Aurzen is a relatively new projector manufacturer established in 2022 with their first projector hitting the market in 2023. The Aurzen Boom Air has a list price of $299 but can currently be found for $199, increasing its value proposition. This 300 ANSI lumen projector has an LED light engine, TFT LCD technology, and 1080p resolution. Its Google TV operating system, compatibility with external battery banks, and 110-degree tilt stand make it a portable solution for kids, teens, young adults, and first-time projector buyers.

Features

The Aurzen Boom Air is a smart portable projector in the trending spotlight design seen in the lifestyle sector. This style of projector offers good placement flexibility with its 110-degree tilt and compact size, measuring 3.9 x 10.2 x 3.9 inches (WHD) and weighing just 2.7 lbs. It can easily fit in a backpack and even a larger handbag. Add to that its compatibility with external, USB-C powered 65W battery banks, and it becomes a projector than can be taken anywhere. Aurzen markets it as an indoor/outdoor projector, but with just 300 ANSI lumens of brightness, it will only be usable outside at night. Think backyard movie night or camping entertainment. This 1080p projector has a TFT LCD (Thin-Film Transistor Liquid Crystal Display) and an LED light engine.

Aurzen offers screen size suggestions for getting the optimal picture from the Boom Air. For a fully darkened room, the Boom Air can be projected from 100 to 200 inches. In a darkened room, such as what you'd get with blinds, drapes, or blackout curtains with some light peeking out from the sides, 80 to 100 inches is suggested. For dim indoor light, 40 to 60 inches. During testing, I found that 60 inches is fine for indoor light, with results varying depending on the color and direction of that light. It has a 1.28:1 throw ratio. Use ProjectorCentral's throw distance calculator to accurately place the projector within your space.

There are auto-setup features, like geometric correction and auto focus. These work well enough, though auto focus requires manual fine tuning every time you set up the projector. Don't use the "focus" graphic to determine focus. Look at the image behind that graphic to fine tune. You'll find that menus aren't the best to use to find focus—video content is.

The Boom Air has some accessories available separately. The AuroraBeam Lens is a magnetic lens that attaches to the projector to create atmospheric lighting and projections. It's similar to the Magnetic Creative Filter that XGIMI offers for the MoGo 4, which I reviewed. I didn't get to review the Boom Air with this filter, but I think it is likely it works similarly to XGIMI's in using projection to transform the ambiance of a room. Its list price is $39.99, but it is currently on sale for $34.99.

There is a portable 120-inch 1.1 gain milk silk projector screen from Aurzen for only $26.99 that doesn't wrinkle, making it easy to transport. Aurzen also offers a compatible carbon steel stand with 360-degree rotation and 90-degree tilt that can also be used for lights, cameras, and phone clips. It is also compatible with other projectors from Epson, Yaber, and others and can hold up to 18 lbs.

The projector covers 40 percent of the NTSC color space, which is an older standard of color not often seen with projectors today. It's most common to see Rec.709, BT.2020, or DCI-P3. This accounts for some of the issues I saw with color during the review process, but it doesn't mean the projector doesn't have good color. It does, especially in the Custom picture mode. Though it has 1080p resolution, it does support HDR10 on compatible content, such as some video games.

The Boom Air's Wi-Fi connection wasn't always stable. I had to reconnect a few times, once during a performance testing session and once when the projector had been turned off and turned back on. You'll need Wi-Fi to use the Google TV OS, but it never cut out while watching content, so that was a plus. Through Google TV, you can watch Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Max, Hulu, Disney+, YouTube, and other streaming services, as well as download apps from the Google Play Store. I had no issues with any of the apps.

There is no input lag claim for the Aurzen Boom Air, but it is suitable for casual gaming. I played single-player RPGs and platformer games, and gameplay was smooth and enjoyable. The lowest measurement was 38.1ms in Game mode, but I didn't like that picture mode for gaming. I used Standard and Custom, which measured 38.6ms and 41.6ms respectively.

