Formovie’s Theater Premium ultra-short-throw smart projector

If you’re looking to replace your living room TV with something that doesn’t dominate your space until it’s powered on, Formovie is hoping that its flagship Theater Premium ultra-short-throw projector will fit the bill. We’ve been sent one to try out.

The Premium is the successor to the T1 model, which was released globally as the Theater in 2022. The new UST flagship retains the same price tag and look as before, but comes with some juicy improvements. Most notable are the increased brightness output, a new generation of premium sound and an upgrade from Android TV to Google TV – which means official Netflix cooked in.

The company behind both home entertainment hubs is actually the result of a partnership between consumer tech giant Xiaomi and Appotronics, with the latter being responsible for Advanced Laser Phosphor Display – or ALDP – technology that’s widely used in movie theaters and consumer projectors.

Formovie

The Theater Premium is built around an enhanced version of ALDP 4.0, featuring a blue laser/phosphor plus a triple-laser (RGB) light source for the promise of cinema-grade visuals. “Its use of blue laser light provides vibrant and true-to-life images, ensuring sharp, high-quality visuals and accurate color reproduction to enhance the overall viewing experience,” explains Formovie.

The technology also significantly cuts down on image speckling, which can be a problem with UST laser projectors. In fact, I couldn’t see any speckle at all during my couple of weeks with this model, nor any rainbow effect – though folks are more sensitive to the latter may detect such things.

At first glance, the brightness output figure of 2,200 ISO lumens may not look that impressive on paper, but we were able to watch movies and shows during the day with the blinds open – albeit in a slightly shaded corner.

I did temporarily relocate the unit to a sunnier spot in the room, but found that bright lighting – including the overhead ambient variety – was the enemy of a great viewing experience, even at the highest of the three available brightness modes. As usual with consumer-grade projectors, the best results will be had in a darkened space, where the Theater Premium will quite literally shine.

Six picture presets are also on offer, each handling the color temperature, gamma setting, image sharpness and other enhancements differently. Power users can of course take deeper dives for tweaking to taste, and my eyes certainly benefited from the odd adjustment here and there.

A look behind the scenes

A quick look at the specs sheet appears to show the Premium model using the same DLP projection engine as its predecessor, which means a 0.47-inch DMD chip and Xpanded Pixel Resolution shifting to achieve 4K UHD resolution. The full-res image size is also the same – running from 80 diagonal inches to 150, but the throw ratio has changed. The new flagship now utilizes a throw ratio of 0.21:1 (instead of 0.23:1), which translates to maximum throw size when positioned just 15.75 inches away (40 cm) from the wall or screen.

It also boasts a relatively high 3,000:1 (full-on/full-off) contrast, along with a claimed 107% coverage of the BT.2020 color gamut and 60-Hz refresh rate. There’s support for Dolby Vision content across three modes as well as HDR10+ decoding, plus motion compensation.

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The best viewing results will be had by adding an Ambient Light Rejecting screen to the cinematic equation rather than just aiming the projector at a spare wall. But such things will need extra investment, and they can cost almost as much as the Theater Premium itself.

A 120-inch Formovie floor-rising ALR screen for UST projectors, for example, has a list price of US$2,699. I have a non-ALR screen, which offers a better image than a blank wall, and for this review I set the unit up a few inches away from either that screen or a large white wall – depending on how big I wanted to go.

At 550 x 349.2 x 107.5 mm (21.6 x 13.75 x 4.2 in), the Theater Premium is more compact than many other UST projectors we’ve covered, but it’s still a heavy beast at 9.8 kg (21.6 lb). The metal-enclosed unit sits on three rubberized feet, with the front two height adjustable via notched wheels slotted into the housing.

The projector lacks automatic adjustment smarts for positioning ease, but if you don’t mind getting your hands dirty, there’s four-point and eight-point keystone correction as well as motorized focus cooked in. A built-in Infrared Body Sensor is included too, which will dim the projected visuals as someone approaches – to lower the potential of eye damage from the powerful light source.

