Although the AAXA P6 Ultimate ($369) comes up a little short of being the ultimate mini projector, it offers enough to make it a solid choice. It’s a lot less expensive than the Xgimi Halo+ and the Anker Nebula Capsule 3 Laser, two of our top picks for 1080p mini projectors. And compared with the Miroir Synq M189, our current top pick among mini 720p models, it’s brighter and adds a Bluetooth speaker mode, built-in streaming, and longer battery life. It has some shortcomings as well, most notably stretching 16:9 input from PCs and Android phones in our tests into a 16:10 aspect ratio. But that’s more minor annoyance than serious issue, and not enough to outweigh the strengths that make the P6 Ultimate worth considering under the right circumstances.Design: A Light, Bright, and Battery-Operated BeamerThe P6 Ultimate measures 3.1 by 5.3 by 5.7 inches (HWD), weighs 4.1 pounds, and comes bundled with a soft carrying case. The focus thumbwheel on the right side is notable for being easy to adjust. However, I could not get sharp focus across the entire screen in my tests, so I set the lens for best focus in the center area, and a soft focus near the edges.
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The power switch, just above the focus control, offers three positions: Bluetooth Speaker Mode, Off, and Projector On. I found it tended to overshoot the center Off position, but using it to switch between the speaker and projector modes was a lot faster than using menu options. You’ll also find a control panel on the top, which can be useful if you misplace the remote control.One pleasant surprise is that the P6 Ultimate doesn’t need a bulky power adapter. A USB cable and something to plug the other end into will do. AAXA supplies the cable and a 65-watt charger that’s only slightly larger than lower-power versions, but the company says you can use any other standard 5-volt, 1.5-amp charger with a minimum 42 watts, or you can connect to your laptop or a power pack.
At the heart of the projector is a DLP chip and an LED light source. The chip uses a diamond layout, which has the advantage of lower power use compared with TI’s rectangular Manhattan-layout chips. It’s presumably at least partly responsible for the projector’s long 6-hour battery-life rating in Eco mode. (AAXA publishes no rating for the Standard or Boost power modes.)The diamond layout also means that the chip delivers slightly more pixels on screen than the 1,280-by-800-pixel rating suggests. This isn’t always a good thing, because the need to map 1,280-by-800-pixel images into a different number on screen can translate to a loss of fine detail as well as artifacts added to repeating patterns, an issue I saw in my formal tests in some business graphics with patterned fills.
(Credit: AAXA Technologies)
What these factors add up to is that the P6 Ultimate works much like a 1080p projector with both soft focus and added artifacts in some images with repeating patterns. This won’t matter for most purposes, but you may see some artifacts in your presentations.The hardest step in initial setup is putting the handle—basically a thick strip of material with a hole on each end—on the two knob-shaped protrusions on either side of the projector. It takes a fair amount of finger strength to force the knobs though the holes, and it would be nice if AAXA attached it before shipping the projector. But once done, you’ll never have to do it again. Beyond that, you’ve got little to do besides connecting to a video source, aiming the projector at whatever you’re using as a screen, and focusing. As is typical for mini projectors, the P6 Ultimate offers no optical zoom.Connection options include an HDMI port, a Wi-Fi connection for streaming, a TF/microSD card slot, a USB Type-A port for reading data from USB memory, a USB Type-C port for data, and screen mirroring through the local network (for iOS devices) or using a Miracast Wi-Fi Direct connection (for Android devices). You’ll also find a second USB-C port for power, so when you charge the battery, make sure you’re using the right USB-C port.
(Credit: AAXA Technologies)
In my tests streaming a movie via my mirrored Android phone using either Miracast or a USB-C cable, the projector used its native 16:10 aspect ratio, which made faces thinner and otherwise distorted shapes. I saw this same issue when using a computer as the source, in spite of the projector negotiating a 1080p connection. AAXA says it’s working on a firmware update to fix this issue, but the good news is that even without the update, the problem didn’t show up when connected to a Blu-ray player or when using the projector’s built-in streaming features.The P6 Ultimate is built around Android 9.0, not Android TV, which means it uses the sometimes-flawed Android OS versions of the most popular streaming apps. I ran some quick tests with YouTube and Netflix, and didn’t see any problems with dropped frames or the like. However, some apps, including the one for Netflix, require mouse control either from an actual mouse connected to the USB port or from the remote, using up, down, left, and right arrows.