The remote control is lightweight and matte black, with well-configured buttons. The buttons for power and inputs are on the top, with user profiles, Google Assistant, and settings underneath. There is a large navigational pad for controlling the menus and Google TV interface. Below that are the back, home, and a quick switch button to directly toggle to the input signal. The focus buttons and volume control buttons are next, with a mute button in between. Press between the +/- focus controls to auto focus. There are four final buttons, three for streaming services (YouTube, Netflix, Prime Video), and a button for the shortcut menu. It remote is powered by two AAA batteries.

Bluetooth Speaker Mode can be activated in the Settings menu under Projector. There are a couple things you will need to do before using this feature. First, pair your phone with the projector via the Bluetooth menu in the quick settings menu. Then, choose the sound mode you want, such as music, and toggle on the surround mode. It gives the sound a good boost. Once you're in Bluetooth Speaker Mode, you can't open the menu unless you exit by holding the back button, but that will cut off the music and you'll have to reconnect.

The 10-watt speaker was decent, with multiple modes: Standard, Music, Movie, and Sports. It's about as good as most small standard Bluetooth speakers, but not the best of them. I've heard better sound from other projectors with this spotlight design. I'd like more space between bass, mids, and treble, and stronger bass, but for the price, they're good. I listened to pop music, alt rock, classical music, and video game soundtracks in the Music sound mode with Bluetooth Speaker Mode activated, and it was enjoyable.

I just started a new semester for my illustration degree, so I casted my class via Google Chrome. This may be my preferred method of working through the modules in my color theory class. I was able to cast the walkthrough videos for my first assignment on my projector screen and simultaneously follow along in Photoshop. This was convenient, because I didn't need to keep switching tabs, or have the windows side by side on my laptop. It would have made the project more difficult to have a smaller window in Photoshop. There was an annoying thing that happens every once in a while, where the projected image gets blurry. It's not the projector falling out of focus. I've seen this before with other Google TV powered projectors when casting from Macs. The easy fix was to stop casting and re-cast. This wasn't an issue on PCs.

The Aurzen Boom Air projector comes packaged with its power cord and adapter, the remote control (AAA batteries not included), cleaning kit, user manual, and warranty card. It has a one-year limited warranty with an extended warranty of an additional year available, a 30-day money back guarantee, and lifetime customer support.

Performance

Color Modes. The Aurzen Boom Air has five picture modes: Standard, Vivid, Movie, Game, and Custom. A unique quality of this projector is the effect the High Brightness power mode has on color in that it doesn't change anything about any of the modes. Usually, we can expect a green tinge to everything, whether that's in a single brightest mode or from the highest brightness power mode. The only thing this power mode changes is the brightness level, giving colors more of a pop. The fan isn't even that loud—no louder than my air conditioner, in fact.

However, using either Standard or ECO power modes will extend the lifetime of the light engine, so many will opt for these two modes unless more brightness is needed. The following observations were made while projecting in the Standard power mode, using a color wheel to reference.

Standard mode's color leaned more toward blue in the greens, blues, and purples of the color wheel, while reds, oranges, and yellows had a slight orange hue to them. Of these, red was the most underwhelming as it had a rust color to it, rather than the true red vibrancy of the source material. It measured 232 lumens in the High Brightness power mode and 182 in Standard.

Vivid was the same with the reds, but the mode punched up the overall color of the wheel, with magentas being the most affected. They became a vivid fuchsia, while purples looked more lavender than the source material. It measured 241 lumens in the High Brightness power mode and 219 in Standard.

The color was much improved in Movie mode, with reds looking truer to color than in the previous two modes. Oranges were slightly muddy, but this didn't translate to real-world usage. This is a good mode for most types of content. It measured 242 lumens in the High Brightness power mode and 216 in Standard.

