Hisense PX1-Pro review: Get an awesome, massive image in the minimum of space

Using a projector often means accepting a certain level of hassle in return for a massive picture. You’re going to need a screen, of course, plus some time to set your projector up and iron out any geometric distortion and – most of the time – you’re going to need a lot of space. That’s not the case with the Hisense PX1-Pro, which is one of a small but growing number of projectors designed to work with minimal setup in almost any size of room.

Sure, you need a wall big enough to house a 90in to 130in screen but, with an ultra-short throw of 0.25:1, it can sit an inch away from that screen and still fill it, side to side and top to bottom. With a new tri-colour laser projection system, impressive specifications and built-in sound, it’s equipped not just to work as a home cinema projector, but as a replacement for a big-screen TV.

Hisense PX1-Pro review: What do you get for the money?

The PX1-Pro works as a one-box home cinema, much like the Xgimi Aura and the discontinued Optoma CinemaX P2. It’s a big and bulky unit, with a 711 x 507mm footprint and a weight of 9.2kg, but that body houses the Trichrom triple-colour laser engine, the ultra-short throw optics and a 30W stereo sound system with Dolby Atmos processing. With a laser light source rather than a traditional lamp, you’re looking at a lifetime of up to 25,000 hours, so you shouldn’t be needing a replacement within the next ten to 15 years.

The Hisense PX1-Pro is designed specifically to fill a 16:9 screen of 90in to 130in in size, and there’s no way to cater for a smaller screen or make the screen bigger by decreasing or increasing the throw distance – you just end up with a partial screen or a slightly blurry image. It works best with a throw distance of 9in (229mm) to 12in (305mm). What you lose in flexibility, however, you gain in specifications, with a pixel-shifted Ultra HD resolution, a wide-colour gamut capable of resolving 1.07 billion colours, 2,200 lumens maximum brightness plus HDR10, Dolby Vision and Filmmaker mode support.

The connectivity is equally impressive, with two HDMI 2.1 ports (one with eARC support), alongside one USB 3.0 port, one USB 2.0, Ethernet, optical and a line-out/headphones socket. 802.11ac Wi-Fi also comes built-in, along with Android TV 11 streaming. To make the most of that, Hisense bundles in a slim but fully functional remote with a microphone and a button for using Google Assistant.

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Hisense PX1-Pro review: What does it do well?

While its auto-setup and configuration routines aren’t quite as effective – or idiot-proof – as those on the Xgimi Aura, the PX1-Pro still does a good job of giving you a sharply focused, distortion-free picture with minimal work. You’ll perhaps need a small tweak to the focus or an errant corner, but get it roughly straight and close to your screen and there’s not an awful lot to fix.

The PX1-Pro also wins points for avoiding some awful proprietary streaming interface in favour of a stock implementation of Android TV 11. You can use or download a good range of apps, including YouTube, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ and start streaming straight away, with no weird quality or resolution issues. The only disappointment is the lack of apps for Netflix or NowTV, but you can add those by connecting a streaming stick to one of the HDMI ports.

The Hisense’s key strength is its image quality. In terms of sharpness and clarity, it’s not quite up there with the Xgimi Aura and its almost holographic presentation; in terms of tone, colour and HDR performance, however, the PX1-Pro has the advantage.

Watching John Wick 3 on Amazon Prime Video and The Mandalorian on Disney+, you’re constantly struck by how vibrant and beautiful the colours are and by how well the projector handles scenes with gloomy shadows and bright HDR highlights, which really pack a punch. The black level still isn’t 100% black, while highlights never reach the eye-searing levels you’ll see on the best OLED or mini-LED TV screens but, by projector standards, the performance is impeccable.

Pick something with more natural scenery, such as the North American wilds of Prey or documentaries from National Geographic, and it’s obvious the Hisense doesn’t have any problems rendering these either, while any drama series with good lighting and rich detail is just as much a treat. Hook it up to a 4K Blu-ray player and the picture only gets better. You won’t find the battle scenes or desert explorations of Dune looking better on many other projectors below £3,000.

Hisense isn’t messing around with this wide colour gamut stuff. It promises 107% coverage of the advanced BT2020 colour space and, while I can’t measure that specifically, I can tell you that it delivered a total 129% of the DCI-P3 gamut in our tests, which is a phenomenal effort for a projector. It’s also a bright projector, although you lose too much contrast to really make it an effective TV alternative during daylight hours in a bright room.

Gamers can expect a great experience. You might want something with faster response times for competitive gaming but that makes no sense on a screen this big anyway, and there’s nowhere near enough lag to spoil Doom Eternal or God of War: Ragnarok. The bold presentation helps make blockbuster games look even more cinematic and you have the option of 120Hz gameplay if you’re happy to drop down to 1080p.

As for the sound, it won’t convince you that you’re sitting in the middle of a Dolby Atmos speaker system, or even working with a Dolby Atmos soundbar. What it will do, however, is give you a beefy and immersive sound with decent stereo effects and clear dialogue. Watching movies on the PX1 Pro, I never felt a desperate need to hook it up to anything else.

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Hisense PX1-Pro review: What could it do better?

In default settings, you’ll probably want to turn the motion compensation settings down – at anything above low to medium settings, on-screen movement has the nasty, artificial look associated with the dreaded “soap opera effect”. You might also want to tinker with the colour and contrast settings to get the best results, although this isn’t an issue on sources that support filmmaker mode, where you get pretty much what the director intended.

The PX1-Pro has an auto geometric calibration tool you can use, but we found this a bit hit and miss. To make it work, you need to take a picture of the whole screen from roughly ten feet away with a smartphone on the same Wi-Fi network. Not only does this take space but also requires the absence of any interfering objects, including lights or lampshades, to work correctly. In one room I was unable to get beyond a failure message, although it worked OK in the living room. Even with using the feature, though, I found I needed to do some additional tweaking to get a consistent focus at the top and bottom of the screen.

Perhaps the biggest negative, though, is that you need a specific ALR (Ambient Light Rejecting) screen to get the absolute best out of this projector. Without one, it suffers from the same black level and contrast issues that affect, well, every other projector – especially if there’s a lot of ambient light in the room.

These don’t come cheap, with Hisense’s own coming in at £750. It isn’t essential and I found the projector still delivers a sharp picture with astonishing colours on a normal 100in screen in the dark, but if you want to meet Hisense’s claims for brightness, contrast and colour reproduction, then you ought to think about finding the money.

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Hisense PX1-Pro review: Should you buy one?

With two big caveats, yes. The first is that it’s a big investment, especially if you need the ALR screen. The second is that this only makes sense if you’re going to have it set up permanently. It’s not the ideal projector for on/off use with a roll-down or portable screen and it really needs a proper space where you can get it up and running with your sources close to hand.

Otherwise, however, it’s a fabulous projector, delivering crisp, clear Ultra HD images with one of the best colour performances I’ve ever seen. Unless you have the budget and the space for, say, the Sony VPL-XW5000ES, your home cinema can’t do much better.