The XGIMI HORIZON Pro is a 4k HDR10/HLG projector. The projector comes with a full suite of image correction technologies, including autofocus, intelligent screen adjustment, and auto keystone correction with object avoidance, so it compensates for any geometry errors in the image automatically and adjusts itself when it detects objects in the frame. It has Android TV with Chromecast and AirScreen built in and supports Bluetooth 5.0/BLE and Wi-Fi. It has two HDMI ports, each capable of 4k @ 60Hz, and can passthrough advanced audio formats from DTS and Dolby through eARC. Finally, it has two integrated 8W Harman/Kardon speakers.
Our Verdict
The XGIMI HORIZON Pro is an okay choice for movies as long as you're watching in a dim room. It's bright enough to look decent with the lights down, but it washes out quickly once you start turning lamps on, so it isn't a great living room lights-on projector. Contrast is also a limitation: it holds up better in brighter scenes, but darker content looks flatter, and blacks don't stay convincingly deep. Out of the box, color accuracy is lacking, but it improves a lot with calibration, and its wide color gamut helps once it's dialed in, even if the projector's brightness limits how much those colors truly pop.
- Full suite of smart features and wireless connectivity options.
Colorful in SDR content.
Bright enough for dim rooms.
- Inadequate pre-calibration color accuracy, so you really need to calibrate it to get accurate colors.
No Dolby Vision or HDR10+ support.
Just isn't bright enough to handle lights in the room.
Sub-par contrast overall, as it's especially bad in dark scenes, although it does better in bright content.
The XGIMI HORIZON Pro isn't a great fit for gaming if you're sensitive to input lag, and it's best treated as a casual, slower-paced option rather than something for fast action or competitive play. Image quality is fine in the right setup: it looks clean in a dim room, and calibrated color can look quite good. That said, its contrast is weakest in darker content, so dark games don't have much depth and black levels look gray, while brighter games tend to look more convincing.
Colorful in SDR content.
Bright enough for dim rooms.
- Inadequate pre-calibration color accuracy, so you really need to calibrate it to get accurate colors.
High input lag, even in Game Mode.
No 120Hz or 240Hz options.
No Dolby Vision or HDR10+ support.
Just isn't bright enough to handle lights in the room.
Sub-par contrast overall, as it's especially bad in dark scenes, although it does better in bright content.
The XGIMI HORIZON Pro is bright enough for dim rooms, but it quickly washes out when lights are turned on. Keep it dark if you want to get the most out of this projector.
Bright enough for dim rooms.
Just isn't bright enough to handle lights in the room.
The XGIMI HORIZON Pro's contrast is sub-par. It performs well in brighter scenes, but its contrast performance is bad in darker content. Overall, it just doesn't deliver solid blacks.
Sub-par contrast overall, as it's especially bad in dark scenes, although it does better in bright content.
Changelog
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Updated Jan 26, 2026:
We've modified the text in our Brightness and Native Contrast text boxes as a result of our latest test bench. We've also added Brightness and Contrast performance usages in the Verdict section.
- Updated Jan 22, 2026: We've converted the review to Test Bench 0.11, which renames our Contrast test to Native Contrast, and adds a Sequential Contrast test box. We also added new Brightness and Contrast performance usages in Our Verdict. See the 0.11 changelog.
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Updated Oct 03, 2025:
We made some minor adjustments before our official TBU 0.10 launch.
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Updated Oct 03, 2025:
We've added text to the Imaging, Optics, Noise, Supported Resolutions, HDR Format Support, 3D, Input Lag, and Audio Passthrough boxes as a result of our latest test bench. We've also added Gaming and Game Mode Responsiveness usages in the Verdict section.
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We reviewed the XGIMI HORIZON Pro 4k projector. It is the mid-range model in XGIMI's HORIZON line of projectors, which also includes the XGIMI HORIZON and the XGIMI HORIZON Ultra. The Ultra is the only one of the three to use a hybrid Laser-LED Dual Light, with the other two projectors using a more traditional DLP lamp.
| Model | Light Source | Resolution | Speakers |
|---|---|---|---|
| XGIMI HORIZON Ultra | Hybrid Laser-LED | 4k (with pixel shift) | 2 x 12W Harman/Kardon |
| XGIMI HORIZON Pro | DLP lamp | 4k (with pixel shift) | 2 x 8W Harman/Kardon |
| XGIMI HORIZON | DLP lamp | 1080p | 2 x 8W Harman/Kardon |
Our unit was manufactured in February 2023.
Popular Projector Comparisons
The XGIMI HORIZON Pro 4k projector is adequate for watching movies, with a reasonable mix of image quality and smart features. However, it's expensive for the image quality that it provides. The XGIMI HORIZON Ultra is a bit more expensive but offers significantly better image quality with even more modern smart features. If you don't care about smart features, the Epson Home Cinema 3800 offers much better image quality for a similar price. Other projectors, like the BenQ TK700STi, offer slightly better image quality for a similar price point, making the XGIMI HORIZON Pro a poor value proposition overall.
Check out our recommendations for the best 4k projectors and the best projectors for home use. If you'd prefer to shop for a projector that you can place very close to your screen or wall, look up the best short-throw projectors instead.
The XGIMI HORIZON Pro is slightly better than the XGIMI HORIZON. The HORIZON Pro projects a sharper image due to its 4k pixel-shifting technology, although the HORIZON is brighter than the Pro. Both projectors are very inaccurate, but the Pro is more accurate pre-calibration than the HORIZON, and the Pro is also more accurate post-calibration.