Game mode's color was similar to Vivid. The magentas also looked more fuchsia, and those purples looked lavender. The big difference between the two was the vibrancy, with Vivid looking significantly more so than Game, but Game mode did punch up the contrast as well. Oddly, it measured brighter in the Standard power mode than it did in High Brightness, at 196 and 220 lumens respectively.

Custom mode started out with the same color as Standard as its foundation. There's limited control for contrast, saturation, hue, color gain (red, green, blue), and gamma for customization.

These were my settings, which improved color depth and black level performance:

Contrast - 50
Saturation - 45
Sharpness - 10
Color Gain

• Red (39)
• Green (26)
• Blue (8)

What I liked about this mode, aside from its performance, is that it exceeded its 300 ANSI lumen claim by 13 lumens in the High Brightness power mode. In the Standard power mode, it measured 222 ANSI lumens.

I used the integrated Google TV and PlayStation 4 to test video content performance.

1080p Streaming. I watched Game of Thrones, season 4, episode 7 on Max in the Custom picture mode. The Queen Regent Cersei's black dress showcased the best this projector can do in terms of black levels. The dress was dark and rich and preserved shadow detail. That was great black level performance for this class of projector. Skin tones looked natural with the settings I outlined above, which I noticed when watching Tyrion Lannister and Lord Varys on the stand. There was no highlight clipping in that scene and contrast was good.

The scene after the trial in Tyrion's cell had a beautiful mix of dark and highlights which could have proven difficult for it, but the black levels were fantastic with no crushing, and the highlights looked good too, with no clipping. The clothing textures in the scene where Arya and the Hound come upon a wounded man in a destroyed village were detailed, with excellent sharpness.

Later in the episode, Sansa builds a snow castle of Winterfell. The snow in that scene had some highlight clipping. All the picture modes struggled with this, but Movie least of all. Movie is a good mode for watching film and TV, but you can add more punch to the color by using Custom. Custom may not be right for all content, but it should be for most.

While it looked best in a fully darkened room, it was watchable in dim, warm light, but a brighter warm light washed it out significantly more and made darker scenes, like the one where the wildlings raided Mole's Town, less desirable. When the light wasn't shining directly on the screen, but behind it or from the sides, it performed better. Still, if you're looking for a projector to use during the day and don't have good lighting control, you'll want a projector with a lot more lumens.

Also on Max was The Last of Us, which had good color in Custom mode. In season 1, episode 4, the scene at the end where Joel and Ellie are sleeping in an abandoned building, the projector produced an image that was a bit flat. The other modes didn't really improve it. Episode 5 had the same issue in the opening scene where the people rise up against FEDRA. Changing the gamma to Normal or Bright helped, but at the expense of color depth. Overall, skin tones looked natural and there wasn't any excessive clipping. If you want good black levels, you'll need to set gamma to Dark, which also improves the way the image looks overall, but some scenes may require that setting to change unless you're cool with it. It's a quick enough thing in the picture menu, so not a dealbreaker, especially for the price.

The final TV show I watched was Wednesday on Netflix. Season 2, episode 1 in Custom mode had good depth of color, black level performance, and even shadow detail. Skin tones were natural and there wasn't any clipping. There was a black and white shot that had great contrast. Reds looked better in this show than any other piece of content I viewed, as seen in the car ride where Wedesday and Pugsy are heading back to school. It looked the best consistently throughout the show out of the TV content that I viewed.

1080p Blu-ray. I was looking through my collection of Blu-rays and realized it's been a while since I've seen Ready Player One or tested a projector with it. It used to be one of my go-to films for video performance tests. It was here that I realized something I do not like about the projector. Between my streaming and Blu-ray testing sessions, the projector went back to default settings in the Custom picture mode. I turned it on and began watching in Standard, which clipped highlights in several of the opening scenes. Movie mode improved things, but the color looked a bit flat as compared to Custom with the settings I provided.

