run at their max refresh rates in 4K.

An enhanced game mode offering the ability to run games at higher frame rates (up to 240Hz) in 1080p softens the blow for gamers a little.

The other thing to point out is that this is of course not a native 4K projector. Like pretty much all of the projectors we’ve tested under £4000 / $4000, it uses pixel shifting to get up to 4K.

This is a clever trick where a projector shoots out two overlapping lower-resolution images to artificially create a single 4K image. In the past, it’s been a big issue as the results were very mixed, but recent advances mean performance is now a lot better, despite native 4K still being superior.

Picture

Paired with our trusty Oppo UDP-203 4K Blu-ray player, the M2 Pro proves to be a solid performer after a few tweaks to its settings.

Out of the box, it is a little too heavy-handed in its native settings. Playing one of our new favourite test scenes from Thunderbolts, motion handling is a bit off, with characters’ movements feeling artificial and too floaty, with contrast and colour temperatures also too aggressive.

Thankfully, things rapidly improve when we switch to the projector’s Filmmaker Mode. All we find necessary to change from there is to select the lowest Film setting for motion processing and the Warm 2 colour profile.

Once done, the projector performs nicely, delivering a consistent performance that never pushes beyond the M2 Pro’s capabilities, which makes for a nicely immersive and more mature home cinema experience than we had expected.

Skin tones in particular hold a nice warmth, but never deviate into overcooked territory in the way that past Hisense projectors, including the C1, have. Yelena and Bob’s faces retain detail and look lifelike even in challenging mixed-light scenes.

Our only minor quibble is that there are very brief moments when the rainbow effect occurs during some panning shots – though it is, thankfully, infrequent.

Dark detail is also reasonably well handled, with Hisense avoiding falling victim to the common mistake of trying to overcompensate for a projector’s naturally imperfect black level by cranking the contrast too high, making the picture look unintentionally like a Frank Miller comic in the process.

This means there’s a decent amount of detail in the soldiers’ pitch black uniforms, despite there being some minor black crush.

We switch to our Alien: Romulus test disc, whose opening scene is incredibly difficult for many TVs to handle in terms of dark detail.

Some fine details of the space nebula are lost, parts of the spaceship suffer from black crush, and the projector misses some subtle details that are clearly visible on the more expensive BenQ X3100i, but the Hisense still does an admirable job overall, particularly given its price.

The ship’s edges are suitably defined, as are details such as the ridges in its metal hull, which are lost and oversoftened on many rivals, including the Xgimi Horizon Ultra. This lets it retain a sense of three-dimensionality despite the slight imperfections.

The M2 Pro continues to punch above its weight as we move to Civil War. During a scene in which a car races through a burning forest, the flames have a wonderful hue of red and an intensity that makes them suitably distinct from the silhouette of the background forest.

During a panning shot, the movement of a squadron of helicopters looks smooth but authentic, with no ghost frames or artefacts creeping in as they swoop into Washington.

Colours continue to pop but retain their realism as the film transitions to a night-time battle. There’s a nice amount of contrast, and tracer bullets across the night sky look fantastic, retaining a precisely controlled burn. Buildings look nicely sharp, too, all helping to create a truly immersive experience.

It’s only when we swap over to the more expensive BenQ X3100i that we see radically improved results. Here, there’s more detail in the darkest and brightest areas, with everything from explosions to characters’ faces in difficult mixed light holding a smidgeon more detail.

This remains the case when we move to our Pan test disc, which is our peak brightness stress test due to the film’s atypically high 4000 nits mastering. The Hisense does an excellent job, with highlights in a blob of water in the sky retaining a pleasing range of colours and every ripple looking sharp and three-dimensional.

But it hasn't got quite as much contrast in the skyline as the BenQ, and there’s undeniably some detail lost in the sun, which comes across as pure white rather than very slightly red and orange.

But, again, considering the disparity in price, the Hisense’s performance is to be applauded, and it's surprisingly competitive.

This adds up to make the M2 Pro one of the best performers we’ve seen in its class when it comes to picture quality.

Sound

The M2 Pro has a 2.0, 10W in-built speaker system. Unlike its fancier C2 cousin, this is a purely Hisense system – there’s no partnership with JBL or any other audio specialist.

And for standard TV viewing, or as a basic unit to keep the kids entertained, it's generally fine – in some ways even good, at least by in-built speaker standards.

The unit produces a surprising amount of sound volume for such a small package. Even in its standard setting, the twin speakers offer enough clarity and separation to keep voices and background noise separate enough for comfortable viewing while we stream an episode of Schitt’s Creek.

Playing Oppenheimer, characters’ voices are clear, but the background string section slightly intrudes during certain intense parts. Switching to Theatre mode rapidly improves things, and dialogue and the soundtrack stay in their respective lanes.

Moving to a nighttime battle scene during Civil War, the M2 Pro continues to do an admirable job.

Though it's only a stereo set-up, the sound of helicopters entering a military camp has a clear sense of direction, and there’s a decent amount of volume – to the point that anything above 25 sounds too loud in our listening rooms

It deals with this demanding, noisy scene well, offering each sonic part suitable space. At the start of the scene, the hushed whispers of characters creeping through the pitch black street are audible while the background gunfire offers some sense of directionality and bite.

But as the scene grows more intense, the system loses its composure. A haunting guitar track pushes the speakers too hard, causing distortion to creep in.

The engine noise of incoming helicopters also pushes the low end too hard, creating some distortion, and the sound generally lacks the heft to do it justice. The engine noise is flabby and lacks suitable definition.

Sibilance creeps in as a violent gun battle ensues, both in the sound of the bullets flying across the screen and characters screaming over it.

The combination of an underpowered low-end and a sibilant high end creates a thin, at times acidic, quality during the most intense parts of the battle.

This adds up to make it good by small, coffee table projector standards, but not perfect.

Verdict

The Hisense M2 Pro isn’t perfect. But by focusing on making all the right compromises and delivering a consistent, balanced home movie experience, it gets more right than it does wrong.

This adds up to make it one of the best coffee table projectors on the market. Offering solid picture quality, excellent app support and a wonderfully easy set-up process, it ticks all the right boxes for its target market.

Unless you’re willing to spend a lot more, you’ll struggle to find a better projector.

SCORES

• Picture 5
• Sound 4
• Features 5

MORE:

Read our review of the Xgimi Horizon Ultra

Also consider the BenQ X3100i

Best projectors: budget, 4K and ultra-short-throw

When we first reviewed Apple TV+ in the spring of 2020, we praised its picture and sound quality but criticised its relative lack of content and device compatibility.

More than five years on, it's now known as just 'Apple TV', and it’s still the best-performing mainstream streaming service from an AV perspective. And although Apple’s approach means the catalogue is still much smaller than that of rivals, the quality of the available content is very strong indeed.

Apple TV is now available on pretty much every device, too, and it’s still significantly cheaper than Netflix and Disney+ if you care about 4K, HDR and Dolby Atmos, which we most certainly do.

It’s about time for a full reassessment, then.

Price

While most of the streaming big boys now have a dizzying array of subscription tiers, Apple TV has just one that costs £9.99 / $12.99 / AU$15.99 per month.

That gets you an ad-free experience in 4K HDR and with Dolby Atmos sound.

Netflix and Disney+ are both available for less than that, but only with adverts, potato picture quality and restricted sound options.

To go ad-free and enjoy equivalent picture and sound quality to Apple TV, Netflix will set you back £18.99 / $24.99 / AU$28.99 per month, while Disney+ is £14.99 / $18.99 / AU$20.99.

Amazon Prime Video works slightly differently: if you combine the Prime Video-only subscription with the top-up ad-free subscription, which also gives you access to the best picture and sound options, it comes out at £8.98 / $11.98 (in Australia, you can’t subscribe to Prime Video without the broader Prime subscription, so the price there is AU$12.98).

Of course, cost and value are different things, and the relatively low price of Apple TV (at least compared with Netflix and Disney+) reflects its smaller content catalogue.

Content

While Netflix and Amazon license movies and TV shows from other studios to bolster their respective streaming catalogues of original content, Apple TV hosts only exclusive productions.

It’s the same approach that Disney takes, but Disney, of course, has several studios under its umbrella and a back catalogue that stretches decades into the past. In contrast, Apple has been creating and amassing its ‘Originals’ for a relative blink of an eye.

In other words, the content catalogue of Apple TV is much smaller than that of its rivals. As mentioned at the start, though, the quality of that content is now very high, especially against the occasionally endless-seeming sea of rot that regularly appears on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video in particular.

Apple is especially strong on TV shows, with the likes of Severance, Black Bird, Platonic, Shrinking, The Studio, For All Mankind, The Afterparty, Prehistoric Planet, Silo, Ted Lasso and Criminal Record all scoring highly with critics and audiences.

Then there’s Slow Horses – one of the very best TV shows of the last few years, at least as far as the What Hi-Fi? team is concerned.

The movie selection is less impressive: films such as Coda, Killers Of The Flower Moon, Tetris and Finch prove that there’s quality on there, but it doesn’t take long to run out of well-rated flicks.

Overall, though, there’s more than enough quality content on Apple TV for most people to feel that they’re getting strong value for money out of their subscription cost.

It’s worth noting that most versions of the Apple TV app also contain Apple’s pay-as-you-go store for movies and TV shows (still sometimes referred to as the iTunes Store).

This is the very best place to buy and rent movies for streaming, but it’s not part of the Apple TV subscription, so it doesn’t fall within the scope of this review.

Device compatibility

It took a while, but the Apple TV app is now available on pretty much every device that also has Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+. In fact, of all the TVs, smart projectors and streaming sticks we’ve reviewed over the last two years, only one or two haven’t had it.

What’s more, you can now subscribe to Apple TV and access its content through the Amazon Prime Video app, which is a great backup option if your device doesn’t have a native Apple TV app.

One thing to note, though, is that while Apple TV performs well across all devices (at least all those with which we’ve tested it), they don't all make use of the highest-quality streams.

Picture

And it’s those high-quality streams that really set Apple TV apart from its rivals.

While the streaming bitrates of Netflix, Disney+ and Prime Video average between about 10 and 25 Mbps, Apple TV averages around 25 to 40 Mbps, and even stretches to 45 Mbps at times. This is because Apple applies less compression to its streams, and the result is all-round better picture quality.

Compared with even the best Netflix, Disney+ and Prime Video streams, content from Apple TV looks noticeably sharper, cleaner and more detailed. There’s less banding (unsubtle steps where a colour’s shade changes) and less picture noise, and the result is a crisper overall image.

Playing See, one of Apple TV’s most sumptuous streams, there’s an awesome depth and solidity to the epic landscapes, excellent shading across the board, including in skin tones, and a very impressive combination of thrilling contrast and subtle shadow shading.

We’re not talking 4K Blu-ray levels of crispness and control, of course – discs can exceed bitrates of 100 Mbps, after all – but Apple TV gets closer than any of its mainstream rivals.

Only Sony Pictures Core can beat it for picture quality, and only when it’s accessed via a Sony TV. That’s also less of a streaming service and more of a store for Sony Pictures movies.

Even when Apple TV is accessed via the app on non-Apple devices, which don’t always have access to the highest-bitrate streams (estimates suggest some are capped at about 25 Mbps), there’s a sheen to the delivery that is rarely matched by rivals.

This may be at least in part down to the glossy way in which Apple’s content is produced – there’s of course no way to be sure, seeing as the content is exclusive to its own service – but whatever the reason, the result is highly enjoyable.

The vast majority of Apple TV’s content is available in 4K with Dolby Vision, and this is broadly the format in which it looks its best, but a well set-up TV will do a great job with the fallback HDR10 option, and the service even now supports HDR10+ for that additional, contrast-boosting dynamic metadata. Great news for Samsung TV owners in particular.

Sound

While Apple TV has no technical advantage over rival streaming services when it comes to sound quality, with all of them delivering Dolby Atmos soundtracks at 768 kbps, the general audio delivery is still very good in its own right.

During the opening chase in Fountain Of Youth (yes, it’s a dreadful film, but boy is it nicely produced), the Atmos soundtrack fills the room with the sounds of bustling Bangkok.

There’s detail everywhere, and effects sweep precisely around the soundstage. Tonally, there’s good balance, too, with clean treble, weighty bass and clear, fairly textured midrange.

Across Apple TV’s offering, there’s perhaps a little too much smoothness and politeness. We find ourselves longing for a more solid punch from explosions and gunfire, and more reach to dynamic range.

This is a common theme with streamed movies and TV shows, though, and only physical media is significantly better in these regards, thanks to its uncompressed, super-high-bitrate audio.

Verdict

While it still lacks the vast catalogues of its rivals, Apple TV’s content offering is much bigger than it once was, and the quality of its recent Originals is arguably superior.

But what really impresses (assuming you’re of an AV nerd persuasion) is the quality of the presentation, particularly in terms of picture. None of its direct rivals can match it, and if you access the app via an Apple TV 4K, it’s streets ahead.

Add the highly accessible price, and Apple TV has become a real winner in our book.

MORE:

Read our review of Disney+

Also consider Netflix

Read our Amazon Prime Video review

Best streaming devices: smart TV sticks and boxes chosen by our experts

More and more coffee table projectors have come onto the home cinema market in the last few years. Though they are proving increasingly popular, the category has a tough balance to strike.

A coffee table projector must be flexible enough in its abilities to adapt to different viewing conditions, small and light enough to be moved between rooms and packed away when not needed, and sonically capable enough to deliver at least relatively cinematic audio – all while keeping the price as accessible as possible.

Inevitably, no model will tick absolutely every box – it’s all about picking the right combination of compromises to deliver the most satisfying overall experience.

The latest model to attempt this is the Epson EF-72, which is part of the brand’s new Lifestudio Flex series.

Epson says the projector provides “a cost-effective, portable, high brightness and high image quality projection experience for the modern household”.

That certainly sounds promising…

Price

Launching at £1150 in the UK and $1000 in the US, the EF-72 is up against some tough competition. That’s about AU$2845 in Australia, but is not currently available in this region.

Our favourite projector at this level, the BenQ W1800, will set you back a little less, with a price tag of £1099 (around $1379 / AU$1915). This 4K projector has a less stylish design but received a What Hi-Fi? Award last year for its impressively cinematic picture.

Another model to consider is the Hisense M2 Pro, which comes in at £1299 / $1300 / AU$2495. Our full review of this one will be published soon, but we did have it on hand for comparisons with the Epson.

Build

The majority of projectors, coffee table or otherwise, often resemble a rather uninteresting box. But Epson’s lifestyle projector really stands out from the crowd.

The EF-72’s body is supported by a sturdy stand and base.

From the base of the exposed body, you can select a range of different ambient light modes that are ideal if you don’t want to sit in complete darkness while watching.

Users can touch the top of the projector to change the LED light display, and hold to dim or turn it off completely. This is obviously not going to add to its home cinema performance, but it’s a neat feature that adds to its premium feel.

The EF-72 has a pleasing overall tactility with a smooth wooden top that comes in an oak colour, and there's a fabric covering for the sides. The compact and sturdy design makes it easy to take from room to room, but it’s a stretch to call it a portable model as it does not have a built-in battery.

You can tilt the projector upwards to 90 degrees and downwards by 15 degrees, so you can display content on the ceiling, floor or at an angle with a screen size up to 150 inches.

The throw ratio is 1.20:1, which is fairly common at this level, but there are models available that need less space. In our test room, for example, to fill our 100-inch screen (measured diagonally), we had to set the projector about 107 inches (8.9 feet / 2.7m) back.

Features

The flexible design makes for a fairly easy set-up, with features such as zoom shift, auto-shape correction and corner adjustment all available.

There’s also wall colour correction if you don’t have the budget for a dedicated projector screen (although we heartily recommend budgeting for one).

The EF-72 uses RGB LED technology, and Epson says it offers up to 1000 lumens of brightness.

Epson describes the EF-72 as a 4K projector, but it’s worth noting that this is achieved through pixel shifting, rather than a native 4K resolution. However, this approach to delivering 4K content has proved effective many times in the past, including recently with the excellent EH-QB1000.

Powered by Google TV, the EF-72 offers most of the usual streaming suspects, including Netflix, Disney Plus, Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime Video.

While Channel 4 is available for UK residents, BBC iPlayer wasn't during testing. Epson says it’s working with the BBC to get it added but, frankly, we’ve heard this sort of thing from several projector manufacturers over the years, and precious few manage to get iPlayer on board. In short, we’ll believe it when we see it.

Note that although you cannot purchase pay-as-you-go movies and TV shows on the Apple TV app, you can still access your Apple TV library, so it’s just a case of making the purchases through another device, such as your phone.

The EF-72 supports HDR10 and HLG, but you won’t be able to watch content in Dolby Vision.

Dolby Atmos sound isn’t supported by the projector’s built-in sound system, either, though it can be passed out to a compatible sound system via the HDMI eARC port.

The only other physical connection is a USB-C socket, but you can also send tunes to the Epson via Bluetooth (more on that later).

Picture

We find that the default Standard preset setting doesn’t provide us with the most cinematic image, as the picture has an artificially vivid quality.

Switching to either Cinema or Natural, however, offers a much warmer and more immersive image.

There are a lot of further adjustments you can make in the picture settings, which will be a bit overwhelming for casual viewers, particularly as they are not typically labelled with much of a description. Still, the level of adjustment available will appeal to some of the more serious cinephiles out there.

We kick off our serious testing with Dune: Part Two on 4K Blu-ray, and the Epson EF-72 proves itself to be a detailed and cinematic performer.

As Zendaya’s Chani looks out onto the sun-bathed desert, the projector does a good job of capturing the warmth of the scene while still keeping her skin tone natural right down to her subtle freckles.

