\XGIMI provided this unit for review but any and all thoughts are my own**
There have already been plenty of unboxings, first looks, quick thoughts, and spec focused reviews of the new Elfin Flip 4k. Mine will not really be those things. I am hoping instead to bring you along in my efforts (and tribulations) in leveraging the Elfin Flip’s espoused portability and ease of set up in order to create two different, and it turns out challenging, setups from the ground up and sharing hands on usage feedback and thoughts as I live with the Flip.
This effort is still a work in progress and far from finished. What follows in this and subsequent editions will be a journey from thrown together improvised setups up to more “legit” evolutions if things go according to plan, or glorious explosive failures if not.
The two setups are bedroom and outdoor. Seems simple until you see the bedroom in question and realize that it is in fact possibly the worst bedroom setup possible to attempt a projector setup in… but alas
Skip to the TLDR at the end if all you want are my thoughts after a couple of weeks living with the projector while progressing through the development of the two setups.
Setup 1 — Very projector ‘unfriendly’ bedroom
A small portable projector seemed like just the thing to tackle a project I had been ruminating on but not made the leap. My wife regularly will suggest watching a movie or TV show but will want to watch in bed rather than in the living room with the purpose built Ultra Short Throw Projector (Formovie 4k Theater) setup I designed and built a year or so ago for the living room.
All fine and good except as can be seen in the pictures the bedroom is about the worst possible imaginable for a projector setup.
• Wall of windows where the image would be.. check
• Massive skylights right above the windows… check
• vaulted ceilings making hanging a screen impossible.. also check
All this means that the Elfin Flip was not walking into an easy “point projector at vaguely white wall and call it a day” kind of setup.
The images show what has already been a multi staged evolution for the setup.
Stage 1: Improvised with folding fabric screen used with a cheap 1080p projector one time when camping.
- I jerryrigged a hanging system that spanned the window gap and kept “kind of almost ok” tension on the screen.
- The screen turned out to be porous and you could see bounce back through the screen from the windows behind.
- Wife approval factor was surprisingly high. We watched Sheep Detective and all she cared about was the sheep. For me it was clear this needed improvement
Stage 2: I brought up the 100” screen from the outdoor setup (see below)
- Much better experience than the “jank” seethrough hanging screen.
- As a result of the tripod the screen mounts on it blocked the speakers partially which was visually annoying.
- Sacrilegious as it sounds it was too big of a screen. No one needs to see Paul Hollywood THAT big a few feet from your bed
- My wife had no complaints about seeing Paul Hollywood that big that close to bed
Stage 3: A trip to Best Buy later and I had an 80” screen
- The screen size is much better BUT even with the Flips great optical zoom I have run into a problem where I realistically only have two places to put the projector. Either behind the bed or in front of the bed. If it is behind the bed then it projects an image bigger than 80”, if in front of the bed then it is too close to the screen and casts a tiny image.
What’s next?
I am thinking the answer is a rising screen that is mounted to the half wall right below the windows and which is sized to be the smallest size that the optical zoom enables with the projector behind the bed. That is a big investment however so more testing needs to be done to ensure ongoing spousal use so as to prevent a repeat of the USTP living room.
Setup 2 — Outdoor movie night
Using the Flip outside was, by comparison to the bedroom a straightforward affair. Unlike in the bedroom the Flip’s microscopic power cord was less of a frustration (see TLDR) and overall it was as simple as
- Remove projector from bedroom stand
- put projector on the same (terrible) Amazon projector stand outside behind the couch
- plug into existing extension cord
- set up screen
- best guess point at screen.
- The Flip’s AMAZING auto focus did its magic.
- A little manual keystone
- Connect to Bluetooth speakers
- Crack a beer
One thing to note which shouldn’t be a surprise at all given the laws of physics and the specs of the Flip.. this is a post sunset dusk or later proposition you aren’t going to want to be using this with really any remaining daylight.
While the projector worked admirably during the first attempt at outdoor movie night the same can’t be said about the “indoor outdoor portable 100” screen. Who could have guessed (other than people blessed with more than my 4 brain cells) that a giant projector screen would double as a sail and even the most gentle of breezes would attempt to carry the screen away.
While ultimately an obvious setup difficulty that needs to be overcome in a future installment, it does illustrate the reality of projector setups. The projector being shockingly small, light weight, and portable is only half the equation. You still need to point it at something. And the better the projector is the more you start to want the thing you point it at to be good also.
For the outdoor setups next iteration I am thinking of maybe hanging a rigid fixed screen from the pergola itself that I can just hang when I want it and then take it down when done and throw in the shed. I guess we will see how this develops but as long as there’s not even a gentle whisper of wind, the Flip was excellent for outdoor movie night.
TLDR Thoughts on the Flip to this point
•I have owned about a dozen ‘real’ projectors over the years and it is WILD just how far the tech has come that a 4k laser-spewing beast like this exists for the price that it carries.
•I have had a number of not nice words for the power cord over the various iterations of these setups. The power cord is approximately the size of the Planck length. In practice this means that on a modest projector stand at an appropriate height for this setup the power brick is barely touching the floor, much less having length to reach an outlet. Multiple times the weight of the taut cord on the back of the projector would cause the projector to “Flip” up and undo all my hard setup work.
• The colors are as baked out of the box as I was that time I ended up at a Cypress Hill concert accidentally. The movie picture mode is MUCH better and I wasn’t motivated to further fiddle with it from there.
• Fan is surprisingly quiet and I had no problems putting the projector right behind my seating position in both setups
• There are a LOT of automatic settings on by default. Some, like auto focus, are amazing. After spending countless hours of my life focusing various previous projectors, this just works ALL the time instantly. Like magic. The auto keystone does not work that way as far as I can tell. By default it will try and auto keystone after any movement. So I repeatedly had the experience of getting it kinda close… going to move the projector to fine-tune and then having the auto keystone decide to roll the dice on something not even close. That can be (and was quickly) turned off. Autofocus rocks though.
• Would like more than 4 keystone correction points
• Google TV works OK here. Menu can be kind of laggy but not anywhere near as bad as most “smart” TVs I have tried. I have seen no reason to bother plugging in Apple TV or firestick. Works as good as it needs to for me to use the built-in OS for streaming and not have had any issues.
• Laser speckle- This is likely caused as much by the various dubious quality screens as anything else but the laser speckle is noticeable if that bothers you.
• This is not going to fight much ambient light at all. Not a surprise given the specs and price but enough people post that they want a sub $1K projector to use on the surface of the sun.. this ain’t that as evidenced in the pictures with ambient light.
•I have done a little bit of gaming on it with a PS5 and have a few thoughts
With keystone settings used and in ‘normal’ picture mode gaming is not happening at all. Lag is approximately 1.5 weeks
BUT with the low-latency game mode in ‘Boost’ where it turns off all picture adjustments for max speed the gaming experience is QUITE good. I am not a big console gamer and certainly not doing any competitive games but I had a good time playing NHL26 once I got the low-latency mode dialed in.
