LG says its new 4K projector is a ‘stylish art object’

LG announced the CineBeam Qube (model HU710PB) laser projector yesterday: It’s got a minimalist look and stature, weighing 3.28 pounds and measuring 135mm square on one side and just 80mm wide at the front. (For comparison, the iPhone 15 Pro is just shy of 147mm tall.) It also has an unspecified number of HDMI eARC and USB-C ports, and a 3W built-in mono speaker. Impressively, LG says it can project an up-to-120-inch image at full 4K resolution with a pretty standard 1.2 throw ratio. Oh, and it has a handle!

There are some apparent drawbacks to this itty bitty projector. For starters, it pushes out a relatively dim 500 ANSI lumens (compared to 2200 ANSI lumens of the larger Xgimi Horizon Pro we reviewed two years ago). That means that, although LG says this projector supports HDR 10, it won’t pop the way brighter HDR TVs do outside of a very dark room. The Qube uses the company’s webOS, which is fine taken on its own as an OS, but lacks the diversity of Google TV or Apple’s tvOS.

But it’s possible none of that matters if you just want a neat little thing that’s cursorily useful. It looks a little like a cross between the Binomes from the 90s CGI cartoon ReBoot and the hand-cranked Bell & Howell 8mm camera that floated around my house growing up. And while I usually recoil at companies describing their devices with terms like “stylish interior accessory,” I have to admit the Qube calls to me, as a person who is willing to forgive the flaws of quirky, boxy tech that has a handle — like the GameCube, for instance. (Obviously, the GameCube, having no flaws, is just a convenient example here.)

LG didn’t announce either pricing or a release date for the Qube, nor does it say whether it will support features from other LG projectors like AirPlay 2, smart voice control, or really… anything about its capabilities outside of the very basics like those mentioned above.