Moving to Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes on Disney+, we find that the Epson EF-72 handles motion well, striking a good balance between smoothing the worst judder and not adding an unnatural effect to the movement.

The swooping aerial shot of a golden eagle finding its way back to its nest, for example, maintains a consistently smooth delivery while still keeping the more natural movement of the camera. There is the option to adjust the frame interpolation as well, so you can fine-tune this to your liking.

The colours with this disc look pleasingly punchy and warm, while still being nicely balanced. Flaming torches held by the apes look fierce and vivid against the dark background, and the green of the leaves in the forest later on appears earthy and natural.

Broadly speaking, the Epson offers a distraction-free performance, although we did spot one instance during testing when the contrast changed unexpectedly, which was rather jarring.

We only experienced this once during many days of testing, but if you encounter it more frequently, turning off the Adaptive Luma Control in the advanced settings solves the issue – though this does darken the image slightly, so it should be avoided if possible.

The Epson EF-72 has a few other shortcomings, too. The projector falls short in portraying the deepest blacks and the brightest highlights. It rather feels as if Epson has decided to play things a bit safe, trading strong contrast for balance and consistency. That's fine in some ways, but there are rivals that offer both.

Despite not delivering the deepest blacks, shadow detail is also somewhat lacking. For example, when watching No Time To Die on 4K Blu-ray, the EF-72 struggles to define Bond’s dark tie against his slightly darker shirt, and said shirt’s creases are all but invisible.

We compare the Epson with the Hisense M2 Pro, and the difference in performance when it comes to brightness and shadow detail is obvious, with the Hisense proving an immediate step up. Bond’s tie, for example, is much more visible between the dark shadows.

Still, while the EF-72 is somewhat less dynamic than the best in class, its picture is easy to live with thanks to its balanced, warm, and generally cinematic delivery.

Sound

Epson has worked with Bose on the EF-72’s audio, but there’s only a 10W sound system built into the projector’s stylish case.

Again, we get the feeling that Epson has played things rather safe: the sound is inoffensive, but it’s also rather flat and uninteresting.

After testing all of the audio presets, we opt for the Cinema setting, which provides the widest and most cinematic soundstage of all the options.

With Dune: Part Two, as Timothee Chalamet’s Paul Atreides and Stilgar (played by Javier Bardem) have a heart-to-heart in the desert, the projector makes their voices sound natural and tonally balanced, with a reasonable amount of bass to portray the emotion of the scene.

We then put the projector through its paces with the infamously deep Chapter 2 of Blade Runner 2049 on 4K Blu-ray. While the Epson EF-72 does not distort here as many sound systems do, it’s quiet and lacking the dynamic range required to deliver the scene’s tension.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, that single, low-powered speaker struggles to push the sound far out from the body of the projector, resulting in a rather localised delivery that’s fairly detached from the on-screen action.

Epson also encourages you to use the projector as a dedicated Bluetooth speaker, so we send it some tunes to test this out. With both Lord Huron’s The Night We Met and Euro-Country by CMAT, the vocals are clear until the tracks get more complicated and the voices get somewhat lost in the mix.

Again, the delivery is inoffensive, but even a budget Bluetooth speaker will do a better job with your music. For movies, we strongly recommend pairing the Epson with a soundbar, even though that will mean putting up with some unsightly cabling.

Verdict

Overall, Epson’s EF-72 offers a rich and cinematic picture that is very easy to live with. Its warm colours and natural motion processing are sure to please, and the ability to fine-tune the settings will appeal to serious cinephiles.

That said, we find that no amount of tweaking and tinkering results in the dynamism that we have come to expect at this level, and the sound is far too small-scale for images this large.

A decent option in the land of coffee table projectors, then – but not the best…

SCORES

• Picture 4
• Sound 3
• Features 4

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The Studio and Severance might have swept up all the awards at the Emmys recently, but if there’s one series worth subscribing to Apple TV+ for I reckon there’s a good case to be made for Slow Horses, which returns for a fifth series on 24th September.

The dawdling nags of the title are a team of demoted MI5 agents, quietly exiled to a messy office above a greasy spoon cafe on the edge of London’s Square Mile, where they continue to toil away on the margins of the British intelligence service. If James Bond is the MVP of spying, this lot aren’t even warming the bench.

The ‘M’ in this setup is Jackson Lamb, an almost unrecognisable Gary Oldman who lives off takeaways and Jaffa Cakes, smokes like the tyres on one of 007’s Aston Martins, and isn’t afraid to let his backside do the talking.

Slow Horses is based on Mick Herron’s 'Slough House' series of books, but it was created for TV by Will Smith (no, not that one), a former stand-up comedian who was also one of the writers on The Thick of It and Veep. It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that Lamb’s mouth is also capable of producing some pretty ripe material.

His withering put-downs ("Bringing you up to speed is like trying to explain Norway to a dog") and unique words of wisdom (“The grapevine says a lot of things, but it’s mostly the wine talking”) are not quite as iconic as Malcolm Tucker’s, but it’s much more entertaining than the cringeworthy stuff James Bond comes out with.

While Lamb might get all the best lines, the rest of the Horses are not without a zinger or two of their own. River Cartwright (Jack Lowden), whose blunder on a training exercise at the start of series one sets the whole show up, is rarely without a witty riposte, and computer whizz Roddy Ho (Christopher Chung) seems to be on the receiving end of a verbal evisceration from Shirley Dander (Aimée-Ffion Edwards) at least once an episode.

Lamb’s charges have all ended up at Slough House through some sort of professional or personal misdemeanour, whether that’s a cock-up like Cartwright’s or being slightly too familiar with the inside of a bookies, and that’s a big part of what makes Slow Horses so watchable.

The spies we’re used to seeing on screen are essentially superheroes in suits, whereas the leader of the Slow Horses can barely even dress himself. You’d have to worry about anyone who genuinely sees themself in Jackson Lamb, but it’s certainly more relatable than most other espionage shows.

That extends to the storylines, too. If The Park (MI5’s high-tech main headquarters) had its way the inhabitants of Slough House would spend their days chained to their desks keeping out of trouble, but that wouldn’t make very entertaining TV, so each series is packed with terror plots, stolen classified files and fake identities.

That might sound like the kind of stuff you’ve watched a hundred times before, but it’s all done with refreshing restraint. The writers have resisted the urge to chase bigger but less believable set pieces as the show goes on, and, ironically, each episode has about as much fat on it as a prize-winning racehorse.

The new season is no different, with a mass shooting and a suspected assassination attempt on a member of Lamb’s team setting off a sequence of events that reaches far beyond the nicotine-stained walls of Slough House. And with tensions among the Horses running higher than ever there are plenty of opportunities for them to insult each other in amusingly creative ways.

Because this is Apple TV+ you also get 4K and Dolby Vision HDR as standard, so each episode looks pristine. Every wrinkle in Lamb’s clothes is visible and the Dolby Atmos audio will have the bullets pinging off your light fittings when a gun battle does break out. In the new series there’s a fight scene under a railway that should definitely give the height channels of the best sound systems something to think about.

At just six episodes per series Slow Horses never outstays its welcome either, although I can’t promise it won’t leave you wanting more. Fortunately, it’s already been recommissioned for a sixth and seventh series, although with Will Smith not returning as showrunner there’s no guarantee it’ll be able to maintain its high standards.

For now, though, there’s still plenty to sink your teeth into – and that’s before you've even opened the Jaffa Cakes.

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Streaming services have become needlessly complex over the past couple of years. First, there's the sheer volume of options on the market.

Then there's the fact that most have a new confusing tier system that locks features behind pay walls with little to no warning; I'm looking at you, Amazon Prime Video.

With the likes of Netflix, Disney Plus, Prime Video and Paramount Plus all vying for your monthly direct debit, it can be hard to know which service is the best one to go for.

Even the big UK broadcasters are throwing their hats in the ring, as I found out when a Channel 4+ advert kindly spoiled the episode of The Great British Bake Off that I was watching – rude.

With crucial AV features including 4K, HDR, and Dolby Atmos now being locked behind the "premium" subscription tiers, I'm starting to get rather frustrated with the whole streaming business, and I'm willing to bet that it's not just me either.

That's why I've been evaluating which services to keep and which ones I'm better off without, and it's reminded me of one overlooked service that hasn't fallen victim to the modern streaming woes.

Ironically, this service is backed by one of the largest and most influential technology firms in the world.

Yes, I'm talking about Apple TV+, a service that many consider to be closed off and not worth their money compared to the likes of Netflix, which features enough content to spark a 45-minute debate about what to watch every single time the app is opened without fail.

Now, I can't dispute that Apple's content library seems like a bit of a letdown on paper, but Apple TV+ is the epitome of "quality over quantity" in my books. It's also improved hugely over the years since its launch, meaning there are plenty of shows and films to choose from.

Its content library includes the likes of Severance, which I've been told to watch more times than I can bear to count (It's on my list), as well as Slow Horses, Silo, The Morning Show, Shrinking and The Studio.

The final one is one of the smartest, best-produced, and funniest shows I've seen in a very long time – hence why it just won a record-breaking 13 Emmy Awards in its first season.

And because it's Apple, which happens to make quite a lot of money selling iPhones, Macs and AirPods, if you weren't aware, the production values of these shows are second to none.

I've watched these shows on everything from my Sony A80L OLED TV to my iPhone 16, and they look glorious on practically every screen thanks to their slick production.

Best of all, Apple hasn't succumbed to this subscription tier system nonsense. It's £9.99 / $12.99 / AU$15.99 per month, with ad-free viewing in 4K with Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio – simple.

Now, that has risen in price since it launched in 2019, when it was £4.99 / $4.99 / AU$7.99. However, compared to Netflix's egregious price hikes, which means a plan with those same features is now £18.99 / $24.99 / AU$28.99 per month, I'm willing to cut Apple some slack.

If you're tired of Netflix and Disney Plus, and have been resisting the temptation to check out some of the shows I've mentioned above, I'd highly recommend ditching those services for a month and seeing what you think of Apple TV+.

Best-case scenario, you'll find a great new series to get invested in. Worst case, you'll save yourself some cash this month and can resubscribe to those services at any time.

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Between the epic 2001: A Space Odyssey and the blockbuster entertainment of Star Wars, the 1970s was a golden era of intelligent science fiction.

Starring Bruce Dern and telling a story that remains powerfully timely, Silent Running is one of the most thoughtful and emotionally devastating sci-fi classics.

Silent Running takes place aboard a fleet of giant spaceships which hold Earth's last forests, plucked right off the face of the planet after humanity destroyed the environment.

Bruce Dern stars as Lowell, an unwavering botanist determined to preserve the forests so they can be returned to earth and nature revived once again.

But when the crew are issued with devastating orders, Lowell is pitted against his fellow astronauts, with nature itself at stake.

The film is available to rent or buy online through Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Rakuten TV or Sky Store. You can also pick up the 4K UHD Blu-ray.

Silent Running was the first of only two films directed by Douglas Trumbull. But he remains a titan of cinema history thanks to his groundbreaking visual effects work.

Trumbull pioneered many innovative effects techniques in the sci-fi classics 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Blade Runner.

For Silent Running, he used some ideas he'd conceived that were dropped from 2001, and he did it on a fraction of the budget of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece.

Even with such a small budget, the film looks great. The vast spaceships glitter amid deep blackness, before the picture jumps to the vibrant colours of the beautiful flowers and plants.

The contrast between the ship's convincingly sterile grey machinery and the lush green gardens is an effective way to visualise the theme of humanity losing our connection with nature.

But best of all are the cute little worker robots who tend the gardens, nicknamed Huey, Dewey and Louie. Despite being trundling little metal boxes, these adorable droids have a surprising amount of personality, and are a clear influence on non-humanoid characters in films such as Star Wars and WALL-E.

Although it wasn't a hit upon its first release - and drew lukewarm reviews - Silent Running more than holds up today. It can be a cliche to say a classic sci-fi film is more relevant than ever, but it's certainly true here.

The film was released three years before the term "global warming" was coined by scientist Wallace Broecker in 1975, and long before most people had heard of the issues in the late 1980s. Silent Running offered a chilling early warning of the danger to our environment if we continued to pollute the world.

It's also remarkably prescient about how we’ve responded to climate change in the decades since.

The spaceship's crew are depicted as complacent and disconnected from nature, but distracted by fake food and inane entertainment. And although we're meant to sympathise with Lowell's devotion to protecting nature, he comes across as preachy and overzealous.

Dern is one of the all-time great character actors, and he wasn't afraid to make Lowell a sympathetic yet prickly character.

Lowell’s convictions and lifestyle make him an outsider from those around him, foreshadowing the stereotypical tree-hugger who may be right about the environment but struggles to win friends with his stern lectures.

Before the climate protest movement even began, Silent Running warned of the danger of alienating the people who most need to hear the message.

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Buckle into your spaceships, because Pixar’s latest release Elio is getting a 4K Blu-ray edition next month.

The film follows an orphaned young boy named Elio who is desperate to be abducted by aliens to escape bullies and a feeling of not quite fitting in. So, when he is mistaken by an alien interplanetary panel as the leader of Earth, he has never felt more at home. But a lie can only take you so far…

If you didn’t see this animated film hit the big screen or have never even heard of it, you wouldn’t be the only one. Elio had the worst opening ever for a Pixar film in terms of box office statistics, with only $21 million (around £15 million / AU$32 million) on its opening weekend.

That may seem like a massive number but compared to big hitters such as Finding Nemo which earned more than $70 million (around £51 million / AU$108 million) in the same period, it’s not a good stat for Pixar.

Even though it massively unperformed for the studio, critics and audiences alike gave it overall positive reviews. It has a respectable 83 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer, and an even better 90 per cent on the Popcornmeter.

On top of that, Empire's Laura Venning gave Elio a four-star rating, dubbing it a "charming, visually inventive adventure that might just inspire a new generation of astronomers to look to the skies".

I managed to catch it in the cinema myself, and found myself very moved by the relationship between Elio and his aunt, who struggles to raise him after the passing of his parents.

The studio has announced the release of the 4K and Standard Blu-ray, DVD and 4K Steelbook, all of which will come out on the 22 September with pre-order available on HMV now. It's also available to rent and buy on services like Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+, but for those looking to own it forever the physical disc will be more appealing.

This physical release could significantly boost Elio's fanbase as viewers will be able to watch the film in the best quality possible using their own home cinema set-up. It's highly unlikely it will reach the same heights as its more successful predecessors, but this wholesome coming-of-age movie deserves some love.

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I don't go to the cinema nearly as much as I'd like. I'm a parent, so nights out are few and far between. But more to the point, with Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, Sky Q and terrestrial TV at my fingertips, I'm not short of things to watch. And I'd rather take a punt on something I've already paid for than arrange a whole evening, babysitter and all, to go see something that might just be a bit meh.

I'm not the only one. While UK cinema admissions saw a slight rise last year, the figure of 126.5 million is still way down on pre-pandemic levels – from 2001 to 2019, that number was consistently above 150 million, according to the UK Cinema Association.

It's not hard to see why the numbers are so low. The pandemic and rise of the streamers effectively mounted a pincer attack on the multiplex. In 2023, both Empire Cinemas and Cineworld went into administration.

While there have been some chinks of light, like the Prince Charles hopefully opening a second site in Stratford (despite the future of its original Leicester Square venue remaining uncertain), it's a pretty bleak time for fans of the silver screen.

If cinemas want to survive, they're going to have to offer something you can't get at home. Four-storey-high dinosaurs, anyone?

A sight for saur eyes

I'm talking about Lightroom in London's Kings Cross. It's not a cinema in the traditional sense – its past work includes a David Hockney immersive art exhibition and space documentary The Moonwalkers: A Journey With Tom Hanks (its next is a Coldplay multimedia film, but don't let that put you off). But it provides an immersive experience that's a world away from sitting slumped in front of the gogglebox.

By projecting four-storey-high videos onto all four walls (and even the floor), it drops you right into the heart of the action. The audience is encouraged to interact with the images, too. At one point during my recent visit to the screening of Apple TV+'s Prehistoric Planet: Discovering Dinosaurs, various dinosaurs appeared on screen, with audience members encouraged to measure themselves against them. My son loved it.

This level of interaction just isn't possible on a home screen. But neither is the atmosphere of a shared experience. With limited bench seating available, you're encouraged to roam around to explore the content from all angles. With people sitting on the floor, eating and drinking (there's a bar upstairs), it felt closer to a festival vibe. In comparison, cinema seating would feel positively stuffy.

If you've ever tried to keep a six-year-old sitting still in a cinema for two hours, you'll appreciate the appeal.

The screening is also cut into five segments of around 10 minutes each. That's perfect for short attention spans, and because it's shown on loop, you can come and go as you please.

The venue is kitted out with 28 (!) Panasonic PT-RQ22K laser 3-chip DLP 4K projectors – 14 for the walls, and another 14 for the floor. These stitch together the huge images you see.

Lightroom has also partnered with Berlin-based audio company Holoplot, who has created "a new kind of loudspeaker system dubbed the X1 Matrix Array." This is the company's first permanent speaker installation in the UK.

It creates plenty of bass rumble, which really adds to the feel of being right there, nose to nose with a t-rex. I felt that Damian Lewis' narration could have been clearer, but there are subtitles if you're struggling.

A cinema for the 21st century

Not every film or series would benefit from a four-storey-high immersive version. At £42 for one adult and one child, it's certainly not an every week excursion. And I'm well aware of the irony of a streaming service creating the kind of experiential screening that could save cinemas.

Of course most cinemas don't have these kind of capabilities, nor the kind of clout required to commission this very specific content. But if cinemas want to survive, they need to offer something us viewers can't get at home, be it an iconic fleapit venue like the Prince Charles, community events, a secondhand vinyl shop on site, family-friendly screenings, a banging bar, themed nights, or something else.

