The Xgimi Aura 2 launched in late 2024 as a follow up to the 2021 Xgimi Aura, the brand’s first ultra-short-throw projector. While it might bear the same name, it has seen a substantial redesign and a bunch of advancements. It’s a powerful, compact projector that can sit at the front of your room just inches from the wall while still delivering the massive picture that makes projectors so appealing. Though it launched with a $2699 price tag, it has seen discounts as low as $2294.
Xgimi Aura 2
Xgimi Aura 2 specifications
- Price: $2699
- Resolution: 3840 x 2160
- Refresh Rate: 60Hz
- Brightness: 2300 ISO Lumens
- Color: 99% DCI-P3
- Throw ratio: 0.177:1
- Ports: 3x HDMI (1 with eARC), 3x USB-A, 1x Ethernet, 1x 3.5mm, 1x Optical
- Audio: 4 x 15-watt speakers
- Smart TV Software: Android TV 11 (2GB RAM, 32GB storage), Wi-Fi 6
- Size: 5.67 x 20.08 x 10.63 inches (D x W x H)
- Weight: 19.84 pounds
Pros
- Elegant design
- Bright, colorful 4K projection
- Flexible and adaptable setup
- Capable all-in-one system
Cons
- Some competitors beat it on color gamut
- Gaming chops could be better
- No Netflix
Xgimi Aura 2: Design and Features
While the original Xgimi Aura was an interesting, industrial looking product that had a lot going on, the Aura 2 has been thoroughly refined in the looks department. The Xgimi Aura 2 features a fabric cover on the upper and front surfaces to help it blend in with home decor. It looks as much like a piece of furniture as it does a piece of tech. It’s accented by champagne gold metal trim around the edges and comprising the snazzy grilles on either side.
Perhaps the coolest feature of the design is the Aura 2 has a motorized, sliding cover. When the projector is off, the top surface is a flat stretch of fabric. Not only does tihs help the projector blend into a living room, but it also helps avoid collecting dust on the projector’s optics. When the projector turns on, a section of this lid will lift up and slide back, revealing the glass lens cover. It’s slow moving, but it provides the projector time to boot up Android TV and fire up the projection light source.
The projection system is an interesting hybrid, combining two laser light sources and a laser-excited phosphor to hit the red, green, and blue primary colors with a wider spectrum, supposedly to prevent eye fatigue and issues with laser speckle that can come from RGB laser projectors. All that laser light is beamed through a DLP mirror, which is fairly common for home theater projectors.
Hidden away under the fabric cover and grills, the Aura 2 includes four speakers each rated for 15 watts. These only handle stereo sound, but they let the projector serve as an all-in-one home theater.
While the Android TV operating system lets you install a ton of streaming apps right on the device (with the notable exclusion of Netflix), the Aura 2 also supports external video source. You’ll find three HDMI ports around back. One of these can support eARC output to connect to external sound systems as well. Optical and 3.5mm audio outputs are also available. And if you want a stable internet connection, you can use the Ethernet port, though I’ve been pleased with the speed and stability of the Wi-Fi 6 connection offered by the Aura 2.
The Aura 2 includes a stylish remote control with a similar champagne metal to the projector itself. It’s a very simple remote with basic navigation options for Android TV. Beyond that, it offers a quick shortcut to image adaptation and projector settings, but you won’t find other useful shortcuts to things like picture settings, specific streaming apps, or input sources. The remote also lacks any lighting, making it a little hard to use in the dark environment ideal for projector use.
Xgimi Aura 2: Performance
The Xgimi Aura 2 takes a little effort to set up in its ideal configuration, and the process to get Android TV up and running takes up most of that time. From there, the projector will walk you through the rest. For the most part, image adjustments happen automatically. The Aura 2 can crop the image to fit available space if you’re projecting onto a screen and it can apply keystone correction if it’s not perfectly square on the wall. But keystone isn’t an ideal solution, as it further crops the image, taking away from the 4K resolution. The Aura 2 has height-adjustable feet to help level it and avoid the need for keystone correction, but they are a little difficult to get started and virtually inaccessible while the projector is set up, making it a tedious process.
The projector will also automatically adjust focus. It can go even further, adapting the picture depending on the wall color if you’re beaming onto a bare wall. Since a deformity in the surface of your wall can have a dramatic impact on the image of an UST projector, warping it considerably, the Aura 2 also features a wall flatness adaptation feature that works impressively well, though it requires you to use your phone’s camera.
