One of the more attention-grabbing features of the Vankyo 1080p Mini Wireless Leisure 530W Projector is that it comes with a 100-inch screen. That’s already a bargain for $229.99, and even more so when you add in the bundled HDMI cable and three-year warranty, then drop the price to $199.99 thanks to the $30 coupon Vankyo normally includes on its Amazon page. As you might expect from the low cost, Vankyo cuts a few corners on some features. But that doesn’t keep it from being a surprisingly capable projector for the price.
Cut Corners, Carefully Chosen
The 530W has a native and maximum 1080p resolution. According to Vankyo, it’s built around a single 1920-by-1080 LCD with color filters and a white LED source, much like a monitor. The combination means it can’t show rainbow artifacts, a perk if those flashes bother you.
Most LED projectors in this price range, including the ViewSonic M1 mini and the Kodak Luma 150, are palmtops or pocket-size. The 530W is more of a shrunk-down version of more expensive lamp-based designs, weighing just 4 pounds. At 3.5 by 9.4 by 8.3 inches (HWD), it has more than enough room on its back panel for all the connectors you’re likely to need, including two full-size HDMI ports. There’s also a USB-A port that can power a streaming stick or read files from a USB memory key.
One of the corners Vankyo cut is with the TF memory card slot, which can’t read microSD cards. Another is that the built-in file reader is a little clumsier to use than typical for showing photos from memory cards and USB memory. The better choice is to connect to your Android or iOS phone or tablet by Wi-Fi for screen mirroring, which also works swimmingly for watching movies. I connected to a Samsung Galaxy S20 FE and mirrored its Netflix app without any difficulty.
The unit I tested would not permit me to connect it to a Wi-Fi router. Vankyo says that the feature will be added in later units. If you need that capability, confirm that it’s included in the unit you’re ordering.
Physical setup is standard. Plug in the power cord (there is no battery) and connect to an image source. Then point the projector at whatever you’re using for a screen, move it as needed to adjust image size, and manually adjust focus. One particularly welcome touch is that the 530W—unlike many inexpensive projectors—makes focusing easy. The large focus wheel moves smoothly, offers just the right resistance for reliable control, and changes focus only a little with small adjustments.
Also in the category of pleasant surprises is that the onboard audio is much better than typical for such a small projector, especially given its 3-watt speaker. The 530W delivered high enough volume in my tests for a small-to-medium family room, and the quality was sufficient, if not outstanding. There’s also a 3.5 mm stereo audio out port for connecting to a sound system.
One reason to boost the audio with an external speaker is that the projector’s fan noise is unusually high. I’m not particularly sensitive to fan noise, and I still found it annoying.
The bundled screen counts as a bonus feature, but it’s also one of the places where Vankyo cuts corners. It consists of material only, with metal grommets along reinforced edges. You have to hang it pretty much the same way you would a bed sheet. In addition, the 100-inch diagonal size is a bit optimistic for the 1.0-gain material. Even in a dark room, it’s larger than the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) recommends for the projector’s brightness. (More on brightness shortly.)
I measured the input lag at 44.5ms. That’s suitable for casual gaming, but there are many better gaming projectors out there.
Skip the Default Settings
Of course, what matters most is how good the image looks. The 530W gets mixed results on that score depending on whether you stay with default settings or tweak them. The menus offer three predefined color modes: Soft, Standard, and Vivid. All of them were a bit green-shifted in my tests, the colors looked a little washed out even at smaller image sizes than you would probably want to use, and none of them let you change any settings except Color Temperature. Fortunately, there’s also a User mode with a few more settings available.
User mode adds settings for Brightness, Color (which adjusts saturation), Contrast, and Sharpening. I was able to remove most of the green bias by adjusting the red and blue settings. I also wound up adjusting the brightness and contrast as well as dropping the sharpness level, as the default level was high enough to give the image a grainy look by bringing out otherwise subtle digital noise.
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After these adjustments, some colors were still off by enough to notice, but the sense of graininess was gone, contrast and shadow detail were more than acceptable even in demanding dark scenes, and color accuracy was good enough for most people to consider acceptable for casual viewing.
Vankyo rates the 530W’s brightness at 290 ANSI lumens. That’s low compared to the claims for some directly competing projectors, but those claims are usually exaggerated, sometimes by an order of magnitude. The 530W was just as bright as I expect for the rating. In a dark room, using my 1.0-gain screen, I settled on a 72-inch diagonal image for extended viewing, which is well within the range SMPTE recommends for 290 lumens. In low to moderate ambient light, I wound up with a 51-inch image, which was also quite watchable in a family room even in the brighter light of a cloudy day. The 530W is also suitable for outdoor use, and the low price and bundled screen make it a good pick if you’re putting together a backyard movie night on the cheap.
A Solid Choice for a Shoestring Budget
The Vankyo 1080p Mini Wireless Leisure 530W Projector misses a few potentially important tricks. If you want a projector that delivers better image quality straight out of the box, be sure to look at the Miroir Synq M189, which can also power a streaming stick. If you want one with built-in streaming, consider the Kodak Luma 350. If your budget is really tight, take a look at the ViewSonic M1 mini. But if this is your first time creating a projection setup in your basement or backyard and you need a simple, inexpensive combination of projector and screen, the 530W bundle is a more than credible choice.