Cinema owners, don't let us down!

Prehistoric Planet: Discovering Dinosaurs is made in collaboration with Apple TV+ and BBC Studios Natural History. Book now at www.lightroom.uk

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If you're looking for a top-notch family drama to get stuck into weekend, this could be the ideal watch. Sean Durkin's The Iron Claw is now available to stream on Netflix, offering high-stakes wrestling matches as well as heart-breaking tragedy.

We won't go into spoiler territory here, but the movie depicts the lives of the real-life Von Erich wrestling family in the 1980s.

The four sons, expertly played by some big names such as Zac Efron (The Greatest Showman) and Jeremy Allen White (The Bear), are strongly encouraged by their wrestling father to follow in his footsteps and dedicate their lives to the sport.

But the pressure is a hard burden to bear, and the family begins to struggle more than ever before.

Don't just take our word for it, though. The movie scored an impressive 89 per cent on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer, and received generally positive reviews from critics and cinema-goers alike.

Empire's Beth Webb, for example, calls it "an eerie, beautifully executed study of duty, grief and wrestling, boasting an excellent cast, and a leap forward for its director."

As we said, The Iron Claw is available to stream on Netflix from today. However, it doesn't include the best picture on offer compared to other streaming services. It's available with Dolby Vision and Atmos, however only in HD form.

All is not lost if you want the best quality, though. Both HBO Max and Apple TV+ offer The Iron Claw in 4K, although the former is only available in the US. You also need to have the Ultimate ad-free subscription package for both.

If you want to physically own the disc and hold the case in your hands as you hold back tears, unfortunately it is only available as a Blu-ray with no 4K Blu-ray release as of yet in the UK or US.

So, whether you are looking to watch this stellar movie for the first time or are craving a rewatch, there are plenty of streaming options right now.

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Rumours of a new Apple TV 4K arriving later this year have resurfaced – and it could be cheaper than the current model.

According to a MacRumors source, Apple is highly likely to replace the current Apple TV 4K with an updated model before the end of 2025, with the existing 2022 version set to be discontinued.

Better yet, past reports from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo have also suggested that the refreshed model could retail for under $100 – a $30 drop compared to the current 64GB Apple TV 4K.

There’s no hints at what, if any price, reductions could be on the cards for those in the UK or Australia.

The current Apple TV 4K launched in 2022, featuring Apple's A15 Bionic chip, HDR10+ support, and a revised Siri Remote equipped with USB-C charging.

True to Apple's established pattern for the streaming device, the company typically refreshes the Apple TV's hardware approximately every three years rather than following an annual update cycle like its iPhones.

Industry analysts also expect the forthcoming model to incorporate several key upgrades, including support for Wi-Fi 7 connectivity and a more powerful processor.

Perhaps most significantly, the new Apple TV is rumoured to feature Apple's first proprietary Bluetooth and Wi-Fi chip design, potentially enabling improved integration and data synchronisation across the company's smart home ecosystem.

Whether or not that includes the long-rumoured Apple HomePod with a screen remains to be seen.

There’s no word on a specific launch window given that we’re working off rumours and speculation, but sources points towards late 2025, with industry watchers anticipating a release between September and December.

This timeline would align with Apple's traditional product announcement schedule, though the company has yet to confirm any official details regarding the device.

We’ll have to wait for the final word from Tim Cook and co to get the full details when the time is right.

Whether or not it will be a worthy upgrade to the one under your telly remains to be seen, but we’re looking forward to testing it out if and when it finally lands.

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The 48-inch LG C5 is the second smallest option in the company’s current step-down line of OLED TVs – which automatically makes it an interesting beast.

Flagship OLED TVs aren't really produced in sub-55-inch sizes. Sure, there's the new 48-inch G5, but that lacks the Primary RGB panel of its larger siblings, so it doesn't really count as a fully fledged flagship.

All of which is to say that while the C5 range is a step-down line, the 48-inch C5 is pretty much as premium as TVs this size get.

It’s also coming off the back of a hot streak for LG, with two generations of its predecessors not only earning top marks from our reviewers, but then going on to win What Hi-Fi? Awards.

Has lightning struck a third time with LG’s 48-inch C5 OLED TV? Here’s what we found after thoroughly putting it through its paces in our dedicated test rooms.

Price

The 48-inch LG C5 launched at a price of £1500 / $1599 / AU$2499. We’ve recently seen some early discounts that knock the odd hundred off, but you're currently still looking at paying close to full price.

The 48-inch C5's main rival is the identically sized Samsung S90F, which uses the same OLED panel technology. Unsurprisingly, the 48-inch Samsung S90F is priced at launch very similarly to the C5, at £1499 / $1500 / AU$2499.

You can also get the C5 in 42-, 55-, 65-, 77- and 83-inch sizes. The 42-inch LG C5 launched for £1400 / $1399 / AU$2199. Prices then rise in line with the TV’s size, capping at £5999 / $5399 / AU$7999 for the largest 83-inch option.

Build

LG hasn’t rethought the wheel with the C5’s design. In fact, it’s so unchanged that if you put it next to 2022's LG C2, let alone last year's C4, you would probably struggle to spot the difference.

Unlike the 42-inch model, the 48-inch C5 has the same central stand design as the 55-inch version we reviewed earlier this year, which is quick and easy to assemble. Just plonk the stand on the TV's back and secure it with the included screws. Once done, it provides a stable base that will fit on most regular-sized TV cabinets without issue.

Sadly, the stand doesn’t have a swivel mechanism, though this is less of an issue here as the set’s ports are mostly housed on its side rather than back, making them fairly easy to access.

The bigger annoyance is the angled slant and low height of the stand, which can make the positioning of a soundbar tricky. If you do go for a soundbar, you will want to make sure it's a fairly low-profile model, such as the Sonos Beam (Gen 2).

In the US and many other territories, LG has released a new sleek, modernised controller for the C5. But we’re yet to see it in the UK, where a slightly tweaked version of the somewhat long-in-the-tooth Magic Remote is the only option provided.

The controller remains largely unchanged outside of the addition of a new AI shortcut button and a minor tweak that changes the input button so you can control all connected devices with it – including things such as smart lightbulbs – rather than just select which HDMI input you want.

While these changes are fine, we would have liked LG to make bigger quality-of-life changes, adding things such as backlighting and rechargeable batteries – elements that are increasingly common on rival OLED sets we test.

While the pointer functionality, which lets you navigate menus with an onscreen cursor that’s moved with motion controls, is welcome, the remote is clunky to use in low light, which is what most serious movie fans will be doing.

Features

The 48-inch LG C5 is packed to the brim with features, which is particularly impressive considering its small size. But, as with its design, not a great deal has changed since last year.

Starting with the two big elephants in the room: the panel tech remains unchanged and, despite years of asking, there’s still no heatsink.

The panel used remains a WOLED, with the older brightness-boosting Micro Lens Array (MLA) tech seen on last year’s G4 sadly being retired, rather than trickling down to the C-series, as we’d hoped it would this year.

The lack of MLA is a shame, as it does offer palpable brightness improvements based on our testing. But it’s also not surprising, as it has been superseded by the Primary RGB Tandem OLED panel tech that LG Display debuted on the LG G5 at CES in January. MLA is sadly going to the same farm as curved screens and 3D TVs.

Equally, a heatsink could have helped the TV go brighter for longer without risking damage. The omission is particularly noticeable on this size of the C5 which, despite having the same Brightness Booster Engine as the larger models, can't hit the same peak brightness levels.

This isn’t a phenomenon specific to the C5, though. It’s an issue on all smaller OLEDs, due to a combination of factors including pixel aperture and the impact it has on heat management. Pushing the panel too hard can also impact colour accuracy, which is why companies tend to tune smaller sets more conservatively than larger models.

The only big change for the C5 is the use of a newer LG Alpha 9 Gen 8 processor. Like every chipset we’ve seen recently, the Alpha 9 Gen 8 has an overt focus on AI, which LG claims it has leveraged to help the TV deliver more advanced upscaling and holistically improve colour accuracy, audio quality and HDR tone mapping.

Outside of the dedicated AI picture and sound profiles, which can be accessed in the C5’s settings, the only obvious front-facing AI feature it brings is a new chatbot system designed to help you troubleshoot and generally use the set. Through vocal commands, you can do things such as tweak picture settings and ask what a particular toggle does.

The C5 supports the most common HDR standards of HDR10, Dolby Vision and HLG. The only ongoing omission is Samsung’s home-brewed, open-source HDR10+, which is a rival to Dolby Vision and offers similar frame-by-frame dynamic range optimisation powers for compatible content.

Thankfully, the lack of big feature changes is largely forgivable, as the LG C-series was already one of the most feature-packed you could find.

The main highlight remains the inclusion of four, as opposed to the more standard two, full-speed HDMI 2.1 inputs, one of which doubles as an eARC port.

While two HDMIs will be fine for most people, dedicated gamers with multiple latest-gen consoles and a sound system (which will use the eARC port) will really benefit from the C5's four.

Those four HDMI 2.1 sockets all support 4K/144Hz (as well as the more common 4K/120Hz), plus VRR and ALLM. Dolby Vision gaming is also on board and a welcome inclusion for Xbox Series X/S owners.

So all-in-all, if you connect a current generation games console or PC, the unit will run smoothly and as fast as the machine allows – it won’t be the C5 causing the bottleneck.

LG’s webOS 25 software runs the show and is fairly similar to the version we saw on the older C4. The only big addition outside of the AI assistant is a new Xbox app, which lets you stream games directly from the TV and adds the ability to pair a Bluetooth controller directly to the C5. This used to be exclusive to Samsung TVs.

Otherwise, the OS retains its strong app support, with key services including Netflix, Disney Plus, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video, BBC iPlayer and ITVX all being supported and running correctly during our checks.

Picture

Powering up the 48-inch LG C5 paired with our trusty Oppo UDP-203 4K Blu-ray player, the set immediately has a different character to both its 55-inch sibling and its key rivals. Watching Dune: Part 2 with the TV’s out of the box standard settings, as often happens, the set tries too hard.

Peak bright areas in the desert stand out too much as the C5 tries to show quite how bright it can go, while colours look a touch too warm. Motion handling is also very heavy-handed, with the fighters looking like dancing ballerinas, rather than aggressive knife-wielding warriors.

Thankfully, things rapidly improve as we fiddle with the settings, eventually settling on Filmmaker Mode, with the lowest Cinematic Movement option on, sharpening and judder reduction off and dynamic tone mapping on. Colour temperature, which is now tweaked using a slider control, rather than the less granular options of before, is left at its default for Filmmaker Mode.

Set up accordingly, the desert retains its sparkle, with the brightest part of the sky shining in a way OLEDs this price from even a few years ago can’t, but with significantly more detail.

Bright shading is strong, too, with a wonderful hue of blue transitioning to orange across the image.

Cloud clusters equally retain their shape, despite the added brightness, showing the difference pixel-level light control can make. Our only minor quibble is that colour temperature still looks a smidgeon too cool, but rapidly shifts the other way when we make minor adjustments.

Motion handling has also now regained its composure, with the actions of the on-screen characters taking on their intended weight, and a difficult scene in which a Fremen fighter launches a missile at an Ornithopter looks accurate, with no ghost frames or awkwardness seeping in.

We move on to one of our new favourite 4K Blu-ray test discs, Civil War. During the heated nighttime battle scene, the explosions look dynamic and truly pop out of the dark sections with zero bloom – as we’d expect from an OLED – but we see colour volume drop slightly, especially in characters’ skin tones.

This is particularly noticeable on close-up shots. While the brightest parts of faces pop and look wonderfully three-dimensional, the darker parts take on a greenish hue, losing all warmth, resulting in a flatter, less natural image than we like.

This is slightly annoying as the set otherwise handles dark scenes admirably. Switching to our Alien: Romulus test disc, the opening scene shows a giant spacecraft slowly creeping out of the pitch black vacuum of space. The image is full of detail with every nook and cranny of the vessel on display, giving us a wonderfully three-dimensional spectacle.

Playing Top Gun: Maverick, the skyline once again looks excellent, full of pop and detail, but an area of the aircraft carrier in the shadows looks slightly flat, losing some definition in areas that look wonderfully sharp on the Samsung S90F we’re testing it against (full review coming soon).

Yet, when we switch to Oppenheimer, the issue doesn’t repeat during a shadow-heavy scene where he is meeting politicians. The skin tones look natural, and the entire picture has a sharp, wonderfully three-dimensional quality, with every stitch of their suits visible.

Moving to our final, incredibly difficult, SDR True Grit upscaling test, the C5 performs well.

During the tricky opening, the dark lights in the night-time farm hold a nicely bright, distinctive spot, with the glow illuminating details well without introducing noise or oversharpening the falling, fluffy snow.

The intentional spaghetti western grain is retained as we move to a brighter scene, with the set not pushing too hard and oversharpening or flattening the very difficult picture.

Ultimately, while the 48-inch LG C5 displays a couple of niggling picture issues, it's superbly competent overall. And many users won't notice those issues at all.

Sound

The 48-inch C5 features the same 2.2-channel 40W speaker system as the outgoing C4.

On a set this size, audio quality is usually one of the main compromises you have to put up with. This is because their smaller dimensions impact how much air the speakers can move around. Based on our testing, this remains the case with the 48-inch C5.

Starting with the set in its standard audio mode, the C5’s performance is distinctly flat, with every part of the sound coming from the centre of the screen. Gunfire and soldiers’ shouts during Civil War lack their intended directional quality.

On top of this, while gunfire never sounds acidic as it does on the S90F, it lacks the bite you’d expect, and explosions in the distance show the C5’s low end doesn’t quite have the heft required to deliver the intended, bone-rumbling effect.

Sadly, this isn’t fixed when we switch to the AI audio mode. LG is making a lot of noise about the C5’s new AI audio powers, with its custom AI Sound mode that aims to “optimise the audio” to its users’ specific tastes. The set-up requires you to click through a process, picking options that “describe your preferences” before optimising the speakers to them.

Here, while the set noticeably tries to separate the frequency range more, it makes each part thin in the process. Gunfire takes on a nasal, fizzy quality, and sibilance creeps into dialogue while the low end all but disappears.

We get the best results switching to the set’s Cinema mode. But even then, the audio lacks definition.

Moving to an intense scene in Top Gun: Maverick, the audio remains flat. The boom of jet engines lacks precision and directionality, and voices aren’t suitably separated from background noise, making some conversations hard to follow.

This makes a soundbar or other speaker system an essential purchase for any serious movie fan planning to pick up the LG C5.

Verdict

The 48-inch LG C5 retains the Korean giant's legacy as one of the top small-ish OLED TV makers, but largely because it sticks very closely to the blueprint that made past C-series sets great, rather than any clever innovation.

If you’re yet to take the OLED plunge, then this is a solid option, especially if you’re short on space or cash-rich enough to justify one as a secondary, bedroom set.

But the lack of progress is beginning to show at this size, and it means that the 48-inch LG C5 isn’t the slam-dunk, no-brainer purchase it used to be – especially with Samsung and Panasonic nipping at its heels.

SCORES

• Picture 5
• Features 5
• Sound 2

MORE:

Read our review of the 48-inch LG C4

Also consider the 48-inch Samsung S90F

Read our LG 65QNED93 review

Best TVs: flagship OLEDs and budget LED sets tried and tested

We’re pretty used by now to TVs equipped with Tivo smart systems coming in at the more affordable end of the market.

Even knowing that, though, didn’t fully prepare us for Sharp’s 70GK4245K: a Tivo-toting TV with a 70-inch screen that costs just £489.

Surely a screen size to price ratio this extreme can’t actually be fun to watch, can it?

Price

It’s still rare for even 55-inch TVs costing under £500 to arrive in our test rooms, yet here we find ourselves staring at a 70-inch screen that costs just £489 (around $660 / AU$1000).

The 70GK4245K doesn’t look like it’s going to be just another ‘it makes a picture, what more do you want?’ budget TV, either.

For instance, its 4K screen can also take in the Dolby Vision high dynamic range format, its audio system can handle Dolby Atmos tracks, and its already content-loaded Tivo smart system is backed up by the latest Freely platform. Truly, our budget TV cup runneth over. So long as there’s also some sort of quality to its pictures, of course.

The 70-inch screen size is pretty rare these days, with most brands offering 65 and 75-inch options instead. Couple this with its ultra-affordable price, and direct competition for the 70GK4245K is hard to find.

If Tivo is the most important thing to you and you can resist the 70-inch screen, Sharp also has a decent little 43-inch Tivo model, the 43GM6245K, that can be yours for under £250, while Bush’s 50-inch 50UT24SB Tivo set is also an engaging all-rounder currently going for £319 on Amazon.

If strong picture quality is more important than Tivo, TCL’s 65-inch 65P755K is very good value at £449 at the time of writing, and as new replacement models are just around the corner, even the 75-inch can be had for just £549 if you get a move on.

Design

It became obvious as we were setting up the 70GK4245K that its build quality is pretty flimsy. Anyone with a sufficient wingspan should easily be able to pick it up and move it around without the need for a second pair of hands. Its bezel is on-trend thin around three of its sides, though, while the slightly wider bottom edge looks glossy enough to just about persuade you that maybe the TV isn’t entirely made of plastic after all.

The rear is fairly chunky by modern TV standards, making it a rather cumbersome wall hanging option. Though VESA wall mounting points are of course present, if that’s really the way you want to go.

The desktop feet provided with the 70GK4245K look OK in a no-nonsense kind of way, but infuriatingly, the only attachment point for them is right out near each bottom corner, meaning the TV can only sit on a bit of furniture that’s almost as wide as the TV. Which is no joke when that TV is a 70-inch model.

