Crenova XPE498 Mini Video Projector [Test and Review]

A movie projector this small

Let's check it out. Dave Taylor here, and I feel like I'm sitting in front of a really small movie screen

I am, actually. That's a Vanco screen. You can pick one up for like $28 bucks on Amazon

Super handy to have around, especially when you're testing projectors. And that's just what I'm looking at today

This is the Cronovo X-P-E-49. 8 mini projector. Now, I don't know that I would categorize this as mini. It's just a regular

size projector from what I've seen, but we'll cut him some slack. Now, I'm going to give you some

specs. We're going to talk about a little bit. Then I'll switch to a demo, and then we'll switch

back to talking about it some more, just so you know what's going to happen. Now, this features

3,200 luck, so it's pretty decent brightness for a budget projector. Has a 50,000 hour viewing

LED lamp, so that should last you years. You can watch it anywhere from 3,000. You can watch it anywhere from

30 inches to 200 inches across, but let's be realistic. You know, the way that physics works, the way that light works, the bigger the projection

the less bright it is. So if you're going to try doing it 200 inches across, you better be in a cave deep under

the earth because it needs zero light. But if you want something that's just going to be like four or five feet across, this might

work just great. We'll find out. Now, comes to the 12-month warranty if you have any issues

And they have, you know, one of the things that's a real challenge with, these projectors is keeping it cool enough that A, the battery doesn't, I'm sorry, the bulb doesn't

burn out, but B, that it's just not a noisy fan. So this is actually the second generation

Cronovo projector, and this one features a dual fan cooling system, which is supposed to give us a quieter

fan. Why is that an issue? Because you might not want to blast everything super loud to compensate

for a noisy and annoying fan. Totally makes sense, right? Now, it does actually have stereo speakers

though they're not apparently located on both sides. I'm not sure, but I believe that's one of the speakers there

And there's no corresponding one on this side. So it might be back there

Who knows exactly where the speakers are? But it still gives you okay sound

Okay sound. Keystone adjustment, focus, you have to do all that. So once you turn it on, then there's a wheel on the top that is way too smooth

It really needs like some sort of cuts or something on it to help you focus

But be that as it may, you focus. focus here and then on the back there's this sort of pinchy control that you slide from side to side

It's super awkward actually. I'm not a fan at all of it, but that gets you Keystone and Keystone is the difference between watching something like this and watching something that's actually square

We'll see that in just a second. So works with up to 1080p, but it's actually projecting 800 by 480

That's really pretty typical with projectors is that they support HD but they don't necessarily

project HD. Now, if you're not doing it at 200 inches, you're not really going to notice

And even at that size, you're probably going to be caught up in what you're watching, hopefully. And so you won't be worried too much about resolution. Get the focus right. And it

actually is reasonably crisp But know that it not native 1080p but it is at least enough for 720p right at 800 by 480 I think that right Anyway so inputs on let see on the back

there is an SD card and a VGA plug. Does anyone still use VGA

It seems really old school. I don't know. Maybe people still use it. And then on this side, you have HDMI

you have AVN, and it comes with an AV adapter. So you plug this in, and then you have

video A, video B, and audio. So this again, is pretty old school. This is like how the Nintendo

Wii hooks up to the television. And then you have AUX out, which is important if you want to use

better speakers than what they have built into the projector. Again, it has speakers. It does work

but you can do better than that. And then finally, it has a USB plug. So if you want to use like a

flash drive and put some movies on it, you can try that. Now, here's what I'm going to do is I'm going to

test it, I put a movie on my SD card and then I have an

HDMI adapter and it does include an HDMI cable and it's a weird one

It's this big flat cable. So it's kind of clumsy in terms of transportation and it doesn't come with a

travel bag, a bit of a drag. But you know, it's kind of clumsy and chunky looking, but I'm guessing it's

actually a pretty decent quality cable. We'll find out. In fact, enough talk

Let's go ahead. I'm going to turn off all the lights. We're going to turn this around and we're going to have a look at how it actually works

So let's do that. Well, the room could be darker, which would make this brighter, but I think this is enough for us to get rolling

So first thing we need to do is adjust the keystone. And that's done with the slider on the back

So watch the edges. So you can see you can get it. You want it to be as square as possible

And then you use the focus. And then what we're going to do is we're going to start with an S-D-quered

card that happens to have a movie on it. Now, here's what's confusing is that if you put it image side up, which is I think what

people would normally do where this is on the top, it's not going to work

But flip it over and it actually has possibly an upside down installed SD card reader

Not sure exactly that's what's going on. But now, using the remote, I will choose source and I will choose USB slash SD

and it should give us our content. Let's go ahead and do the focus one more time

This is sort of pretty typical that you're fiddling with the focus. And now I'm going to choose movie and here

And here it is. This is actually one of my own movies. So somewhat self-referential

It's not quite inception, but we're going to do that. And we're going to choose play