Once the Aura 2 is set up, it’s a formidable projector. It’s rated to hit 2,300 ISO lumens, and I have little doubt that it does so. Many projectors struggle to provide a serviceable image if you use them during the daytime without blackout curtains, but the Aura 2 has provided passable visuals even in my sunlit living room. You can still rule out dark content, but watching bright and colorful anime and cartoons or daytime TV, the brightness was more than adequate, even with a 100-inch picture projected onto the wall.
In a darker room, the Aura 2 shifts from good to great. It’s not the most vibrant projector I’ve tested, with that still going to the pure RGB laser projectors like the JMGO N1S Ultimate and Hisense PX3-Pro. They may oversaturate imagery at times, but there’s no getting past how much colors pop from those projectors. The Aura 2 still has vivid color with more than enough gamut to compete with high-end TVs, though.
You won’t get OLED levels of performance from the Aura 2 (or really any projector) when it comes to contrast, but the Aura 2 does a serviceable job nonetheless. It has a low enough black floor and bright enough picture that the dead space around the image when watching content with letterboxes or a digital keystone applied doesn’t stand out too much. This also makes for poignant imagery.
Combining the satisfying wide color gamut, strong brightness and contrast, and sharp 4K imagery with the Aura 2’s ability to deliver Dolby Vision, HDR10 visuals, and IMAX Enhanced content, and you end up with a pretty impressive picture at home.
The glamorous-turned-bleak adventure of the eponymous heroine in Anora was wonderfully rendered by the Aura 2, just as was the colorful cast of Gurren Lagann. The many colorful and occasionally monochrome realms of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 came to life just as well through the Aura 2.
Considering that the Aura 2 could perform well in the daytime at 100 inches, it’s safe to go even larger when the sun’s down or curtains are drawn. The vertical offset of the projection means you’ll want to position it closer to the floor as you try to go larger with the picture. For example, a 100-inch picture will appear about 7.7 inches above the projector itself, but a 150-inch picture will be almost 14 inches above the projector.
At these large sizes, the 4K resolution really helps. The picture looks plenty sharp and fine detail, like film grain, comes through. The auto-focus does a solid job and the optics allow a satisfying sharp picture from corner to corner.
You’ll get plenty of volume from the Xgimi Aura 2, but the quality might not deliver the ear bliss you want from a home theater. The sound is fairly localized. It certainly doesn’t sound like a surround sound system. It’s a nice, full sound with plenty of bass depth to add to movie scores and special effects, though you won’t quite feel the deep sub-bass rumble that really brings a movie to life.
The Aura 2 may not be particularly well suited to gaming, but it does the job. In its game mode, latency proves low enough to still keep up with the kind of precise timing windows parrying and dodging requires in a game like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. The latency was still noticeable compared to responsive gaming monitors and projectors with higher refresh rates, like the Hisense PX3-Pro.
While the projector is generally great when it comes to playing content, the Android TV operating system still leaves some room for improvement. I’ve experienced slower systems, but the Aura 2 still doesn’t run lightning fast and can hang up slightly when loading up menus, opening apps, or starting video streams. It’s also not the most convenient for use with external sources. When an HDMI turns on, the Aura 2 will try to automatically switch over to it, and that can be handy if desired. But after that, switching to different HDMI sources tends to require far too many clicks. And if the operating system is running slow, all those clicks to get to an external video source become all the more irritating. Add to that the fact that you will need to use an external source every time you want to watch Netflix on the Aura 2.
Xgimi Aura 2: The Verdict
The Xgimi Aura 2 has a lot going for it. It beams a brilliant image with satisfying color and contrast, not to mention the 4K resolution really helping the visuals hold up when stretch out over 100 inches (and beyond). It’s also a versatile system thanks to its built in operating system, potent potent speakers, and reasonably flexible setup — especially compared to a TV trying to provide as big a picture.
It doesn’t score a 10 on every metric, but it really doesn’t do too bad in any department. I would have been happy to see more color gamut or support for a faster refresh rate for gaming, as it lags behind the Hisense PX3-Pro in those regards. But the Xgimi Aura 2 has exceptional style, a helpful motorized cover, a particularly short throw ratio, and a competitive price tag.
Also consider:
Hisense C2 Ultra
If you’re not after the built-in audio and aren’t committed to an UST projector, the Hisense C2 Ultra is one of the best projectors I’ve used. It’s slightly cheaper than the Xgimi Aura, and it brings a lot for the money. It’s plenty bright and incredibly colorful thanks to a triple-laser projection system that can hit 3,000 lumens. It supports 4K video and plenty of HDR format, including Dolby Vision. With an optical zoom lens, it’s also very flexible about where you place it., and it doesn’t need much space wherever you do set it down.
Disclosure: A review sample was provided by the manufacturer or a public relations partner for the purpose of review.