The GK4245K ships with a remote control that’s basically as plasticky and lightweight as the TV. A brushed finish for the main front plus a faux metallic look to the central cursor navigation section, though, just about succeed in making the handset look posher than it really is.

Features

We’ve covered the Sharp 70GK4245K’s headline claims already: namely that it delivers a 70-inch screen, Tivo/Freely smarts and Dolby Vision HDR (as well as the core HDR10 and HLG formats of HDR, of course) for the mind-bogglingly low price of £489. More detail is needed on some of those features, though – and, surprisingly, there are quite a few other things going on with this budget set, too.

The LCD panel used for the 70GK4245K appears to be a VA one rather than a low-contrast IPS one, for starters. It’s not clear whether the set is direct or edge lit, though the way some clouding appears over the picture’s edges (more on this later) suggests that it may be the latter. At any rate, there’s certainly no evidence of local dimming going on – which we wouldn’t expect there to be, of course, on such an incredibly affordable TV.

There is a global dimming system at work, however, which Sharp claims can deliver a dynamic contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1. We can tell you now that this is an extremely optimistic figure, mind you, that’s based on mathematical potential rather than real-world performance.

The GK4245K only has a native 60Hz panel, so you’d think there would be no potential for high frame-rate gaming support through any of the provided three HDMI ports. Actually, though, a connected Xbox reveals that the TV can support 120Hz refresh rates – albeit only at 1080p resolution, and without any HDR support. You can retain HDR – including Dolby Vision – with 4K gaming feeds at 60Hz max, just to be clear.

The HDMIs support ALLM switching when a game source is detected, as well as VRR, and input lag in the Game mode is a very snappy 14.8ms.

Other connections include a couple of USBs, an Ethernet port, a 3.5mm headphone jack, an IR remote control extender, an optical digital audio output, and even a blast-from-the-past mini composite video/stereo audio input. Plus, of course, there’s built-in wi-fi to feed the Tivo smart system.

The GK4245K’s Tivo implementation shows no signs of any budget TV-related compromises. It runs as slickly and stably as any other version we’ve seen, and it carries the usual impressive array of apps and sources.

These include Netflix, Disney+, YouTube, Prime Video, Rakuten, BBC iPlayer, ITVX, All4, My5 and the Freely platform, which essentially lets you live-stream many of the TV channels on the Freeview HD broadcast platform – as well as providing on-demand access to many tens of thousands of hours of catch-up programming from Freeview’s main channel providers.

The only really striking absentee from Tivo’s app list is Apple TV+. You can now access Apple TV through the Prime Video app, but the quality of the feeds you get that way doesn’t seem as good as those you get through direct Apple TV apps.

It’s worth adding that Tivo also supports arguably the most straightforward, intelligent and helpful voice recognition/content search system in the TV world.

Surprisingly, finally, the GK4245K carries a few quite premium picture adjustment features. There’s a 10-bit colour feature for smoothing out potential banding in HDR colours, for instance, as well as a pair of customisable Dolby Vision modes on top of the more predictable Dolby Vision Dark and Bright options.

There’s even support for a full calibration thanks to both 2-point and 11-point white balance correction, plus hue, saturation and brightness adjustments for the red, green, blue, yellow, cyan, magenta and flesh tone colour elements.

Picture

The GK4245K’s pictures turn out to be a really pleasant surprise in most ways. For starters, they’re substantially brighter than we’d anticipated based on our experience of other similarly ultra-affordable TVs. This expresses itself in both enjoyably crisp and punchy highlights within HDR pictures, and respectable sustained brightness with full-screen HDR bright shots.

You’re not witnessing by any means the full range and impact of HDR’s light range, to be clear. But you do get enough of it to help pictures look reasonably natural and engaging rather than the dull compromise we’d honestly expected to see. What’s more, while it’s hard to imagine Sharp has equipped a TV as cheap as the 70GK4245K with a particularly clever HDR tone mapping system, HDR pictures feel nicely balanced and don’t suffer excessively with clipping (lost shading and colour tone subtleties) in their brightest parts.

Even more surprising, the healthy brightness the GK4245K manages to find for HDR playback doesn’t come at the expense of convincing dark scenes. The amount of greyness that creeps into parts of the picture that should look black really isn’t excessive at all, despite the screen’s lack of advanced light control tools.

What’s more, provided you don’t use the Dolby Vision Dark picture setting, shadow detail remains abundantly present in even the darkest corners. This helps dark scenes look almost as natural and full of depth and detail as bright ones, resulting in a much more consistent viewing experience than we’d expected to find on such an affordable big-screen TV. Though the ‘almost’ back there is doing some slightly heavy lifting, for reasons we’ll get to in a moment.

Another very pleasant surprise about the GK4245K is how sharp and clean its pictures look. Part of this is a result of the screen’s surprisingly subtle colour handling. There’s no wide colour gamut coverage or Quantum Dots here, yet the screen handles even the most subtle of blends and tonal shifts without the sort of striping, blocking or ‘clumping’ we’d anticipated at this price point. You don’t even need to call in the set’s 10-bit colour emulation feature.

Motion is also handled quite well for such a cheap TV. There’s a touch of blur if a fairly large object moves at speed across the screen, but this never turns into actual smearing or lagginess, and there’s enough finesse in the screen’s shading and enough native sharpness in the core 4K delivery to stop even action scenes from starting to look truly soft.

As well as containing more shading subtlety than expected, colours look consistently balanced, with no tones standing out too strongly against the rest, and no aggressive blue or green wash hanging over proceedings. As with the GK4245K’s brightness, we’re not seeing the full range of tones and saturations HDR can provide, but we’d take a holistic, balanced approach to colours like the GK4245K provides over some more heavily saturated but also gaudy and uncontrolled mess any day.

Add to the mix some surprisingly clean upscaling of SDR sources that holds up even on a screen as big as this one, as well as slightly more forgiving viewing angles than we’d expected, and you can see why we’re such fans of the 70GK4245K’s pictures for its money. The only thing stopping us from giving it five stars, in fact, is something we’ve alluded to a couple of times before: backlight clouding.

Extraneous light creeps into dark scenes in a number of areas – mostly at the screen’s edges, but also in a couple of more central spots. These light pools disappear entirely during bright footage, and they’re really the only significant issue we have with the GK4245K’s budget pictures. But they can be distracting enough during very dark sequences to cost Sharp’s TV one full picture mark.

Sound

The 70GK4245K’s sound can’t repeat its picture heroics. Audio struggles to escape the TV’s bodywork even at full volume, leaving action scenes and dense musical scores sounding quite swallowed and thin.

The way the sound feels trapped inside the GK4245K’s speakers, even with Dolby Atmos mixes, also means dialogue can sound a bit detached from the onscreen action, and given that Sharp’s TV doesn’t produce a particularly compelling midrange, you won’t be shocked to learn that there’s practically no bass presence.

The GK4245K’s sound is at least operating within the limitations of its speakers, though, meaning that even the most bombastic Hollywood moments don’t cause low-frequency distortions or treble harshness. So while we’d have loved much more sheer oomph from the 70GK4245K’s sound, what we’ve got does at least not sound broken.

Verdict

No 70-inch TV costing £489 is ever going to be perfect.

In the Sharp 70GK4245K’s case, that means having to put up with some backlight clouding in dark scenes and an uninspiring built-in sound system.

Putting up with these relatively minor issues is made surprisingly easy, though, thanks to both an excellent Tivo smart system and an overall level of picture quality that really has no business turning up on such an affordable home cinema-sized TV.

SCORES

• Picture 4
• Sound 3
• Features 5

MORE:

Read our review of the Sharp 43GM6245K

Also consider the TCL 65P755K or 75P755K

Read our Bush 50UT24SB review

Best TV: flagship OLEDs and budget LED sets tried and tested

Amazon Prime Day has already provided a flood of excellent home cinema deals; however, this one might take the cake.

The Hisense PL2 ultra short throw projector, which we awarded five stars earlier this year, is currently down to its lowest-ever price thanks to the Prime Day sales.

Originally launching for £1999, the PL2 can now be yours for just £1299 at Amazon; that's a jaw-dropping discount of £700. You'll also find this deal at Peter Tyson and Sevenoaks Sound & Vision.

The entry-level model in Hisense's Laser Cinema series also happens to be the best projector that the company currently offers.

This ultra-short-throw model offers an up to 150-inch image via a single laser light system that's capable of reaching 2700 lumens. This makes it an ideal TV replacement, as using the PL2 shouldn't be troubled by the intrusion of ambient light.

Furthermore, it includes the Vidaa operating system, meaning support for a wide range of international and domestic streaming apps, including the likes of Netflix, Disney Plus, Apple TV+ and BBC iPlayer, is built in.

As for the AV-specific features, you'll find HDR support in the form of HDR10, HLG, Dolby Vision and HDR10+, as well as Dolby Atmos immersive audio.

It might not be the best option for gamers, as neither of the two HDMI 2.1 sockets (nor the single HDMI 2.0) supports 4K/120Hz gaming; instead, you'll need to drop to 1080p to achieve 120Hz gameplay.

Picture-wise, we commended the PL2's balanced image, especially highlighting its natural colours and solid dark detail levels. The higher peak brightness compared to its Award-winning predecessor is also appreciated, and the punchy, rich colours can be an asset to animated content.

The PL2 isn't quite as impressive when it comes to sound, however, the eARC socket makes it a prime candidate to be paired with a Dolby Atmos soundbar.

If you're aiming for a cinematic experience at a scale that exceeds any of the currently available best TVs, then the Hisense PL2 is worth considering, especially at only £1299.

MORE:

Find more home cinema deals on Amazon this Prime Day

More great TV deals to be had at Richer Sounds

Sevenoaks Sound & Vision is home to some home cinema bargains right now

To say there's a rivalry between Sony and Denon's home cinema amplifiers would be an understatement. Indeed, the Sony TA-AN1000 and Denon AVR-X2800H are like the John McEnroe and Björn Borg of the AVR world. And now both are reduced for Prime Day – you cannot be serious!

Last time around, we said the Denon was the better buy, as it dropped to £499 during Black Friday. But this time, the Sony gets our vote.

It may have dropped to the same £699 as during Black Friday (its lowest ever price), and the Denon still undercuts it, at £629. But the Denon has been much cheaper before, and the Sony is the better performer. So for our money, the newer Sony is worth the £70 extra.

But really, whichever you opt for, you won't be disappointed. The Denon AVR-X2800H set a new benchmark when it launched in 2022.

In our Denon AVR-X2800H review, we praised its "mature and authoritative sound" and "well-spread soundstage". Dialogue is lively and engaging, while its dynamic ability gives movies a fantastic sense of atmosphere. It's a musical performer too, and soundtracks are communicated with minimal effort.

But the Sony is our current Product of the Year (for two years running), and justifiably so. "Seriously talented" was our verdict in our Sony TA-AN1000 review.

Its dynamics are impressive, and there's plenty of detail to enjoy. There's also a great sense of scale and immersion, while bass remains taut and snappy, powerful yet controlled.

Pitted head to head, the Sony comes out on top. While the Denon provides a smoother and richer presentation, it doesn’t quite pick up on the subtleties in the same way that the Sony does.

The AN1000 feels more emotive and refuses to smooth over any aspects of the sound, whereas the Denon appears to round off higher frequency bite and doesn’t get close to delivering a similar amount of excitement and energy.

That being said, the Denon is still a good choice for those who prefer a smoother, more easy-going listening experience.

MORE:

Sony TA-AN1000 vs Denon AVR-X2800H: which should you buy?

More Richer Sounds deals

More Prime Day deals on AV gear

MORE:

Read our full Denon AVR-X2800H review

How to set up your AV receiver and get the best sound

6 mistakes to avoid with your AV receiver

It's the final countdown to Amazon Prime Day, meaning we are just hours away from an onslaught of AV and hi-fi deals. The sales will run from the 8th to the 11th of July, with hundreds of pounds off the best TVs. But not every deal will be worth your hard-earned cash.

Take, for example, this early Prime Day deal on a huge Hisense Mini LED TV. The 100-inch E7N, which originally launched for £1999, is down to just £1299 at Amazon.

That's a substantial £700 saving on a comparably substantial TV; however, that doesn't mean it should be the TV you buy this Amazon Prime Day.

For the same price, you can score the 85-inch TCL C805K. This affordable XL TV scooped up a What Hi-Fi? Award last year, and it's priced identically to the Hisense right now. We reviewed it at £1579, but you can save £280 at Richer Sounds currently.

Bigger isn't always better, as shown with this XL TV deal. While we haven't reviewed this particular Hisense, we did review its pricier sibling, the E7N Pro; and we weren't exactly enamoured of it.

It's worth mentioning that the E7N drops a few features from the E7N Pro. Most notably, it doesn't have local dimming, and its peak brightness is 100 nits lower than the Pro model.

Regardless, the E7N Pro proved to be a middling TV at the 75-inch size we reviewed it in. It offers average black levels, but distracting blooming and a dull, flat-looking picture in its supposedly most authentic picture mode.

Based on those findings we don't have high hopes for the standard variant. However, for the same price you can score a huge TV that offers a much more robust picture.

Now, 85 inches is, of course, a step down from the 100-inch screen that the Hisense offers, but it's still pretty huge. Furthermore, we would be willing to accept this compromise, considering the TCL C805K scooped up a five-star review and a What Hi-Fi? Award last year

This TV uses a Mini LED backlight instead of the E7N's direct LED system, meaning you should notice reduced blooming, more convincing blacks and higher peak brightness.

It supports the same HDR formats as the Hisense, including both HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, as well as 4K/120Hz on two of its four HDMI sockets.

Dolby Atmos audio is also on board, and it features Google TV for a wide range of supported streaming apps, including Netflix, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+.

We complimented its spectacular peak brightness, rich colours and impressive light control and contrast in our full review, in which we called this TV "the home cinema bargain of the year"; and that was at full price.

If you're looking for a TV that delivers on big-screen theatrics and don't mind compromising a little on hitting the 100-inch mark, then the TCL 85C805K at £1299 is the early Amazon Prime Day deal for you.

MORE:

Find the best Amazon Prime Day home cinema deals here

Read our full TCL 85C805K review

And check out our picks for the best Mini LED TVs

With Disney Plus and Netflix rapidly becoming the norm for more and more households, it can seem like discs are being left in the dust as our primary means to watch films at home.

This battle between physical and digital media has been weighing on our minds this Home Cinema Week, so we wanted to hear from our lovely readers to settle the score.

Earlier this week, we asked how you watch your favourite movies and TV shows at home. After three days of reading through and compiling your thoughts, here are the results.

You still collect plenty of discs for their better overall quality

As the responses rolled in, it quickly became apparent that your DVD and Blu-ray collections are not going anywhere.

We put out an Instagram poll to see whether streaming or discs would come out on top, and the results were pretty clear.

Out of 60 responses, 43 of you said that discs were your preferred way to watch. There were 12 readers who preferred streaming, though, and the remaining five were on the fence.

A lot of you seem to want to own your most precious movies in a physical form, too. Gregory Pempleton commented via our website:

“When I buy a disc, I know that it is mine, unlike streaming, where the item can disappear at the whim of the provider.”

This sentiment was echoed by many other responders. Eugène de Goeij commented on our original article:

“I watched Dune on Apple TV (bought it), but I liked it so much I bought the 4K disc. The image is a bit more crisp and there are more subtle details in the sound [...] For me, a good movie will always make me buy the 4K disc.”

But streaming is becoming an easier option

Despite this chorus of support for discs, there were still plenty of fans of streaming.

Mark Greenley said that while he buys 4K Blu-ray discs for those "special" films, streaming services have become more common in his household for daily viewing.

“I like streaming and I am signed up to several platforms. As a family, we watch shows and films,” he said.

Some of you also stream movies due to the better availability. For example, Micky Alexandru pointed out via our website that, “there are movies that can't be found [anywhere] but on streaming services.”

What we think

Even though there is quite the range of opinions when it comes to this head-to-head, we agree with our readers that discs tend to outperform streaming when it comes to sound and picture quality.

Because of this, it makes sense to collect firm favourites in the best quality possible. Plus, holding a disc in your hands and knowing you can watch it whenever you want, without worrying if it will be taken off a service, certainly feels like money well spent.

It would be silly to pretend that streaming hasn't simply become easier to access, though.

With most home cinema kit offering built-in streaming services, the option of clicking a few buttons and having instant access to a library of content is very appealing. Also, streaming gives you the opportunity to cancel your subscription anytime if you feel you don’t use it enough.

Still, it is reassuring to see that buying top-quality discs is important for home cinema fans.

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Premium German AV brand Loewe has announced the latest addition to its luxury OLED TV lineup, and it's a spin on a TV trend we are seeing more and more these days.

Introducing the 97-inch Stellar, a new screen size for the company's existing flagship TV range. It joins the already available 42-, 48-, 55-, 65-, 77- and 83-inch versions of the Stellar, which we called "one of the most unusual TVs we've seen" when it was unveiled last year, on account of its unique concrete rear panel.

Loewe's new flagship TV is engineered and assembled at its manufacturing plant in its home town of Kronach. It has a premium aluminium chassis and brushed aluminium bezel for a stylish look and solid build.

It also features the magic.light system that launched with the Stellar. This light bar runs along the bottom edge of the TV for an ambient glow, and it can be customised with a range of different colours. Unlike Philips' Ambilight system, it does not react to what's happening on screen, but it does offer a pleasing welcome and goodbye animation.

Other design-led features include a concealed connection panel with cable management built in, and a hidden wall-mounting bracket which allows users to mount their TV flush against a wall for a sleek and modern look.