And I think... And with a built-in search protector. Let's check this. out. So let's see, let's try to go forward a little bit. And play. And so here's the thing to

notice is that not only are we getting a nice looking image, but, let's pause this, but obviously

the sound is working too. So we're getting actually a good example of the stereo sound that comes

out of the projector So pretty cool Now let switch to HDMI Now we going to use their So I going to have to plug it in on this side Let see the plug is up here

And then the other side, I have an H.D.M. adapter from my iPhone

I'm going to plug that into my iPhone. And everything working correctly, we should be ready to roll

Let's see. So this looks good. Now I need to switch input sources again

So we're going to leave this, and we're going to go to HTML. go to hd m i'm going to choose select and you know again the focus is has wandered off a little bit which is

a frustrating so let's see if we can get it to be more on focus um doesn't seem to want to focus much

better there well it's having some problems with its focus let's switch over to netflix and i already have a

movie queued up. So let's just watch a couple of seconds of it. And this is a film called Rim of the World. And as you can see, it's eminently watchable

And I will reiterate that in a darker room, this would actually be much more vibrant, but

it's definitely functional. Now, in terms of focus, I'm a little disappointed that I can't

seem to get it to be nice and crisp all the way from the top to the bottom

and then from side to side. But maybe that's just the nature of these sort of projectors

Anyway, let me switch back on camera and then we can talk further

So that was our live demo and it went pretty well. I actually had to do it a couple of times while I figured out how SD cards worked

So it goes. Not really thrilled with the way the focus worked as you saw

but you know for something like a movie or some cartoons for the kids or something, it could work just fine

Now, I did want to give you a quick close-up, of the remote control in case you're curious

This is included in its remarkably budget price. And like I said, inputs, it has

HTML USB VGA, it works with an SD card, and you have this AV adapter

which is kind of old school, but old school, sometimes that's what you need

So it is 11.6 by 8 by 5 inches and 4 pounds

So it's not the world's lightest device. Let's get that cable out of the way

but it's not. untransportable. If you've ever looked at those really big expensive HD

projectors, they are beasts. They are super heavy, but they're also kind of like

10x or 100x the price of this thing. Separate story. Now, it works. There's all these

buttons on the top, as you can see here. It comes with an

HTML cable, comes with a power cable. It's basically ready to go out of the

box and you can just plug something in and start watching. Has built in

speakers, which is really nice. They don't sound great. But honestly, given what this is, they sound good enough

You can certainly watch something. So like if you're in the dorm room and you're in the dorms or something like that or you're

in a hotel room, you can definitely project this onto whatever blank surface you can find

and be perfectly happy watching a movie or something. Now, having said that, this is not crisp and precise

It's not high resolution. You don want to use this as a second display for your computer because you be super disappointed that everything fuzzy So they say that actually in the actual information page for the product So it not like

Kronova's hiding that. And this is true of anything in this class. If you want a really solid

projector for work use, you're going to be spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars or possibly

even a thousand or more. That's not what this is. So go in knowing that. But having said all of that

there are still some issues that I have. There are still some things I don't like. I couldn't get it to be a nice crisp focus, which was frustrating. The Keystone adjustment on the back is super clumsy. I've seen other products in this category that have like two wheels right here, one of which is focused. The other one is keystone. Seems a whole lot easier and it's in a logical place. The fact that the focus wheel is totally smooth makes me wonder if anyone at the company has ever tried to focus this thing. It's super

frustrating because it's just, it's slippery. And I want it to be something where there's little

tiny cuts all the way along, so I know it's moving, and I have good friction and I have a good

sense of that actually I'm doing something. That's actually pretty frustrating. Possibly an issue

possibly not, no travel case. So the power cord, the HDMI, whatever you're going to bring

you're going to have to figure out how to pack it all together or buy a separate box or package

or bag or something. So, you know, not a crisis, but there is some room for improvement, though it works

You know, and for the price, it actually can be a really fun addition to your, I don't know

your travel gear, to your dorm room, to your basement, whatever it is

So, you know, it definitely has its uses. Now, before we get to the price, and you're pretty much going to be blown away by the price

I'm confident. But before we get there, can I ask if you can subscribe? And if you use a projection system of any sort, leave it

a comment and tell me what you use. And if you did use one and now you don't, leave a comment

and tell me why you don't use it anymore. Cool. Now, this is the Cronovo XPE 498 mini projector

Not very mini, but we'll roll with that. And it is 8999 at Amazon.com, which is pretty

crazy, inexpensive. This is like, buy this just to mess around. Buy this because you can do a

multimedia presentation at night or, heck, put on a starfield and just watch that

So, you know, this is not a world-class projection system. Nothing is in this price category

But the fact that you can buy a projector ready to go out of the box for well under

$100 is pretty amazing, really. Now, there are other projection systems from competitive companies in this same price point

So you might want to do a little homework to see how they all stack up in pros and cons

But I got to say, just for something that's just a fun, goofy, little inexpensive

way to maybe keep the kids entertained at a hotel room or something, this actually is a pretty

decent option. So with that, I might go back to that Netflix movie, but either way, I hope to see

you in my next video