(Credit: AAXA Technologies)
The audio, built around one 5-watt speaker and one 1-watt speaker, is much better than you might expect for this size of projector. In my tests, it delivered high-enough quality for most casual use, including for the Bluetooth speaker mode, and high-enough volume to fill a large family room. The body also has a 3.5mm audio output for an external speaker or headset.Customizing the AAXA P6 Ultimate: Ditch Those Out-of-Box SettingsFor SDR input, the P6 Ultimate offers three predefined picture modes you can’t adjust, plus a User mode that lets you adjust brightness, contrast, sharpness, hue, and color temperature. It also uses the same modes for HDR input, including the same settings for User mode. In my preliminary testing, I quickly discovered that all three predefined modes were disappointing for both SDR and HDR. (They dropped far too much shadow detail and delivered too dim a picture for comfortable viewing at sizes much larger than roughly 65 inches in a dark room.) For my official viewing tests, I chose User mode.Note that if you go through the Home screen and then the menus to pick User mode, you won’t be able to see the picture while making changes, which makes it hard or impossible to find the best settings. To bring up the settings menu with the picture showing, you have to hit the minus-sign button on the remote.For my SDR viewing tests, I improved overall picture brightness enough for comfortable viewing on my 90-inch, 1.0-gain screen in a dark room by raising brightness significantly and lowering contrast just a touch. I also turned off sharpening, since the default setting over-sharpened a bit, but you might want to experiment with finding the setting you like best. My adjustments improved shadow detail, so that aspect held nicely, without hurting contrast or raising black level enough to be an issue, and without washing out brighter scenes. Some colors were a little oversaturated, but they remained in the realm of acceptable.
(Credit: AAXA Technologies)
The P6 Ultimate supports up to 4K input at 30Hz, which means it can handle a 4K HDR movie played at 24Hz. In my 4K HDR tests, however, it was a little too “contrasty,” and although most people will consider the color as tolerable-to-acceptable, colors were further off target than with the SDR version of the same movies. The picture also lost far more shadow detail than with SDR, even compared with SDR’s default settings, and unlike the case with SDR, I couldn’t find any settings that would improve the overall quality. Raising the brightness setting improved shadow detail, for example, but also desaturated the colors and robbed contrast from bright scenes. In short, the P6 Ultimate can accept HDR input, but it delivers a better picture with SDR.The 3D support is limited to top-bottom and side-by-side formats, and you have to set either one manually. That said, it worked well enough with DLP-Link glasses. I didn’t see any crosstalk in my tests, but 3D motion artifacts were slightly more obvious than is typical today.Gaming is best limited to games where reaction time is unimportant. I measured the input lag using a Bodnar meter at a high 91ms for 1080p/60Hz input. (Lower numbers, of course, are better for input lag.)If you’re concerned about rainbow artifacts—red/green/blue flashes—note that I saw them fairly often with the P6 Ultimate. However, I tend to see them easily when they are present, and you may not. If you’re concerned about this issue, it’s best to buy from a dealer that allows easy returns so you can test the projector for yourself.Verdict: Strong Mini-Projector Contender for the BucksThe AAXA P6 Ultimate’s attractiveness lies in its balance of high brightness for its price, decent image quality, and long list of features. The Miroir Sync M189 delivered better color accuracy on our tests, and currently costs less. It also has a compartment to hold a third-party streaming stick, which will add some of the missing features compared with the P6 Ultimate, but it still won’t be as bright. If you’re willing to pay more, you should consider moving up to a 1080p model, particularly the previously mentioned Xgimi Halo+ or Anker Nebula Capsule 3 Laser. Between them, the Halo+ offers higher brightness paired with good image quality for both SDR and HDR, while the Capsule 3 Laser offers a lighter weight and even better image quality. If you’re more interested in a low price, however, the P6 Ultimate offers the most bang for your buck.
Pros
Small and light, with built-in handle
Carrying case included
On-board battery good for up to six hours on a charge
Supports up to 4K 30Hz HDR input, 1,280-by-800 output
Wireless mirroring for iOS and Android devices
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Cons
Stretches some 16:9 sources to 16:10, turning circles into ellipses and squishing faces
Diamond DLP chip layout introduces artifacts to some images
The Bottom Line
The easy-to-tote AAXA P6 Ultimate mini projector delivers enough battery life and image quality to make it worth having for meetings in small conference rooms or a backyard movie night.
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