Unlike the core sizes in this range, the 97-inch Stellar does not sport a Micro Lens Array panel. Instead, it uses a 4K WOLED display – to be expected at this size. Loewe boasts of a strong relationship with LG Display, as it purchases the open-cell OLED panels in order to adjust the manufacturing process to suit its high standards.

The 97-inch Stellar is set to deliver "an exceptional visual performance with peak brightness, extraordinary contrast, and astonishing detail" with support for Dolby Vision IQ also on board.

It appears to be powered by Hisense's Vidaa smart platform, with Loewe's os9 platform running on top. It supports a wide range of streaming services, including Netflix, Disney Plus and Apple TV+, as well as cloud gaming applications such as Blacknut and Boosteroid. There is also an art mode for displaying artwork, and Loewe is proud of the customisability of this operating system.

AI is even mentioned, with AI-backed content recommendations and AI comfort features also referenced, though we're not entirely sure what they do quite yet.

As this is a premium OLED TV from Loewe, we expect a substantial price tag to match. While we don't have UK pricing quite yet, the 97-inch Stellar will be officially priced at a whopping €29,999 when it launches later this month.

Using the power of currency conversion, we make that out to be approximately £26,000 / $35,000 / AU$54,000. Better get saving.

MORE:

Read our Loewe Stellar hands-on review

As well as our picks for the best OLED TVs

And the best TVs overall

The third-generation Apple TV 4K is one of the best streaming devices around.

Yes, it has a fluid UI that makes it a doddle to use, but it's the picture and sound quality that really impress, and that earned it a What Hi-Fi? Award for three years on the trot.

But Apple isn't one to rest on its laurels. It's rumoured to have a new model in the works – and about time, considering that the current one is nearly three years old now.

So what can we expect from a fourth-gen Apple TV 4K? Let's have a look...

Release date

According to Apple, the fourth-generation Apple TV doesn't officially exist, which is no surprise. The company plays its cards very close to its chest, after all. But that's not to say there aren't some educated guesses/predictions that can be made surrounding its launch date.

Having perused the rather chaotic Apple rumour mill, all sources seem to agree that late 2025 is a likely launch window, with a release expected sometime between September and December.

With Apple's "Awe dropping" iPhone 17 launch event officially confirmed for 9 September (invites were sent out and everything), there's a strong chance we could see the new Apple TV grace the stage then – assuming it doesn't mind sharing the limelight with its iPhone 17 (and potentially AirPods Pro 3) siblings.

Priced under $100

The current Apple TV 4K costs £149 / $130 / AU$219, but could we see that price come down for the next model? One Apple analyst seems to think so...

Ming-Chi Kuo has previously predicted the device will cost under $100 as that would be the "sweet spot" for a streamer. If true, that's a rather welcome $30 drop compared to the current 64GB Apple TV 4K.

If that sounds too good to be true, there's some hope. A price drop isn't that far-fetched – while new devices often cost more than those they replace, sometimes the opposite can be true. The current Apple TV 4K actually launched at a lower price than its predecessor (which started at £169 / $179 / AU$249).

Even if Apple can't launch the new model at a lower price, it could always keep the current model on sale and discount it as a lower-specced version. It's taken the same tack with its AirPods wireless headphones and iPhone, so why not with its streamer too?

A built-in camera

Possibly the biggest change could be the addition of a built-in camera for FaceTime calls. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reckons this could also be used for gesture controls, a bit like the Xbox's doomed Kinect sensor.

Apple has flagged that FaceTime is getting some big improvements with the next version of the Apple TV operating system (tvOS 26). Improvements such as customised contact posters, live translations in more languages and notifications appearing on screen.

Currently, FaceTime on Apple TV is of niche interest. That's hardly surprising, considering that you have to use your iPhone camera and mount your phone near the TV in order to use it.

But these improvements suggest a simpler way to use FaceTime could be on the way, most probably via a built-in camera.

Same design

If you were hoping for a radical redesign, you might be disappointed. Apple is thought to be keeping the same plain black plastic body as the current model, rather than overhauling how it looks.

Some may have hoped for a streaming stick design similar to the Amazon Fire TV Stick, but the rumours say no.

Google recently abandoned its dongle approach (seen in its previous Chromecast products) with the higher-end Google TV Streamer, which suggests it thinks Apple was right all along.

Apple wants its premium Apple TV 4K to be on show, not hidden around the back of your TV, so expect the current box design to stay.

New chip

With the current Apple TV 4K being three years old, its chip is starting to feel a little dated. In fact, it features the same A15 Bionic as the iPhone 13, which was already a year old when the Apple TV 4K launched.

That makes the current Apple TV 4K's chip four years old. That's ancient, given the rate of progress.

Apple doesn't make chips specifically for the Apple TV, so it's most likely to use another iPhone processor for the next model. Again, it's unlikely to be the latest chip, but more likely the A17 Pro as seen in the iPhone 15 family.

As it's able to support hardware-accelerated ray tracing, this would enable the Apple TV 4K to run console-quality games.

But it all comes down to cost. Apple could use the newer A18 chip (from the iPhone 16), but that could push up the price of the device too much.

Even the A17 Pro could prove too costly, especially if – as rumoured – Apple is targeting a lower price for its next streamer.

Better wi-fi

A new, custom chip with support for Wi-Fi 6E is said to feature in the next Apple TV 4K. Apple has previously introduced Wi-Fi 6E support with the iPhone 15 Pro models (and entire iPhone 16 family bar the iPhone 16e), and its recent iPads and Mac computers. So it makes sense that the Apple TV is next.

This would open up the Apple TV 4K to 6GHz networks, meaning quicker downloads and smoother streaming. But you will need a router that's compatible with Wi-Fi 6E – don't expect to notice a difference otherwise.

Newer Bluetooth version

This is pretty much a given. The current model has Bluetooth 5.0, but the next model is thought to feature 5.3. That is a big improvement – bringing a more secure wireless connection and greater efficiency, among other benefits – but still not the latest version.

Some recent devices – such as the Sonos Ace – feature Bluetooth 5.4, and some really niche ones even have Bluetooth 6.0 (though none are available on these shores yet). But as we say, version 5.3 will still be an improvement on the current model.

In fact, as with the updated Wi-Fi, the Bluetooth chip in the upcoming Apple TV is rumoured to be part of Apple's first proprietary chip design.

We expect to see some potential improvements when it comes to integration and syncing across Apple's smart home ecosystem. And yes, that could potentially include the rumoured new Apple HomePod Mini 2.

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The Hisense PL1 ultra short-throw projector won a well-deserved What Hi-Fi? Award in 2024, but with the arrival of the PL2 earlier this year, it now has competition from its very own successor.

Both projectors use the same X-Fusion Laser Technology to beam their big pictures onto your wall, and telling them apart requires very close inspection, but there are technical differences between the two.

We’ve had both the PL1 and PL2 in our testing rooms, and with five-star scores being awarded to both, you might be wondering which one you should allow to live in your lounge.

That’s why we’ve used those reviews to compare them on price, design, features, picture and sound, so you can make a fully informed decision.

• Xgimi MoGo 4 vs Anker Nebula Mars 3 Air: which projector is better?

Hisense PL1 vs Hisense PL2: price

Both the PL1 and PL2 were originally launched with prices of £1999 / $2500, but neither will set you back anywhere close to that now.

The arrival of the PL2 saw a drop in price for the PL1, but the PL2 is also now available for a lot less, meaning the gap between the two is now fairly small. The PL2 is generally available for around £1600 / $2000, but we’ve seen it drop as low as £1399 in the UK, while the PL1 is typically available for £1500 / $1500.

The bigger issue is likely to be availability. There aren’t many places that stock the PL1 anymore, particularly in the UK, whereas the newer, better-specced PL2 is easy to find.

Given this, and the relatively minor price discrepancy, we don’t think buying the PL1 over the PL2 would represent a genuine saving, so we’re going to give this one to the PL2.

**Winner: Hisense PL2**

Hisense PL1 vs Hisense PL2: design

Put these two side by side and it’s very clear they’re related, with the same mesh grille on the front and triangular cutout vents on the side. In fact, at a glance, it’s genuinely tough to tell them apart, but if you break out the tape measure, you will find some differences.

Measuring 12 x 53 x 34cm, the PL2 is actually a bit smaller in all directions than the PL1 (above), which comes in at 16 x 55 x 37cm. In reality, that difference is negligible and will only make a difference if the space you’ve got is particularly restricted.

There are no physical lens controls on either of these projectors. Instead, you have to upload a picture of your screen to a website and allow an auto-correction system to adjust it for you remotely, although we achieved the best results by tweaking it afterwards using the adjustable feet on both models.

Most importantly, both of these projectors will easily fit into your setup without being distracting, which is exactly what they’re designed to do. With its slightly more compact chassis, though, we’re going to give this one to the PL2.

**Winner: Hisense PL2**

Hisense PL1 vs Hisense PL2: features

It might be smaller, then, but the PL2 has still been upgraded in a number of key areas.

The most noticeable one is the brightness, which has been boosted from 2100 ANSI lumens on the PL1 to 2700 on the PL2, while the maximum image size is also larger: 150 inches compared to 120 inches.

Both do 4K at 60Hz, which might disappoint some gamers hoping for a higher refresh rate, but the PL2 can manage 1080p at 120Hz if you’re willing to sacrifice some resolution for a more responsive gameplay experience.

HDR support is the same on both – Dolby Vision, HDR10 (and 10+) and HLG.

Around the back of each projector, you will find two HDMI 2.1 sockets (one that has eARC), an ethernet port and two USBs (one 3.0, one 2.0).

Hisense has also found space for an extra HDMI socket on the PL2 (above). It’s only HDMI 2.0, but it does give you more input options if you’re using the eARC port for a soundbar.

If you buy either a PL1 or PL2 in the USA, it will come with Google TV, but elsewhere you’ll get Hisense’s own VIDAA software running the show.

We would prefer they all used the former as the latter is a little clunky, but not disastrously so, and we have no complaints when it comes to app support. Netflix, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+ are all there for you to use, although only the PL1 supports Apple AirPlay if you want to send something wirelessly from your phone.

**Winner: Hisense PL2**

Hisense PL1 vs Hisense PL2: picture

Upgraded specs don’t always translate to a meaningfully better performance, particularly when the price is also higher, but the PL2 (above) is a clear step up over the PL1 when it comes to picture performance – although only if you fiddle with the settings a bit first.

In Filmmaker mode, with the Warm 2 colour profile selected, the PL2 is capable of delivering one of the best pictures you’ll find from an ultra short-throw projector at this price. The extra brightness is particularly noticeable, adding more impact and vibrancy to the explosions and large expanses of desert in Denis Villeneuve’s epic Dune: Part 2.

Scenes that demand a high level of contrast between light and dark don’t look quite as vibrant, particularly when upscaling, and there are times when its middling black levels become more apparent, but overall, the PL2’s picture is generally balanced and consistent.

That doesn’t mean the PL1 is suddenly a bad performer. The picture it produces is sharp, punchy and cinematic, and it never fails to keep up with the frantic chase sequences in Baby Driver. There’s a pleasing level of depth to the image and a nice level of detail, even if black levels can’t compete with those you’d get from one of the best OLED TVs.

When it comes down to it, though, the PL2 is our winner here: bigger, brighter and just that bit better all round.

**Winner: Hisense PL2**

Hisense PL1 vs Hisense PL2: sound

Both of these projectors have the same 2x 15W sound system built-in, with front-facing drivers that promise more than they can deliver.

The PL1 (above) and PL2 boast Dolby Atmos certification, but no matter whether you put them in Standard or Theatre mode, there’s little in the way of height or width, although the latter does sound a little more spacious.

Dialogue clarity is more impressive, and we’d argue that should be the priority with built-in speakers on devices like these anyway. If the overall performance isn’t going to be top notch, at least make sure you can hear what’s being said over any background noise.

Neither projector is capable of generating a huge amount of bass, and if you turn the volume up too much on the PL2, things start to distort, while the PL1 doesn’t offer much in the way of detail or dynamics.

As UST speakers go, this is about par for the course. If you just want to watch the news, they’ll do just fine, but the whole point of owning a projector is to make your viewing more cinematic, so budgeting for a separate sound system is essential, whichever model you opt for.

**Winner: Draw**

Hisense PL1 vs Hisense PL2: verdict

By taking everything we loved about the Award-winning PL1 and refining it, Hisense has delivered a UST projector that offers even more bang for your buck.

The audio performance is still mediocre, but with spec upgrades that translate to a picture performance that’s brighter and goes even bigger, and a price that’s already only slightly higher than that of the PL1, it’s easy to recommend the newer model over the old one.

With the PL1 getting harder to find as time goes on, it might actually be availability that makes this decision for you, but even if you found a shop selling both, we’d still go for the PL2 (above) every time.

**Overall Winner: Hisense PL2**

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Amazon Prime Day is on the horizon, and there's one deal at the top of my wish list.

The savings event will officially kick off on the 8th of July, with deals on a range of hi-fi, AV and home cinema gear expected. However, it's one of Amazon's own products that I'm keeping my eye on.

The Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max, which sits at the top of Amazon's incredibly popular streaming stick range, just scored five stars in our recent review. For the money, it's our top pick for those looking for an upgrade over their TV's built-in streaming apps, or for anyone with an older 4K TV that features outdated software.

At £70, it undercuts rivals such as the Apple TV 4K and Google TV Streamer, but I reckon we'll see an even better price very soon.

Amazon tends to ruthlessly discount its products, slashing serious percentages off price tags during its own sales event. Therefore, I will eat my proverbial hat if the Fire TV Stick 4K Max doesn't see a major discount in two weeks.

During the period in which we tested the Fire TV Stick, it was priced at just £50 in a sporadic Amazon sale that didn't appear to be linked to any specific savings event.

If it can randomly drop by £20, I expect to see a deal that matches or beats that on Amazon Prime Day. The previous generation model dropped from £65 to just £38 back in 2023, so I'm gearing up for a similar saving.

The Fire TV Stick 4K Max would be a no-brainer at £50 (in fact, we called it a no-brainer at its full asking price), as its picture performance is well worth that money. We appreciated its crisp and detailed image, rich colours and considered handling of motion.

Furthermore, the Fire OS streaming platform includes a wealth of apps – with everything from Netflix, Disney Plus, Apple TV+ and BBC iPlayer, to niche services like Mubi and Shudder included – and the support for HDR10+ and Dolby Vision HDR is the icing on the cake.

I'll be keeping a close eye on the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max this Prime Day, so check back often to see if my dream deal ends up becoming a reality.

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Read our full Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max review

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Even though we (obviously) all love movies here at What Hi-Fi?, there is still quite the range of interests in our team, and nothing makes that more clear than when we discuss our favourite test discs.

Some of us immediately reach for a terrifying horror, whereas others prefer to ease themselves in with a wholesome period drama.

If you have ever been curious about exactly what films we use to test out the latest tech, then boy are you in for a treat.

This entry for ‘Now Showing’ really lays out our huge range of tastes of the table, so strap in for a melange of genres, time periods and hot-takes. Let's get cracking!

Barbarian

There are more than a few Shudder subscribers in the What Hi-Fi? team. So when a horror movie arrives with scenes so bad even we have a collective “sweet-zombie-jeebus” moment, it is either doing something very right, or very wrong.

Barbarian managed to do just that. The 2022 directorial debut from Zach Cregger tells the tale of a creepy Airbnb house in Detroit and has all the trappings of a classic horror.

Hammer Horror tongue-in-cheek elements, that are nicely played up by Justin Long (previously of Jeepers Creepers and Tusk horror fame)? Yep. Expert timing that leaves you in a constant state of dread? Check. Gore galore and a story where the big bad is way worse and creepier than anything you came up with in your head? You bet.

This, plus its stellar use of audio, which genuinely makes you feel slightly sick in certain scenes and “bump in the night” use of shadow to leave you constantly feeling threatened make it a fantastic title for fans of the genre.

If you are a fan of great films including Hereditary, Midsommar and Sinister, I’d strongly recommend giving it a watch.

Words by Alastair Stevenson

Watch Barbarian on Netflix

Little Women

What's that noise? Ah yes, it's the sound of your necks cracking from the tonal whiplash of this entry. But bear with me here, because this is a go-to for both testing and when I just want to watch a bloody good movie.

When I heard that Greta Gerwig (the director of Lady Bird and Barbie) was making an adaptation of one of my favourite books, I was the first in the queue to see Louisa May Alcott's novel brought to life for a new generation.

Luckily, it did not disappoint.

If you are unfamiliar, Little Women follows four sisters in the 1860s during the American Civil War. It charts their journeys from childhood to womanhood, from first loves to dealing with life-threatening illness.

The film has a timeless feel from the first frame with a limited colour palette of blues and pastel shades. Paired with a soundtrack that has the same nostalgic feel as the 2005 iteration of Pride And Prejudice, it is an ideal watch to see how a home cinema system handles more subtle audio and picture.

Words by Robyn Quick

Watch Little Women on Amazon Prime Video

Buy Little Women on Blu-ray at Amazon

Sinners

In my youth, I knew the ins and outs of more or less every movie long before it came out, having avidly devoured every trailer and every bit of news in the pages of Empire and Total Film.

Too many times, though, films that I was all hyped up for turned out to be a disappointment (or were spoiled by a review or the trailer itself), so these days I intentionally keep myself in the dark.

Even so, Sinners was a real surprise. It just sort of appeared out of nowhere and was then everywhere, and the very short clips that I couldn’t avoid looked very good indeed.

And then my movie-obsessed colleague Robyn Quick wrote this piece about their experience seeing the movie at the cinema and predicting how good it would be as a home cinema tester.

Well, Sinners is now available to watch at home – not on 4K Blu-ray, unfortunately, but as a premium rental or purchase through services such as Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video and the Sky Store – and I can confirm that it is indeed an awesome film and an incredible tester.