In the trial for the first key, the race looked excellent, with good black level performance when in Custom mode. Skin tones looked natural both inside and outside the Oasis—so whether they were on real actors or their computer-generated avatars. Hair is rendered realistically in on those avatars, and the projector delivered good sharpness.

The Halliday Archives' marble floors had fantastic reflections. There was only minor highlight clipping, most obvious with one of the lights in Wade's rig when he realized what he had to do to win the race and be first to the key, and in the next scene on Nolan Sorrento's X1 suit. Overall, the image was good for the price. The scene where Parzival (Wade's avatar) is getting ready in H's workshop to meet Artemis at the dance club was dark and had excellent shadow detail. H's avatar also had excellent texture.

It was in Big Hero 6 that things got interesting. This film has a lot of reds in it. The projector struggled a bit with reaching true red, even in the color mode performance tests, with the closest picture mode being Custom. In Big Hero 6, even that wasn't quite cutting it.

Movie mode didn't do as well on those reds as I would have hoped, but Hiro's red shirt looked rich in both modes in that first scene but leaned more toward a rusty red in other scenes. The red floor of the bot fight wasn't quite right, but it should be fine for most people. There weren't any issues with other colors, except that in Movie, some of the richness of color seen in Custom is lost. Some will prefer Movie mode because it does the best on skin tones while preserving highlight detail, while others will want the richness of color provided by Custom. This was particularly noticeable in the lab at Tadashi's "Nerd School."

When Aunt Cass entered Hiro's room to give him food, her the black of her shirt wasn't crushed. Baymax didn't have any highlight clipping when he was in Hiro's room until Hiro was trying to push him back into his case, and it was only a small circle on his belly. The scene where Baymax leaves their house to see where the tiny robot wanted to go pushed highlights to their limit with excessive clipping. Movie preserved more detail than Custom did.

Gaming Quality. The input lag ranged from 38.1 to 41.6ms. When playing Kingdom Hearts, I preferred Standard mode over the other options. Game mode was a bit too desaturated. It's a colorful game, so some of the charm was lost in Game mode. Standard preserved highlights better than Custom, though both modes had satisfactory color. Reds still weren't quite right, seen in the red on Sora's outfit, or Huey's shirt and cap in the triplet's shop in Traverse Town. Colors in general weren't as saturated as they should be, which I noticed most on some of the Heartless as I was fighting them, but the color was good enough.

Gameplay was smooth with no lag issues, even in the more animation-heavy sequences. I could play with the lights on—even in bright, warm light—but it did wash out the image a bit. Nothing like it did when projecting video content like Game of Thrones, though. Changing the lights to purple improved things a lot, and other ambient lighting like blue or magenta looked better than green. Green just altered the color to look weird, whereas purple enhanced the experience. There's nothing like mood lighting while gaming.

As I expected based on what I saw watching video content, the desert world Peace Keepers in Spyro: Reignited had clipped highlights on the sand. That was true in every mode. Movie did the best on the highlights, but the color was a bit flat as compared to Custom or Standard. I preferred Custom. The color looked good in all the modes, except Game. Spyro's purple skin wasn't quite right in any mode, but it was fine. It just lacked the usual vibrancy and tone.

I completed the Peace Keepers world and moved onto the Magic Crafters world (one of my favorites) via hot air balloon. This level's terrain is rocky, with grass and some snow. Surprisingly, the projector preserved detail in the highlights of the snow much better than it did with the sand. It was nicely sharp, and the interior of the ice palace had well rendered textures and reflections. This is another vividly colored game, so it performed as well as Kingdom Hearts did when faced with ambient light. Gameplay was smooth, and I had no issues with lag.

I wanted to see what a less cartoony, more realistic looking game was like using this projector and if I could play in ambient light. Ghost of Tsushima served this purpose well. In purple light, I could play with no problem. It was too washed out with warm white light, but you could probably get away with a dim, orange light. Only, the image lost a lot of detail, and that was especially difficult at night within the game world. A fully darkened room is best for these kinds of single player RPG games.