The XGIMI HORIZON Ultra is much better than the XGIMI HORIZON Pro. The Ultra is significantly brighter than the Pro and has better pre-calibration color accuracy. The Ultra also offers more modern smart features, including Android TV 11, Bluetooth 5.2, and Wi-Fi 6, as well as a more powerful integrated sound system.
The XGIMI HORIZON Pro is slightly better than the XGIMI Halo+, though the Halo+ is more portable thanks to its lighter weight and integrated battery. Aside from portability, both projectors share similar characteristics, though the HORIZON Pro delivers a sharper image thanks to its pixel-shifting technology. The HORIZON Pro is also brighter than the Halo+, but the Halo+ has slightly better contrast.
The BenQ X3000i is much better than the XGIMI HORIZON Pro. The BenQ is brighter, has deeper contrast, and is much more accurate than the XGIMI. They're both capable of projecting up to 4k @ 60Hz, but the BenQ is better for gamers due to its 1080p @ 240Hz capabilities. The XGIMI is, however, the smaller and lighter product with a full suite of image correction features and two full USB data ports. The BenQ is limited to keystone correction on the vertical axis and has no data USB ports, making the XGIMI easier to move around.
We've independently bought and tested over 60 projectors, and we've published all the detailed results for each so you can decide which one to buy. These have all been tested under the same standardized methodology, allowing you to compare them side by side. We still have all these projects in our lab so we can continually go back and compare them to ensure our reviews are still accurate. All our test methodology is also public on our website, so you can validate the results yourself.
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Test Results
The XGIMI HORIZON Pro 4k's peak brightness is adequate. It's bright enough to look good in a dark room, but the image isn't nearly as pleasant when a few lights are on. It has great brightness uniformity, so the sides of the projection don't show any noticeable differences in brightness when compared to the center, except for a bit of darkening in the corners. If you're not satisfied with this level of brightness, this projector's higher-tier model, the XGIMI HORIZON Ultra, is significantly brighter.
The table below shows how bright the projector is in its uncalibrated Picture Modes.
| Picture Mode | White Light Output (WLO) | Color Light Output (CLO) |
|---|---|---|
| Movie | 1,129 lm | 1,133 lm |
| Football | 1,125 lm | 1,133 lm |
| Office | 852 lm | 808 lm |
| Game | 1,128 lm | 1,142 lm |
The XGIMI HORIZON Pro 4k has sub-par native contrast. Blacks look very raised in near-black scenes, and while it does better in brighter content, it never truly delivers a solid contrast experience.
The projector's dynamic contrast option, called Local Contrast, doesn't actually do anything; the results are the same no matter the setting.
The projector has a wide color gamut. It has fantastic coverage of the Rec. 709 color space used with SDR content, although its blues are noticeably inaccurate. It does a decent job with the wider Rec. 2020 color space.
This projector's out-of-the-box color accuracy is inadequate. All colors show inaccuracy errors, especially blues and cyans. Blues and sometimes reds are overrepresented in all shades of gray and bright whites. Thankfully, the projector's color temperature is excellent, even if it's slightly on the cold side. If you'd prefer a more accurate projector, look up the BenQ HT3560 instead.
The XGIMI HORIZON Pro 4k has limited calibration options as it only has 1-point white balance calibration, but it's enough to improve the projector's color accuracy significantly. Colors still show many accuracy errors, but they're now passable. The white balance is now excellent, and the color temperature is now very close to target, even if just a tad on the warm side.
This DLP projector uses an LED bulb as its light source, and it's rated for up to 30,000 hours by the manufacturer, so you likely won't ever have to worry about replacing it. It doesn't do true 4k as it uses pixel shifting to create a higher-resolution image. This offers better quality than 1080p but doesn't look as good as native 4k.
The unit uses an RGB LED engine whose SPD shows sharp blue and red spikes, with a broader green hump. Practically, you get long light-source life with no lamp swaps, stable color over time, and zero laser speckle. Colors can look pleasant and saturated in SDR, but peak brightness is limited, so wide-gamut highlights in HDR don't pop as much as on brighter laser projectors.
The projector has a fixed 1.20 throw (no optical zoom) with autofocus and auto-keystone. Plan placement carefully because there's no lens shift; centering the lens and keeping keystone off preserves sharpness and avoids extra lag. Here are some quick throw distances to help you out (16:9):
- 80″ → ~7.0 ft
- 90″ → ~7.8 ft
- 100″ → ~8.7 ft
- 120″ → ~10.5 ft
- 150″ → ~13.1 ft
- 200″ → ~17.4 ft
The XGIMI HORIZON Pro 4k projector isn't designed to be portable, as you need to plug it into an outlet, but it's still somewhat lightweight. This unit does have full auto keystone correction with intelligent screen alignment and obstacle avoidance, so it detects if there are objects in the frame and adjusts it correspondingly. It also has autofocus, so you don't need to do manual image corrections on this projector, making it easy to set up. It has two 8W Harmon/Kardon speakers, so you won't need to worry about connecting it to a soundbar if you move it.
Fan noise is noticeable at full brightness, but you're not likely to be bothered by it when watching loud movies.
The projector has two HDMI ports, one of which doubles as the eARC port. It also has Bluetooth 5.0/BLE and Wi-Fi support.
The projector accepts 4k/60 and 1080p/60 (including 4:4:4 for PC use) without issues. There's no 120Hz support, however.
With Game Mode active, the projector's input lag is really high, even for slow single-player titles. Forget playing faster titles on this projector.
The projector's eARC works for lossy Dolby formats (including Dolby Atmos over DD+), but the unit doesn't pass lossless codecs; LPCM multichannel and DTS formats are limited. If you need full-fat Atmos/DTS:X from discs or high-bitrate streams, route sources through your AVR and send video to the projector.