I really don’t want to give anything away about the movie (that would be unfair given what I wrote above), but suffice to say it’s a terrific mix of action and horror with a smattering of comedy and some excellent gore.

It’s achingly cool, too, and the largely night-time setting gives your TV plenty of high-contrast imagery to deal with (it looks great on an OLED). But, as Robyn predicted, it’s the Dolby Atmos soundtrack that is most thrilling, particularly during the genre-melding, time-travelling, spirit-awakening musical number led by the excellent Miles Caton.

Words by Tom Parsons

Watch Sinners on Amazon Prime Video

A couple of days ago, I was doing some housekeeping on my iPhone 15 Plus, namely catching up on the 120 app updates I’d been putting off for the past week (does anyone else do this?) when something on the Apple App Store caught my eye.

It was an advert to watch the trailer for F1 The Movie on the Apple TV app. Now, normally, I tend to stay away from trailers – especially anything longer than around a minute. The modern trailer gives away so much of the plot, there’s hardly any point going to the cinema. But that’s a rant for another day.

The interesting thing about the F1 film trailer was that it was being advertised as a ‘haptic trailer’. That’s right, Apple has used the Taptic Engine within its iPhones (the components that create haptic feedback) to showcase the movie by adding vibrations to run in time with the on-screen action, and add an extra dimension to your viewing experience.

So, I decided to take it for a spin. Did it rev my engine enough to venture out to the local multiplex, or did it leave me feeling as deflated as a punctured Pirelli?

Start your (Taptic) Engines

To watch the F1 The Movie haptic trailer, all you need is an iPhone running iOS 18.4 or later and, of course, the Apple TV app installed too.

Before I pressed play, I was slightly concerned it was going to feel like a gimmick, but to be honest, I was really impressed.

After all, as my colleague and Senior Staff Writer Lewis Empson pointed out to me, Sony has offered a similar kind of feature on some of its older Xperia smartphones called Dynamic Vibration, which, according to Sony, adds “synchronized vibration when you watch videos or listen to music on your device”.

Whether it could handle this trailer in the same manner, I’m not sure, as it feels as though Apple has mapped the action to the taptic engine with superb precision.

As Brad Pitt’s car engine is fired up in the pit lane, there’s the initial high rev, and the Taptic Engine jumps into action as the car’s engine barks into life. There’s a nice dynamic contrast between the short, sharp vibration as Pitt’s character selects a gear and the prolonged vibration from the tyres as his car screeches out of the pit garage onto the pit lane.

And it’s when the action moves out onto the track that I think this brings the experience into its own. The speed of the haptics, the speed of the car and the driver’s eye view, combined with the fact you’re watching and holding the phone in landscape, like a steering wheel, in my opinion at least, make it feel really engaging.

The iPhone and the way you hold it in landscape is the perfect way to showcase a feature designed to work with a movie where there’s a lot of driving action. Some elements leave you feeling as if you’re about to play an F1 racing game on a PS5 or Xbox.

The speed of the Taptic Engine's response, the variations in intensity and its ability to match up with the action perfectly kept me glued to my screen.

A good example of this is the brief clip where Brad Pitt is weaving his way through traffic. You get a fantastic sense of speed from the power of the vibrations, while the slight feeling of judder under braking adds a different but believable sensation.

What really impressed me was the speed and precision of the haptic effects. Any delay and it would feel like the physical version of lip-sync errors when you’re watching TV, when the sound doesn’t match up to actors’ voices.

In this case, it would be a delay between the vibrations and the on-screen action, but the vibrations always seem to hit their mark here. They seem to start and stop with impressive precision – I’d be interested to know exactly how Apple went about implementing the tech to work in such a slick way.

One small observation is that I’m sure that wearing headphones (in this case a pair of Sony WH-1000XM6) helps lock you in even more. Using just the iPhone’s speakers, I don’t think you’re drawn in quite as much.

So, did it make me want to rush out and see the film? It certainly made me feel excited about it, so in that respect, I suppose it’s job done. The big question is, would I want to watch the whole two hours and thirty-six minutes with my iPhone and fingers vibrating? Probably not.

I don’t think consuming content and getting haptic feedback from a smartphone is going to be the next big thing or change how we consume movies, but as a marketing exercise, it fits the brief pretty perfectly from where I’m standing.

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Xgimi has been producing a steady stream of portable projectors recently, with the latest hitting the shelves only last week.

The MoGo 4 is the brand’s latest contender, but with some formidable competition on the market, it’s an uphill battle for the small, yet mighty, projector.

The Anker Nebula Mars 3 Air is standing with its arms crossed, sizing up the MoGo 4 with a stern look. It is, after all, the current overall champion of our best portable projectors page.

Luckily, we have tested both projectors, so there is no need for the pair to step into the ring and settle things with violence.

So let’s take a look at how these projectors perform.

Xgimi MoGo 4 vs Anker Nebula Mars 3 Air: price

You can get the MoGo 4 for £509 / $499 (around AU$765).

While we have yet to see any price reductions yet, as the projector has just hit the shelves, it's quite likely that there will be discounts in the near future.

The Nebula Mars 3 Air launched at a slightly higher price of £550 / $600 / AU$1300.

Since it was released over a year ago, however, we have seen some decent discounts knocking it down much closer to the MoGo 4’s price.

**Winner: Xgimi MoGo 4**

Xgimi MoGo 4 vs Anker Nebula Mars 3 Air: design

Both the Xgimi MoGo 4 and the Anker Nebula Mars 3 Air have practical yet stylish designs that are difficult not to like. They also have built-in batteries, with both models touting a claimed 2.5 hours of playback when not in the vicinity of a mains socket.

Weighing in at 1.3kg, the MoGo 4 has a cylindrical body that can be twisted to transform the hard plastic on the side into a nifty stand. This can then be adjusted up and down easily, making set-up a relatively fuss-free affair.

A mini-remote is also included alongside the full-fat remote control we would expect, which could make it easier to transport – you can leave the primary backlit remote at home when taking the MoGo out of the house if you’d prefer to keep it safe and sound.

The Nebula Mars 3 Air’s bucket-like design weighs only 0.4kg more than the MoGo 4, making it simple to take on the go. The included carry handle is appreciated, but the lack of physical positional adjustment is a bit of a problem.

With a more versatile design that allows for easier picture positioning, the MoGo 4 comes out on top.

**Winner: Xgimi MoGo 4**

Xgimi MoGo 4 vs Anker Nebula Mars 3 Air: features

Both portable models are 1080p-resolution, LED-lit DLP projection systems. They also use Google TV as their operating system, which has built-in Netflix; we note this because up until now, support for Netflix on portable projectors has been spotty at best.

You can also access Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+ and Disney+, but BBC iPlayer and Channel 4 are not available unless you Google Cast from another device.

There is only one HDMI connection on each projector, but that's to be expected, considering they are primarily designed to be portable; streaming is built in, and we’re not convinced anyone is going to be carrying a Blu-ray player or console everywhere they go.

When it comes to picture modes, both models are keeping things simple. They offer Movie, Standard and Game presets, as well as an Eco mode which lowers brightness to extend play time when running away from a mains power source.

It’s a similar story with the audio presets on offer, with the two models offering Music and Movie modes. The Nebula Mars 3 Air has an Outdoors mode, while the MoGo 4 offers a Sports mode. We can’t see this being a huge sway in terms of appeal for cinephiles, but sports fans will see the appeal of having a louder and more spacious sound.

Both projectors feature two built-in drivers; however, the MoGo 4’s 6W speaker system is topped by the Anker’s slightly more powerful 8W system.

In terms of setup features, the MoGo 4 is keeping things simple yet practical with auto-keystone correction that kicks in when the projector is moved.

The Anker model has its own version of this, which they have called ‘Intelligent Environment Adaptation 3.0.’ This also includes an auto object avoidance system that attempts to reposition the image to the side of any objects that might appear in the projector’s direct line of sight.

Both projectors are pretty much on the same level when it comes to features, however, so a tie seems fair.

**Winner: draw**

Xgimi MoGo 4 vs Anker Nebula Mars 3 Air: picture

Now for the main attraction.

We were impressed by the picture performance from the MoGo 4 during testing, as we found it presents a “vibrant and crisp” overall image.

It does tend to overdo that vibrancy at times, though. This is most likely because Xgimi wants the image to be clear in light conditions, but in a more traditional dark room, it can look as though the colours are overcooked.

Despite that, it looks impressively natural and does a good job with dark details. We also noted that the contrast of flaming torches against the black background in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes looked “punchy”, which made for an overall cinematic image.

With the Nebula Mars 3 Air, we say in our review that the “sharpness doesn’t look forced or processing-induced” and note that it can “present dark scenes without much of the grey wash that’s so common among rival projectors.”

While we do notice that the auto focus system can sometimes leave the image looking a touch softer in its upper quarter, it is still easy to live with and great fun to watch with pretty much any source you throw at it.

This time, it’s the Nebula model that just takes the lead.

**Winner: Anker Nebula Mars 3 Air**

Xgimi MoGo 4 vs Anker Nebula Mars 3 Air: sound

With audio performance, the Nebula Mars 3 Air emerges more clearly as a leader. The sound is pretty expansive by projector standards and doesn't feel trapped inside the body.

We note in our review: “Detailed movie mixes sound crisp and busy, but are also well-rounded enough not to sound harsh or thin.”

The MoGo 4, on the other hand, keeps the sound quite localised. This results in a reasonably thin overall sound, although it does manage to maintain a balanced presentation.

Neither of the projectors manages to go very loud, but this is to be expected when the big focus for the manufacturers is portability.

**Winner: Anker Nebula Mars 3 Air**

Xgimi MoGo 4 vs Anker Nebula Mars 3 Air: verdict

Both the MoGo 4 and the Anker Nebula Mars 3 Air are excellent examples of how picture quality doesn't have to suffer for a projector model to be portable.

If getting the best picture and sound quality out of a projector is the most important aspect for you, then the Nebula Mars 3 Air does pip the MoGo 4 to the post.

That being said, the MoGo 4 still provides a clear picture with a more versatile build.

**Overall winner: Anker Nebula Mars 3 Air**

Amazon’s Fire TV Stick range of streaming devices may not be the most glamorous or technically impressive products that we see in our AV testing room, but they serve a specific purpose and perform said purpose well.

Case in point is the first-generation Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max, which offered affordable plug-and-play 4K HDR streaming, with a solid picture performance and feature set that was hard to argue with, especially for the price.

The only thing holding that streamer back was the existence of the then-Award-winning Google Chromecast with Google TV, which just edged out the first-generation Fire TV Stick 4K Max when it came to picture and sound performance.

Luckily for Amazon, Google has since discontinued that device and replaced it with a streamer that’s nearly double the price, and not quite as good. So, it would make total sense for Amazon to strike while the iron is hot, and deliver an upgraded streaming stick that undercuts the Google TV Streamer; and that’s exactly what it has done.

Today, we have the second-generation Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max, and with upgraded performance, a significant lack of competition and a tempting price tag, it might just be the easiest no-brainer buy in the AV world.

Price

The Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max (2nd Generation) officially costs £70 / $60 / AU$120; a smidge more than its predecessor’s £65 / $55 / AU$99 starting price. While a price rise – albeit minor – isn’t necessarily a welcome sight, what will be more enticing are the discounts that this streamer will inevitably receive throughout the year.

During its own sales events – Big Deal Days, Prime Day and Black Friday – Amazon almost always heavily discounts its own products. You can expect to pay closer to £50 / $40 / AU$89 if you time your purchase right.

Better yet, Amazon’s new streamer benefits from a major player exiting the market. Google’s Chromecast with Google TV was the roadblock preventing the previous generation Fire TV Stick 4K Max from achieving the full five-star commendation; however, that Award-winning streamer has been discontinued.

Google has replaced it with the four-star Google TV Streamer, which costs £99 / $100 / AU$160; considerably more than the Chromecast’s £60 / $50 / AU$99 launch price and, more importantly, the Fire TV Stick 4K Max.

As for other rivals, Roku’s Streaming Stick 4K undercuts the Amazon streamer at £50 / $50 / AU$110, though it’s yet to land in our AV testing room.

Build

The new Fire TV Stick isn’t a radical departure from its predecessors, though there are some identifying features to distinguish this newer model.

It’s still an all-plastic cuboid with an HDMI connector sticking out of one end, akin to an oversized USB thumb drive with the corners rounded off.

Unfortunately, this means that the last generation’s tendency to hog the area surrounding the HDMI socket it's lodged into is once again prevalent, meaning you may struggle to plug a cable into the adjacent HDMI port unless you use the included adapter.

A further design oversight relates to the power socket, which bafflingly uses Micro USB rather than the widely accepted USB-C standard. While we appreciate Amazon including a power adapter in the box, the decision to stick with the older, less convenient and less widely used connection is an odd choice indeed.

Moving away from the stick itself and onto the remote, Amazon has bundled in the same Alexa Voice Remote Enhanced model that can be found with the Fire TV Cube (3rd Generation). It’s functional, comfortable to hold, and features shortcuts to streaming services, which will differ depending on which region you purchase it in.

We would have liked to see the “find my remote” function included here, as it comes as standard on the Google TV Streamer; however, you’ll need to purchase the optional Fire TV Remote Pro for that, which also includes backlit buttons.

Features

The Fire TV Stick 4K Max’s only mission is to bring 4K streaming smarts to your TV, and it does so with a decent list of appreciated features.

HDR, for example, is supported in all of the major formats, including Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10 and HLG, meaning this streaming stick will play nicely with your TV regardless of whether you own a Dolby Vision-sporting LG TV or an HDR10+ only Samsung.

Furthermore, it supports Dolby Atmos audio, as well as up to 7.1 surround sound.

Inside the Fire TV Stick is a 2.0 GHz quad-core processor, and Amazon has been kind enough to double the storage from 8GB to 16GB, though RAM stays at 2GB.

Wi-Fi 6E is also supported, which should offer “smoother 4K streaming”, according to Amazon – though you’ll need a compatible router to access this.

At the heart of the Fire TV Stick experience is Fire OS, which you’ll also find on the company’s Omni-series QLED and Mini LED TVs, as well as (from 2024) Panasonic’s OLED TVs.

It’s a robust, well-supported and versatile operating system, which might not look quite as clean as Apple’s tvOS or be brimming with AI features like Google TV, but it's good for the straightforward streaming tasks that we require of a Fire TV Stick.

One area where Fire OS frustrates is with its ad-heavy nature. Amazon’s services are also pushed to the forefront, which shouldn’t be too surprising considering it manufactured the device, and the ads can be somewhat forgiven thanks to the device’s relatively low price tag.

App support is, unsurprisingly, excellent, with a full range of global streaming apps – including Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV and, of course, Amazon Prime Video – and domestic services such as BBC iPlayer, ITVX, Channel 4 and more.

Fire OS is also home to some niche services, including Mubi, Shudder, BFI Player and others, making this a solid choice for mainstream and indie movie fans.

Something to note with the Apple TV app is that it's exclusively used as a hub for Apple TV+ content and a way to access your existing Apple TV library. The store cannot be accessed directly through this app, so you’ll need to purchase your desired movie or TV series on a smartphone or tablet to watch it on the Fire TV Stick 4K Max.

Music and gaming apps are also well supported, with the likes of Spotify, Tidal and Deezer on board, though Apple Music is unfortunately sidelined. Thankfully, that can be circumvented with the inclusion of AirPlay 2.

Gaming-wise, Amazon’s Luna cloud gaming service and Xbox are the two major players, while casual games that can be controlled via the included remote are also accessible.

Picture

Much like its predecessor, the Fire TV Stick 4K Max provides plenty of positive picture attributes, which makes it a rather compelling streamer for the money. Better yet, it doesn’t have the Chromecast with Google TV to contend with, and instead now has the four-star Google TV Streamer as its major adversary.

We plug the Fire TV Stick into our reference Sony OLED TV and load up a range of streaming apps onto the device to deduce how it handles picture performance.

Firing up Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning on Netflix, the Fire TV Stick delivers a sharp and engaging picture, with plenty of detail in the suits worn by Ethan Hunt and his well-dressed gang as they plan out their mission in Abu Dhabi Airport.

There is ample detail to skin textures, and aside from a few instances of skin tones looking a tad on the warm side, the Fire TV Stick generally impresses.

We also take no issue with how motion is handled, as the MV-22 Osprey military aircraft carrying a troop of elite agents tasked with hunting down the hero glides smoothly into frame, with the whirring propellers showing no signs of awkward juddering or stuttering.

Switching to Challengers in HDR10+ on Amazon Prime Video, we’re once again impressed with the detail levels, colours, and motion, deducing that the Stick 4K Max provides a balanced and enjoyable image overall.

Furthermore, the film grain that can sometimes be presented as overbearing image noise on the Google streamer seems cleaner and looks more intentional on the Fire TV Stick.

Feeding the Fire TV Stick some HD content, namely Gladiator II, once again on Prime Video, we do notice that the edges of subjects get slightly softer. That being said, clothing and skin remain detailed enough, and the streamer certainly doesn’t make a big deal of presenting the comparatively lower resolution content.

We compare it directly to the Google TV Streamer with these aforementioned movies, alongside Mad Max: Fury Road and Babylon on the Apple TV app, and this is where things get interesting.

Despite costing a fair bit more than the Fire TV Stick 4K, the Google TV Streamer’s picture looks nearly identical. We can pick out a touch more detail on the Google TV, and colours are slightly punchier (if anything, we could accuse the Google of overdoing skin tones here), but otherwise, we struggle to see the point in shelling out for the pricier Google TV Streamer when it comes to picture performance.