Other than that, black levels and shadow detail were good. Nighttime looked great in the game, but I did notice some slight clipping in the moon's reflection on a wet dirt path. Not as drastic as the clipping was in Spyro, though. It took a second to get used to the controls again—I accidentally sliced through a fisherman's door rather than open it like a decent Samurai—but once I did, gameplay was lag-free and highly pleasant. The game looked fantastic in Custom mode, with natural skin tones and beautiful environments.

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Conclusion

The Aurzen Boom Air is a compact smart projector for those on a budget or first-time projector owners. It had good performance for its price point, especially black levels when projecting in the Custom picture mode with gamma set to Dark. That Custom mode offers the best possible color for most types of content, while its Standard and Movie picture modes yielded better results for others. Its High Brightness power mode gives a bit of a boost when more brightness is needed, and it doesn't have the excessive green brightest settings often deliver.

With Google TV, 10-watt speaker, and compatibility with external battery banks make it a good choice for on-the-go entertainment. It's better suited to nighttime viewing but can handle a bit of ambient light. While its input lag measurements weren't fast enough for serious gamers, more casual gamers will find the Boom Air to perform well. If you're looking for a $200 to $300 projector, this one performs better than many of that price point.

Measurements

Brightness. Aurzen rates the Boom Air at 300 ANSI lumens. This is one of those fun cases where I get to report the projector exceeded its claim. The brightest picture mode is Custom in the High Brightness power mode, measuring 313 lumens. The best part is that the color still looks good in High Brightness, which is not something many other projectors can claim, especially at this price point. Custom is the best mode, but you could use any other mode. Vivid would probably be the least used, but there are still some types of content where it might excel.

Aurzen Boom Air Lumens

Color Modes	High Performance	Standard	ECO
Standard	232	182	163
Vivid	241	219	165
Movie	242	216	166
Game	196	220	165
Custom	313	222	169

Brightness Uniformity. I could tell the Aurzen Boom Air didn't have great brightness uniformity before I took the measurements. There was visible dimming when projecting a solid color, such as white, on both the left and right edges of the screen. The corners showed the most dimming, with the top right sector being the dimmest, and the bottom center sector was the brightest sector. The Boom Air has a brightness uniformity was 54%, and although this is below average, it isn't so noticeable in video viewing. You would most likely see it on menus with solid colors.

Fan Noise. Aurzen rates the fan noise of the Boom Air at 26.5 dBa in laboratory conditions. My testing room's noise floor was 31.7 dBa at the time of measurement, which was done with my sound meter just over three feet away from each side of the projector. The measurements were as follows:

Standard
Front - 35.5
Rear - 35.8
Right - 36.3
Left - 36.4

Eco
Front - 32.5
Rear - 33.3
Right - 33.5
Left - 33.3

High Brightness
Front - 40.1
Rear - 40.5
Right - 39.6
Left - 41.7

Input Lag. There is no published input lag rating for the Boom Air, but it is suitable for casual gaming such as single player RPG, platformer, puzzle, or cozy online multiplayers. Input lag was measured using a Leo Bodnar 4K Lag Tester, and its lowest measurement was 38.1ms in Game Mode. Serious gamers or competitive gamers will want a lower latency projector.

Game Mode
1080p @ 60 fps — 38.1ms

Standard Mode
1080p @ 60 fps — 38.6ms

Custom Mode
1080p @ 60 fps — 41.6ms

Connections

• HDMI
• USB Type-A
• USB Type-C (Charging interface, support PD3.0 protocol)
• DC In (Power)

For more detailed specifications and connections, check out our Aurzen BOOM Air projector page.

To buy this projector, use Where to Buy online, or get a price quote by email direct from Projector Central authorized dealers using our E-Z Quote tool.

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