Inside, the system’s brains shape up as MediaTek MT9629 quad-core processing with integrated graphics, supported by 2 GB of system RAM and 32 GB of onboard storage. Wi-Fi 6 makes for snappy streaming while supporting Chromecast screen mirroring, and there’s Bluetooth 5.0 for the remote (which requires two AAA-sized batteries, not included). The remote itself is a surprisingly basic affair for such a premium-pitched projector, but has shortcuts for direct access to Netflix and YouTube as well as settings and voice activation.

Let Google TV be your entertainment guide

As mentioned earlier, the Theater Premium runs Google TV with native Netflix, plus you get the option to load in favorite apps linked to your ID during setup or start afresh. Depending on which option is chosen, other popular streaming platforms include Disney+, Prime Video, Paramount+ and Apple TV – as well as YouTube of course.

The unit features a built-in far-field microphone that’s listening for voice commands unless it’s muted using a hardware switch to the right edge. Electing to disable the mic results in four-LED voice-control indicators lighting up in orange to the middle of the speaker grille, which I found quite distracting.

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If you yearn for cabled signal stability, Ethernet LAN should be your port of call. The IO interface also hosts three HDMI 2.1 ports (one with audio return), a pair of USB 2.0 Type-A ports, and analog/digital audio outs, should you wish to use them.

Though with a 30-W Bowers & Wilkins sound system built in, there really is little need to send your soundtracks to third-party external audio setups. This is made up of a module rocking a 1-inch titanium dome tweeter, 2.75-inch woofer with a fiberglass diaphragm and a 990-cc sound chamber at the front left and right, plus bass reflex porting to the edge. There’s support for Dolby Audio and DTS-HD, and the audio system is masked by “high-fidelity speaker cloth” with B&W branding up top.

As you might expect from that premium marque, the sonic experience was top notch. A 25% volume setting proved more than adequate to fill my modest-sized room from corner to corner, and bathe me in clear, well-balanced and superbly satisfying audio to go with the onscreen delights.

I didn’t feel the need to punch the remote’s volume control during quiet dialogue, though there was ample oomph available if I needed to. Highs and mids for YouTube music vids were crisp and well defined, and though the setup didn’t lack for low end, perhaps a sub out would have been a nice addition for those who like to feel – as well as hear – the thunder.

I’m not a gamer, so didn’t put the low-latency gaming mode to the test, but the refresh rate is reported to be 60 Hz at full resolution and input latency over HDMI 2.1 gets down to 18 milliseconds.

The bottom line

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Though an 85-inch 4K TV might leave less of a dent in your wallet, aiming to beat the maximum display size of the Theater Premium could take you into silly money territory. And yes, OLED, Micro-LED or whatever will likely deliver better all-around brightness, but Formovie’s gogglebox replacement offers stunning visuals after dark and made a pretty decent show of it during daylight hours too.

This model’s heady combination of top-notch contrast, brightness and color delivery make it a compelling choice. Mix in Dolby Vision, then add Bowers & Wilkins sound, and you have a recipe for an excellent night at the movies.

Google TV brings a much improved user experience compared to Android TV on the previous model, with the added bonus of native Netflix so you don’t have to plug in an external device or seek out other means to tap into the popular streaming service.

The UST projector, by its very nature, doesn’t dominate the living room either. Sure, it’s not exactly pint-sized but at about the same dimensions of my hi-fi amp, it’s not going to be a room’s primary focal feature. And your expansive wall can still display the family portraits if you elect to splash out on one of Formovie’s snazzy floor-rising ALR screens rather than mount a permanent screen.

I’ve been very impressed during the couple of weeks that my entertainment needs have been met by the Theater Premium. So it wasn’t surprising to find that this model took the second spot at the 2024 UST shootout over at ProjectorScreen.com recently, being beaten only by the Hisense PX3-Pro. High praise indeed.

The Formovie Theater Premium carries a suggested retail price of US$3,499, but there may be a promotion running. At the time of this review’s publication, for example, the ticket price is reduced to $2,999. And you could qualify for another $50 cashback if you share a “genuine product experience” post purchase. Highly recommended.

Product page: Formovie Theater Premium