Sound

While the picture performance is practically identical to the Google TV Streamer (albeit for less money), where we see the biggest difference between these two streamers is in sound quality. Make no mistake, the Fire TV Stick 4K is no maestro, but it's a darn sight better than the Google TV Streamer.

Loading up Tidal to stream tracks including Gasoline by HAIM and Taylor Swift, Luther by Kendrick Lamar and SZA, and From by Bon Iver, we’re met with sound that can best be described as solid. It won’t blow your socks off, and timing is one aspect where the Fire TV Stick does falter, but it’s a warmer, more cohesive and dynamic performance compared with the poor-sounding Google TV Streamer.

This is true for movies and TV shows as well, as we return to Mission: Impossible to find clear and detailed vocals that have been prioritised within the greater audio mix. That being said, they don’t sound detached, and the tense soundtrack still has its chance to build suspense effectively.

Verdict

Amazon’s flagship streaming stick is a solid option for anyone whose TV’s built-in streaming apps just aren’t cutting it. Its sharp and colourful picture, paired with its easy plug-and-play usability, should appease those who want to squeeze a bit more life out of their ageing 4K TV, or sidestep their TV’s built-in operating system.

Unless you’re considering stepping up to the Apple TV 4K, which costs double the price, the Fire TV Stick 4K is the go-to 4K streaming device at this level.

SCORES

• Picture 5
• Sound 4
• Features 4

MORE:

Read our review of the Google TV Streamer

Also consider the Apple TV 4K

These are the best video streamers you can buy

Apple's annual Worldwide Developer Conference, or WWDC as it is more commonly known, took place last night, and it was certainly eventful.

The tech titan announced that it would be unifying its entire product offering with a consistent software approach across everything from iPhones to Apple TV 4K, and even the Apple Watch.

Current version numbers have been scrapped, meaning every product runs a new "26" version of their respective operating system; for example we now have iOS 26, iPadOS 26 and tvOS 26.

The biggest change, however, is the introduction of "Liquid Glass", a design ethos that spans all of Apple's hardware. It refines the user experience with a new translucent look, features slicker transitions, and aims for a more immersive experience overall.

While there were plenty of other interesting announcements, including upgrades to Apple Intelligence and a new gaming hub on iPhone, the presentation was unquestionably light on AV, music and home cinema announcements.

We had hoped to see more updates for the Apple TV 4K, HomePod range, AirPods lineup and Apple's services, but that didn't appear to be Apple's priority.

With our WWDC 2025 wishlist now in tatters, here are the things we were hoping to see revealed last night, but ultimately didn't get:

1. Any new hardware

Apple doesn't always announce new products at WWDC, but when it does, it does so in style. It took WWDC 2023 as an opportunity to launch Apple Vision Pro, while WWDC 2022 saw a flashy, upgraded MacBook Air make a debut.

Unfortunately, there was no mention of any new hardware at WWDC 2025, which is a shame, as a couple of key AV products are long overdue for an update.

The HomePod Mini is the first that springs to mind, as it's fast approaching its fifth anniversary; that's practically geriatric by Apple standards. While the existing Mini is a gem of a smart speaker – not to mention a four-time What Hi-Fi? Award-winner – it would be nice to see a refreshed model with even better performance, and maybe even a few new colours.

The other key Apple product that could do with a refresh is the Apple TV 4K, which is coming up on three years old. Once again, the existing Apple TV 4K is a great streamer, in fact, it's the best streaming device on the market, but we wouldn't say no to an update.

As evidenced by the upgrade from the second generation to the third generation model, the picture and sound performance tends to improve every time, even if there doesn't appear to be many changes on paper. We can only dream of what a fourth-generation model could offer, though rumours suggest that one is on the way.

Rumours and speculation are never enough for us, though, and Apple didn't even drop a crumb of evidence that a new HomePod or Apple TV 4K is on the way.

2. Big changes to Apple Music and Apple TV+

Apple's services were also sidelined at this event, aside from a few minor changes coming to Apple Music.

Lyrics translation is coming with iOS 26, meaning you can sing along to your favourite international pop hits without putting hundreds of hours into Duolingo. AutoMix is set to transition your current track into the next seamlessly, and you'll also be able to pin your favourite tracks, playlists and artists to the top of the Apple Music app for easy access.

That's about it, not counting the new "Liquid Glass" look to the app, which will presumably be locked to Apple devices.

It would have been nice to see some highly requested features, such as a button to download your full music library, or even higher quality streaming to match the likes of Qobuz and Tidal.

Apple TV+ didn't receive much attention either, though there are some nice poster-style artwork options for Apple's original programming. We would have liked to see a proper watchlist feature separated from the Up Next section, and a bigger design refresh wouldn't have gone amiss either, especially after Amazon Prime Video and Netflix's recent updates.

3. The big tvOS update

Ahead of last night's livestream, there were murmurs of a revolutionary tvOS update that would see the biggest shift in design and functionality since it launched in 2015.

While rumours should always be taken with a liberal pinch of salt, we couldn't help but be a bit disappointed when we found out that this design upgrade was merely a few transparent elements and a profile selection screen.

tvOS 26 looks remarkably similar to the currently available tvOS 18, and there aren't that many new features or usability tweaks to show for it either, aside from the ability to set an AirPlay-enabled wireless speaker as your permanent default audio output.

The good news is, of course, that tvOS is one of the best (if not the best) streaming-based operating services around, so we're not angry, just disappointed.

MORE:

Apple announces iOS 26 with a new "Liquid Glass" design and an upgraded Apple Music app

Read our full Apple iPhone 16e review

As well as our Apple AirPods Pro 2 review

Apple has announced the latest version of tvOS, the operating system that powers its five-star Apple TV 4K streaming box. The latest edition brings new features and a fresh look to the streamer's home menu and Apple TV app.

Liquid Glass is Apple's new ethos, with a focus on fluidity and translucency; and it's a design scheme that's being applied across iOS, macOS and iPadOS too.

It's perhaps not quite as much of a radical redesign that was hinted at ahead of WWDC, but a more modern and consistent design will certainly be appreciated by Apple fans who are already equipped with the full ecosystem.

The visual upgrades represent most of the changes with tvOS 26, with translucent elements such as the control centre and dock at the top of the home page now featured in the name of enhanced immersion, according to Apple.

Content is now easier to access, too, with larger poster-style artwork for shows and movies within the Apple TV app.

You'll also find a new profiles system, which will work similarly to how the likes of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney Plus implement their user profiles. Users will be able to toggle a setting that brings the user profile selection page up automatically when the Apple TV 4K wakes.

Personalised content recommendations will apply to each user, alongside user-specific watchlists in the Apple TV app and playlists in the Apple Music app. This new version of tvOS will also include a karaoke mode with Apple Music, which allows you to use your iPhone as a microphone; if that's your sort of thing.

One useful upgrade coming to tvOS that Apple didn't mention in its WWDC livestream is related to AirPlay speakers. With this forthcoming update, users will be able to designate AirPlay-enabled speakers as the permanent audio output option for their Apple TV.

Currently, the Apple TV 4K will default back to your TV's speakers after it's switched off, with HomePods being the only AirPlay-enabled speakers that can be set as your default audio output. With tvOS 26, you shouldn't need to manually select your wireless speakers, which is a nice touch.

There are also new aerial wallpapers and an upgraded FaceTime app coming with this update. tvOS 26 is set to arrive later this year, though Apple has not shared a specific release date.

MORE:

Read our full Apple TV 4K (2022) review

As well as our list of the best streaming devices

And read our full Google TV Streamer review

Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC 2025) keynote has come and gone and it brought with it a number of AI-themed updates to the tech giant's entire software portfolio.

These included everything from quality life updates to its Apple Music service, designed to improve curation, to a completely new Liquid Glass design that is being rolled out across all its platforms.

Our team of hi-fi and home cinema experts where on hand updating this page with all the news throughout the event. Scroll down to see their coverage and hot takes on all of WWDC 2025's audio and home cinema announcements.

Also make sure to get involved with the conversation and offer your thoughts on Apple's latest news in the comments, or on our social media pages and forum.

Welcome to our WWDC 2025 live hub!

Welcome to our WWDC 2025 live blog, where I (editor-in-chief, Alastair Stevenson) will be posting all the latest developments, as well as insights directly from our experts on the announcements.

The event’s opening keynote is set to start at 6.00pm (UK time), which means there is some time left until the news officially starts flooding in. Ahead of that, here’s a quick summary of what we’re expecting from the event.

A complete overhaul to Apple’s tvOS software: Apple is expected to make big changes to the software powering its Apple TV 4K streamer. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, tvOS 19 will be the biggest update to the platform since it launched.

AI upgrades: we haven’t had many specifics, but tvOS is one of many platforms set to get a big update, according to pre-event rumours. Rumblings suggest Apple is also set to completely rebrand its iOS mobile phone software, adding a wealth of new AI-focussed features, alongside a new name.

New AirPods features: according to rumours Apple is also set to add a host of new features to its AirPods. These include new motion controls, sleep detection and a “studio quality” mic mode.

Meet the team covering WWDC 2025

We have not one, but three members of the What Hi-Fi? Team covering WWDC 2025. Here’s what you need to know about them.

What we want to see

WWDC is always an interesting event as it’s largely software focussed – with Apple tending to do its hardware launches separately.

That’s why we’re not expecting to see the fabled iPhone 17 until September. We’re also expecting the company’s hotly anticipated new AirPods and HomePods to be no-shows at the event.

But, even with that knowledge, our team can’t help but hope the firm will have at least a few surprises that haven’t been covered by the pre-event rumours at WWDC 2025’s keynote.

Eager to share them, our senior staff writer, Lewis Empson, penned a pre-event feature detailing the three biggest things he’s hoping to see at WWDC 2025.

Read the full story: Here are the 3 big home cinema and audio announcements we're hoping to see at Apple's WWDC event

Got something not covered by Lewis that you’re hoping to see at WWDC 2025? Then get involved in the conversation and let us know in the comments or on our social media channels! We’re eager to hear from you.

The one thing I’m really hoping to see at WWDC tonight (but probably won’t get)

Entry by Lewis Empson

The Apple TV 4K (2022) remains the best streaming device on the market thanks to its excellent user interface that doesn’t bombard you with ads or nonsense, alongside its stellar picture and sound quality.

There is, however, one slight issue now; it’s getting on a bit. The streamer has been on the market for over two and a half years, so where is the replacement? Rumours of a new model have been rife, though they are, at the time of writing, unsubstantiated.

I’d really like to see Apple change this tonight and announce a 2025 model that uses a more up-to-date processor (might I suggest the iPhone 16’s A18 processor) and packs in some of the new features rumoured to be coming with the next version of tvOS..

Rumours suggest an overhaul to tvOS will be debuted tonight, so a new streaming box (or stick, who knows) to complement the design refresh just seems right. Throw in Apple Intelligence compatibility, a shiny new remote (backlit buttons would be nice) and 8K support, and that constitutes a substantial upgrade to me.

Ultimately, this is probably wishful thinking, but I’m still holding onto a little bit of hope.

Additional features for AirPods Pro

Entry by Kashfia Kabir

We’re not expecting any new hardware launches during WWDC, but there are rumours that the current AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro 2 could get plenty of new features.

This continues Apple’s run of introducing new features to its flagship AirPods Pro 2 at no extra cost – keeping these five-star wireless earbuds fresh and feature-packed without having to pay for a whole new model.

Since the AirPods Pro 2 with USB-C case launched in September 2023, the flagship buds have been updated with software features such as Conversation Awareness, Adaptive Transparency and a host of health-related functions, including being able to use them as hearing aids.

So what can we expect from the update this time around? Your AirPods Pro could gain gesture controls for adjusting the volume when in Conversation Awareness, take a photo by pinching the earbuds’ stem, and detect when you’ve fallen asleep and auto pause any music or podcasts.

Small but useful features that only enhance the AirPods experience for iOS users even further. Until we finally get AirPods Pro 3…

My most-used streaming service could be getting a major overhaul in the next few hours – here’s what I want to see

Entry by Lewis Empson

I admit it, I’m an Apple Music user. Despite switching from an iPhone to the Android-based Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra a couple of weeks ago, I just couldn’t face going back to Spotify, especially after the most recent user interface update.

Speaking of user interface updates, Apple Music is reportedly set to get an AI-focused upgrade in the near future, according to reputable Apple insider and Bloomberg editor, Mark Gurman. While AI isn’t at the top of my wishlist, I suppose Spotify has seen success in embracing our soon-to-be overlords, so I can see where Apple is coming from.

Gurman didn’t confirm if this update would be imminent, or if it's slated for down the line, and no Apple Music announcement has been confirmed for tonight yet either. Regardless, it’s on my radar, and I hope to see a mention tonight.

If I had my way, there are a couple of changes I would like to see come to the Apple Music app. The biggest one is a “download all” button in my library, as in my last device transfer, I had to click download on each of my saved albums individually – all 273 of them.

Furthermore, Spotify remains the king of social music listening when it comes to Jams, Daylists and more. I know we care about sound quality above all else, but these curated playlists and social features are a huge draw for me, so I’d like Apple to take inspiration from Spotify in this case.

Could Apple Music get a new look?

Entry by Kashfia Kabir

Apple Music is 10 years old this year. I’ve been using the music streaming service ever since it launched in June 2015, and apart from one interface change shortly after launch, the platform has remained largely the same – albeit with additional features (video, hi-res lossless and spatial audio) being added over the years to its extensive catalogue.

Could we see a fresh look for Apple Music alongside the rumoured iOS26 updates? Apple’s native apps generally evolve alongside its iOS updates, but it would be exciting to see a deeper overhaul for this streaming service.

For now, the main rumour I’ve seen is about full-screen animated artwork on the iPhone lock screen. That would be pretty cool – I love seeing animated album art within the app – but I would worry that this would be quite the battery drain.

A whole new name for iOS

Entry by Joe Cox

In case you missed the recent leaks, it looks like Apple is going to change the way it names its OS releases. This is good news.

Rumours say Apple will align all of its various operating systems by naming them after the year. So expect to hear about iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26 and so on at WWDC, rather than the scheduled iOS 19.

Ultimately, we think this will make sense once we get used to it. After all, how many of you really know which OS your various devices are currently using? Naming them after the year should make it a lot easier to remember.

That said, launching iOS 26 followed by the iPhone 17 later this year could still prove confusing...

We’re live!

Entry by Alastair Stevenson

Apple’s WWDC opening keynote is officially underway and we’ll be here for the duration bringing you all the latest news, as well as our hot takes until the event ends.

As a reminder, we’re expecting the event to be a big one for music and TV fans, with pre-keynote rumours suggesting tvOS will be getting its biggest overhaul ever and Apple will re-brand its iOS software.

Make sure to get involved with the action and drop any questions, or thoughts, you have on the news in the comments or our social media channels!

Entry by Alastair Stevenson

Apple CEO, Tim Cook has taken the stage and confirmed the keynote will address all of the company's software. There is already a very heavy focus on Apple Intelligence, but little concrete detail on how it will impact the firm's Music and TV platforms thus far.

Apple software chief Craig Federighi has taken over the keynote and is still talking about Apple Intelligence. The main news thus far is that Apple is making its intelligence on device model available to all apps. This means the features can work offline using data stored locally. Nothing music or TV related.

Apple has unveiled a new universal "Liquid Glass" design it claims will react dynamically to what the user is doing. We haven't had full details on how it works, but we've seen demos of it throwing contextual menus up when people are watching movies on an iPhone and iPad. Apple describes it as "blurring the line between hardware and software".

A new name for all of Apple's software

Apple has updated the naming convention for all its operating system. Every single new version will jump to 26. So iOS, tvOS, MacOS and every other platform in Apple's portfolio will leap to be version 26, regardless of the previous release number.

We've still not had much more detail on Apple's Music and TV plans. Instead the firm has showed of how Liquid Glass adjust the UI on iOS dynamically depending on what the user is doing. It's since moved on to talk about its CarPlay software and how will leverage the new design.

Thus far Apple's focussed on iOS messaging, call, emoji and translation services. These include better screening options on calls and messaging and the ability to make polls and split bills within in app when in a group chat. The emoji service lets you use AI to merge existing emojis to create new ones. It showed combining the sloth and lightbulb emojis as an example. The translation upgrade adds live transcriptions to messaging and video calls, from what we've seen. Still no TV or music news.

AI Apple Music upgrades are coming

Apple has, very quickly, confirmed a number of AI / Intelligence flavoured upgrades coming to Apple Music.

Highlights include:

• AI lyrics: this will let you see the lyrics to the song you're listening to in real time.
• AI pronunciation: as well as a transcription, it will also help you say them correctly using Apple Intelligence.
• AI mix: a new feature that will use Apple Intelligence to generate playlists specific to users tastes.

Our contributor is typing up a full story with the AI Apple Music updates, so stay tuned for more detail!

*Editors note: we missed Apple Music Auto Mix. This is an AI powered mix service that aims to smoothly transition songs in your playlists, like a DJ.

The AI playlists we mentioned relate to Auto Mix, which actually just smoothly transitions songs you already have liked better using AI.

Apple AirPods updates

Apple has unveiled upgrades coming to its AirPods, however, rather than focus on music playback the new additions relate to mic quality and camera commands. Specifically, it has unveiled a new "studio-quality audio recording" and camera remote feature. These will both be launched on the AirPods 4, AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), and AirPods Pro via an over the air update. The " studio-quality audio recording" is aimed at content creators and works to improve the voice quality of recorded audio. It apparently works using the Apple H2 chip and Apple Intelligence processing to reduce background noise.

tvOS 26

Apple has unveiled a wealth of new TV originals as well as a compete overhaul to its tvOS software. The key points are:

• A move to Apple's contextual, AI-powered Liquid Glass universal design. This adds dynamic UI elements that change based on what the user is doing and their habits, in a bid to make the OS more intuitive to use.
• The new UI also tweaks the app, making it so the UI can display more movies, reducing the need to scroll when looking for something to watch.
• The ability to enable any AirPlay speaker as the Apple TV's main speaker permanently.

Our all-star contributor, Joe Svetlik has penned a full guide, detailing the biggest changes coming to Apple Music!

Read the full story: Apple Music gets 3 new features – and could put DJs out of work

An early hot take from our editor

Entry by Alastair Stevenson

As expected Apple's WWDC 2025 keynote is all about the firm's Intelligence AI platform. This is a big deal, with the "Liquid Design" elements being rolled out across all its software, including tvOS 26, and streamlined naming convention making sense.

But, from a purely music and home cinema perspective, these add up to quality of life, rather than performance upgrades. None of the announcements work to improve performance metrics, like HDR performance, upscaling or surround sound on tvOS.

Equally the Apple Music features are more about curation, discovery and showing off Apple Intelligence's clever translation services rather than upgrading its core audio quality.

I'd personally hoped to hear more about its plans to match rival codecs and chipmakers, such as Qualcomm, which confirmed it is aiming to offer fully scalable, 24-bit/192kHz audio wirelessly to headphones "soon" during an interview with me earlier this year.

All the details on Apple's WWDC 2025 AirPods upgrades

Apple has unveiled, quietly, a smattering of upgrades coming to its AirPods via an over the air software update. You can get all the details in our handy guide!

Read the full story: Apple's AirPods get studio-quality recording, camera remote

VisionOS 26

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WWDC 2025 wrap up

With Apple's WWDC 2025 keynote over, we've seen a number of AI focussed announcements on its entire software portfolio. But was it a hit and are the upgrades what we wanted? Here's the What Hi-Fi? team covering WWDC 2025's personal hot takes on the keynote.

Do you agree with our hot takes? Let us know in the comments below, or get in touch on our social media channels and forum!

Nebula has produced a reliable stream of projectors over the last few years, from portable models such as the four-star Anker Nebula Mars 3 Air to pricier purchases such as the Cosmos Laser 4K projector.

Now, Nebula, which is owned by Anker, is launching another 4K projector that it says is a “cinema-grade outdoor entertainment system”.

The Nebula X1's (supposedly) portable design and easy set-up mean it could be ideal for indoor and outdoor movie screenings.

However, a glance at the specs sheet reveals the projector requires a constant mains connection and is much larger and heavier than most people would consider to be really portable.

In our minds, therefore, this is more of a 'coffee table projector' that can be fairly easily moved between rooms, packed away in a cupboard and brought out for epic movie nights. But, sure, it can also be used in the garden if you have a long extension cable.

Categorisation is tricky, then, but it’s much less important than the performance, which is in many ways very good.

Price

The Nebula X1 is available for £2200 / $2999 (around AU$4550).

There’s also an ‘accessory pack’ that includes two wireless satellite speakers, a carry case and two wireless microphones for £500 / $999.

The price for the projector alone pits it against premium models such as the BenQ X3100i (£2099 / $2399 / AU$3599), which earned a What Hi-Fi? Award last year for its all-round picture performance.

While the BenQ and Nebula are styled quite differently, they’re overall very similar semi-portable projector propositions.

If it’s a true portable projector that you’re after, you’re better off looking at much smaller, battery-operated alternatives such as Nebula’s own Mars 3 Air or BenQ GV31, which cost £550 / $600 / AU$1300 and £449 / $599 / AU$999 respectively.

Build

The X1 has a smart and nifty design that includes a bucket-like handle that can be activated by pushing it down. It is available in one colour: a light yet metallic-looking grey.

The projector measures 24 x 19 x 28cm and weighs 6.2kg. While that is of course heavier than properly portable projectors, it is light enough to carry around for a short distance.

The projector can be placed on a projector stand, table, or the floor, with an optical engine and lens array that then tilts up to 25 degrees. There is an add-on gimbal you can buy as an extra stand for the projector, but it will set you back a further £120 / $179.

The remote control is intuitive to use, helped massively by the addition of backlight buttons to make navigation easier in the dark.

On the top of the projector is a touch screen from which you can control volume, power, and begin keystone correction. There’s also a toggle button so you can navigate the menu without the remote.

Sci-fi nerds will also be pleased at the addition of a Battlestar Galactica-esque red light that appears on the top when the projector is turned on.

Features

The triple-laser X1 projector boasts a 4K resolution, a claimed 3500 ANSI lumens of brightness and it can supposedly project an image up to 300 inches in size.

Nebula is also employing some AI smarts to make the set-up supposedly simpler. The brand’s AI Spatial Adaptation auto set-up includes real-time autofocus, keystone correction, ambient light adaptation and wall colour adaptation, which can all be switched on via the remote control.

We use it to fit the picture to our screen, and while some adjusting is required, the AI does a good job of understanding the space around it.

There is also a Spatial Recall feature, so the Nebula X1 can remember your preferred settings for selected spaces to make set-up easier.

In terms of streaming capabilities, the Nebula projector features the Google TV platform with Netflix built in. You can choose to download all the usual suspects, including Channel 4, Disney+, YouTube, Apple TV+, Netflix, ITVX and Amazon Prime Video. BBC iPlayer is not available, though you can at least cast it to the projector from your phone as a workaround.

If you want to connect to a gaming system or Blu-ray player, the X1 also has two HDMI ports on the rear, including one with eARC for use with an external sound system.

The projector has an internal liquid cooling system, which Nebula says helps keep noise to a whisper-like 26dB. While using the projector, the system is indeed impressively quiet, barely audible in fact.

When it comes to the picture modes on offer, the X1 offers a whole host of options.

First up, the brand’s own NebulaMaster mode can “improve contrast with enriched details in both bright and dark areas of the image”, according to the company. However, while we find that this mode does boost the brightness, the image also takes on a pale hue that is lacking cinematic warmth.

Standard mode has this same paleness, but it’s also lacking the enhanced detail of NebulaMaster, so we feel it’s best avoided. There is a Sports mode, which heightens the highlights in the image, and a Vivid mode brightens the picture even more, but at the expense of dark detail.

There are Day and Night modes calibrated by the ISF (Imaging Science Foundation), which do tailor the image to these different environments with adjusted brightness levels, but they also tend to flatten the image and make it less engaging.

Our preference is the Movie mode, which offers the most balanced presentation in terms of colour and detail, and gives us the most cinematic picture.

For gamers, there are Standard and Extreme gaming picture modes to choose from.

If all that is not enough for you, there are also several sound modes to choose from. For testing, we stick with the Movie sound preset due to its wide sense of space and its vocal clarity.

There is also a Music mode, which brings out the vocals more but at the expense of the bass, and an Outdoors mode that widens the soundstage but lacks the detail and impact of the Movie setting.

Nebula has an accompanying app as well, where you can change picture and sound modes, use the image correction tools and select a streaming service to open.

There’s also a neat feature where your phone screen is designed to resemble the remote’s toggle wheel. You can use Google Cast through the app, too.

Picture

We kick off with Alien: Romulus via Disney+. As a spacecraft silently drifts through a floating wreckage, the Nebula X1 immediately shows off its impressive black levels as the enveloping blackness of space is inky and dark.

Twinkling stars contrast with the blackness, and their brightness successfully peeks through. The Movie picture mode certainly helps the image to feel cinematic too; as the ship passes through the debris, it has a good sense of three-dimensionality.

In terms of colour, the X1 keeps the picture vibrant and engaging. With the Antarctica episode of Seven Worlds, One Planet on 4K Blu-ray, the gentoo penguins preparing to dive into the ocean are detailed and vivid. Their bright red beaks and fluffy feathers look tangible and textured.

At times, the picture is actually a bit too sharp, with a slightly unnatural degree of enhancement creeping in. This can be solved by reducing the Sharpness a few points, which results in a more balanced picture that is still pleasantly crisp.

Moving to the more subtle palette of Oppenheimer on 4K Blu-ray, the Nebula X1 does start to struggle a little.

When Cillian Murphy’s Oppenheimer stands in front of a blackboard, there is a slight flickering on the white wall behind him. We have noticed this flicker with other projectors, but the X1 exaggerates it.

We also find that the rainbow effect, which is when you catch glimpses of coloured light out of the corner of your eye, is slightly more noticeable with the Nebula than with some rivals, including the BenQ X3100i.

There is a slight judder to motion from the X1, too. When Oppenheimer arrives at his new home with his family in a car, the swooping aerial shot feels slightly glitchy. What’s interesting is that this delivery of motion is a little inconsistent: we rewatch this scene numerous times, and the ratio of judder to smoothness varies on each watch.

The BenQ X3100i, by comparison, is consistently smooth in its delivery, and the flicker in the blackboard scene is much less noticeable.

Despite these flaws, the X1’s vibrant colour presentation and depth do provide an impressively immersive experience that feels cinematic.

Sound

Many projectors tend to drop the ball when it comes to audio, but the Nebula X1 excels here. Even without the optional wireless speakers, the projector’s 2.1 speaker configuration manages to create a rich and detailed sound by projector standards.

When watching Thor: Ragnarok, the battle sequence between the villainous Hella and the Asgardian army feels weighty and gripping as you can feel every punch.

The dialogue is clearly audible even in busy scenes such as this, providing a balanced overall audio experience.

It is reasonably localised, so we do not get a huge sense of immersion, but this is impressive sound overall.

The BenQ X3100i, by comparison, sounds thin and much less impactful, especially in terms of vocal clarity. When it comes to sound, the Nebula X1 blows the competition out of the water.

We also test the X1 with the optional wireless speakers. These use Nebula’s own surround sound format, FlexWave, to create a sense of height along with the up-firing drivers.

The soundstage is immediately widened and upgraded, filling the room with detailed but immersive audio.

Verdict

The Nebula X1’s audio makes it stand out from the crowd, as it is rare we have found a projector that can pack such a punch in terms of bass.

Its slightly inconsistent picture performance is a shame, because when the projector is operating at its best, it is exceptionally detailed and three-dimensional.

If you are looking for a projector that offers a simple set-up, punchy picture and top-notch sound performance, then the Nebula X1 is a great contender.

SCORES

• Picture 4
• Sound 4
• Features 5

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I’m sure I’m not alone in regularly having at least one calendar reminder set to ‘cancel [insert music or movie streaming service]’ for the day or two before a free trial is due to end.

Sadly, the inflated price of such entertainment services makes it difficult for many to subscribe to more than a couple at any given time, although frequent free trial offers and no locked-in contracts at least mean it is easy to flip-flop between them when it suits us, while keeping monthly costs down.

We’ve found a way to tackle the paradox of choice, but have the streaming services themselves? How do they keep people locked in?

Disney Plus has a solution, and I wish Netflix and others would follow suit. Last week, Disney expanded its ‘Perks’ programme, giving US Disney Plus users 12 non-streaming offers they can take advantage of as part of their subscription, from a free six-month DoorDash DashPass membership and 20 per cent off Adidas, to Walt Disney World Resort savings and opportunities to win tickets to movie premieres.

According to the Disney Perks webpage, the initiative is, “Our way of saying thanks!” Or, I’d argue, an appeal: “Please don’t unsubscribe, Adidas-wearing takeaway obsessives!”

Whether or not those very particular perks would sway you to stay loyal to Disney Plus would naturally depend on how you personally value those particular discounts. Me? I would probably be roped in for the six months of DoorDash, and then still cancel.

But the ‘perks’ list will supposedly expand over time, and the concept itself is a good idea.

I’ve written before how I think it would make sense for music and movie streaming companies to partner and bundle services for discounted rates – Netlix and Spotify for £3 / $3 / AU$5 off the combined monthly price, for example – but going beyond the catalogue by offering retail and entertainment experience discounts is also, I believe, an attractive avenue for the consumer.

Would I be more likely to switch from Tidal to, say, Qobuz if the latter offered me a 10 per cent discount on gig tickets from Ticketmaster? Would I show unwavering loyalty to Netflix if my subscription gave me weekly discounted cinema tickets or money off, say, Uber? Most likely.

Amazon has, of course, always been in the perfect position to offer ‘other’ benefits, with its Prime package bundling in the Prime Video streaming service, (limited) music and book catalogues, exclusive Amazon deals and free (and often next-day) delivery – even though those ‘extras’ are only within the Amazon ecosystem.

I don’t think it would be unfair of me to say that Prime Video wouldn’t have as many users as it does today if it weren’t for the overall Prime package.

Similarly, Apple also has its One subscription, bundling its music and video streaming services with its superior news and storage options – appealing only for avid Apple users, mind you.

In its early days, MUBI used to offer subscribers a free weekly handpicked cinema ticket (which, such is the way of the world, has since become an exclusive benefit of a new pricier tier). It was a real boon; I used it most weeks, and it kept me subscribed.

Netflix may believe its strength of catalogue warrants the £12.95 / $17.99 / AU$18.99 monthly charge alone, but the competition is only getting fiercer while pricing and consumer expectations are only going one way.

Will ‘just’ good movies and TV shows always be enough? I’m not so sure it will, and Disney offering extra incentives for subscribers to stay loyal in the US (other markets will hopefully follow) will only put pressure on rivals to give beyond its catalogue offering, no matter how strong it is.

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5 LGBTQ+ movies and TV shows to stream this Pride month on Netflix, Disney Plus and Prime Video

I’m a movie lover, and this is the one app I cannot do without

It’s Pride month, which means I have the perfect excuse to talk about – and point you to – some of the LGBTQ+ TV shows and movies I think are worth watching.

If you are looking for a way to celebrate queer stories this month, the choice can seem overwhelming – not least as streaming platforms such as Disney Plus have their own ‘Pride’ selection to choose from. But which ones are any good?

Luckily for you, I have been a fan of LGBTQ+ cinema for years and have here picked a handful of the best that deserve some love this Pride month.

Whether you're regularly seeking out queer cinema to watch or fell asleep halfway through The Rocky Horror Picture Show, there is something for everyone on this list.

Booksmart

While it is important to portray the injustices done to the LGBTQ+ community and how far rights need to come, there has historically been a lack of comedies starring queer characters.

In the last few years, dark comedies such as Bottoms and Bodies Bodies Bodies have featured LGBTQ+ characters at the heart of their stories, but Booksmart was the one that arguably made the biggest splash in the film industry.

It follows best friends Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) and Molly (Beanie Feldstein) as they approach the end of high school and realise that they had prioritised studying over ever attending a proper party. Determined to rectify this, the girls set out to make their last night of high school one to remember.

Amy’s quest to find a girlfriend plays out alongside Molly’s unlikely crush on the school jock, making for amusing but ultimately tear-jerking viewing.

Watch Booksmart on Amazon Prime Video

Pose

“Come on, vogue / let your body move to the music”.

The chorus of Madonna’s Vogue sums up the sentiments of Pose, a three-season TV show depicting the rise of ballroom culture during the eighties in New York.

At the heart of the show is Blanca (Mj Rodriguez), who leaves the House of Evangelista to start a group of her own.

Each scene is bursting with passion and colour, with Lou Eyrich and Analucia McGorty’s costume design helping to tell the story through clothing, especially during the runway sequences.

But there is more than meets the eye to the ballroom scene, as we see the struggles that our beloved cast of characters must go through to survive.

Pose is not afraid to pull any punches, broaching topics ranging from the AIDS epidemic to drug addiction. Ultimately though, the show highlights the importance of chosen family and how these early ballroom adopters shaped the world for queer people today.

Watch Pose on Disney Plus

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Moving across to the other side of the pond, French director Celine Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a beautiful and heart-wrenching tale of yearning and heartbreak. If you're a fan of slow-burn narratives, this is certainly one for you.

Marianne (Noémie Merlant) is a painter commissioned to draw a wealthy woman in her wedding dress, Héloise (Adele Haenel). They quickly fall in love, but the expectation for Héloise to marry a nobleman presents an obstacle.

This is quite simply a mesmerising watch, with the backdrop of the French coast making every scene look like a painting. For a film with minimal dialogue, a held gaze or a touched hand really speaks volumes.

As a sidenote, all of Sciamma's filmography is worth a watch, from her writing credits on the stop-motion movie My Life as a Courgette to her latest release, Petite Maman.

Watch Portrait of a Lady on Fire on Amazon Prime Video

Queer

Luca Guadagnino's Queer passed a lot of viewers by when it released late last year. You might be more familiar with the director's breakout hit Call Me By Your Name back in 2017, which also shot Timothée Chalamet to fame.

Queer is based on William S. Burroughs' eponymous novel and follows William (Daniel Craig) as he falls in love with an American soldier named Eugene (Drew Starkey).

There isn't really a plot as such, but more a collection of moments dealing with William's drug addiction and his obsession with Eugene. This makes for an otherworldly experience as Guadagnino often delves into the surreal.

When the pair visit the Ecuadorian jungle, they experience vivid hallucinations where the visuals truly boggle the mind. It might not be for everyone, but the film's unique take on yearning makes for an entrancing watch.

Watch Queer on Amazon Prime Video

Will and Harper

Will Ferrell might be best known for his starring roles in Elf and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, but this documentary explores his friendship with SNL writer Harper Steele after she comes out as a transgender woman.

The pair set out on a road trip across the United States to visit the places Harper hadn't yet seen as her authentic self, all while discussing how coming out has impacted her life.

Ferrell takes on a backseat listening role in the film, which helps to highlight Harper's individual journey and her reservations when entering conservative spaces. You can really feel her fear and nerves when she enters a bar in a red state, for example.

It's so important that those with influence stand with and show support for the LGBTQ+ community right now, and this documentary is a great way to demonstrate how to truly be an ally.

Watch Will & Harper on Netflix

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