Xgimi Aura 2: Is it a smarter buy than a big TV?

Let's start with price: The Aura 2 sells for $2,700, which at one time would have felt like a bargain for a 100-inch picture. These days, however, you can buy a 98- or 100-inch TV for less than $2,500. Meanwhile, perusing some of the Black Friday deals happening at the time of this writing, I see a couple 85-inch models selling for under $1,000.

While "bigger is better" almost always applies to screen size, a key question is just how big a screen your living room can accommodate — and how close your couch sits to the wall. If you've ever wound up stuck in the front row at a movie theater, you know there's such a thing as "too close." There are instances where bigger might not be better.

For example, I tested the Aura 2 in a friend's basement using an Xgimi-supplied 100-inch wall-mount projection screen (which is not currently available for purchase, but is similar to this).

Although he already had a standard-height TV stand to accommodate the projector, he also had a slightly low ceiling in that spot: just 6.5 feet. The result was that even with the screen installed right against the top of the ceiling, it wasn't high enough to get the full 100-inch projection. Either the screen needed to go higher (impossible) or the projector needed to be lower (meaning a different piece of furniture).

This despite the Aura 2's ability to scale and shift its image by a few inches. (It also has an auto-keystone capability to create a perfectly rectangular image, and it can even compensate for a wall that's not perfectly flat.) At a minimum, be sure to take some measurements before buying.

Xgimi Aura 2: What it's like as a TV

There's good news and bad news. A reasonably detailed instruction guide helps you with Aura placement and operation, and when you power up the machine and its nifty mechanical lens cover retracts, it produces a bright, colorful picture — one of the best I've seen from a projector. (Let me clarify again that I'm basing this on a 100-inch projection. Anything larger may see a reduction in image quality; that's just the nature of projectors.) Even in a well-lit room, I found I could watch movies and TV shows comfortably.

As for sound, the built-in Harman Kardon speakers are definitely better than the speakers built into most TVs, in part because they're actually pointed in your direction (as opposed to down or back). There's also Dolby Atmos support baked in, and while you don't get the same surround-sound effect you would from physical rear speakers, it does a pretty decent job enveloping you in the action. There's not a ton of bass, however, so you might end up wanting a soundbar that includes a subwoofer and perhaps some rear speakers as well. (Here's our roundup of the best soundbars if you'd like to investigate some options.)

All good so far, right? Here's the first problem: The Aura 2 runs on Android TV 11, an operating system that's over four years old. I won't bore you with the oddities of Google's Android TV updates, but suffice it say, version 14 arrived earlier this year. I'm not wild about spending $2,700 on something with 2020 software.

What's more, whatever the reason, this version of Android TV can run most major streaming apps — except for Netflix. If you want that service, you'll have to plug a streaming device into one of the Aura 2's three HDMI ports. Granted, that also solves the issue of the old OS, but it's just an extra layer of unfortunate icing on a stale cake. (For the record I had the same complaint with Xgimi's otherwise-excellent Elfin projector.)

I'm nearly as unhappy with Xgimi's remote, which isn't backlit and has some poorly labeled buttons. The volume controls are inexplicably spread out, and there's no dedicated mute button; you have to lower the volume all the way to zero. It's just a bad, user-hostile design. Again, a streaming device would help, but you'll still need the Aura's remote to access projector settings.

These aren't dealbreakers, but they're notable frustrations. The higher the price of a product, the lower my tolerance for things that don't make sense. Which brings us to one of the Aura 2's spotlight features...

Xgimi Aura 2: What it's like as an art TV

This is the first projector I've seen that offers an art mode similar to what you can enjoy on Samsung's Frame TV and others. (Here's a roundup of the best art TVs if you want to learn more.) The idea is to turn that big chunk of wall into a chunk of decor when you're not watching the new season of Colin from Accounts (highly recommended, by the way).

It's an interesting idea, though a little unusual for a projector. For one thing, unless you actually install a framed screen like the one shown below, projected paintings will look like, well, projected paintings. It's the frame — the decorative frame — that really helps sell the "wall art" illusion on a TV. Unfortunately, the slim, plain border surrounding my screen did little to enhance the experience.

This mode isn't baked into the projector, and there's no dedicated button on the remote to switch over to it. Rather, you have to manually run the Xgimi Wall app or set it as your default screensaver (which, thankfully, you can do in the settings).

I like this app a lot; it's easy to navigate and full of interesting choices. In addition to the expected Art Museum gallery of famous paintings, there's an Ambiance mode with some very cool animated screensavers: a nighttime cityscape, the view through a space-station porthole, a window onto a dense forest and so on.

Another, Innovation Lab, delivers things like fireworks displays and a panda bear frolicking on a hillside. These are supposedly "interactive," meaning if you stand near the projector, something happens — but I couldn't figure this out. In my tests these scenarios were merely animated; I encountered no interactivity to speak of.

There's also a Ceiling mode with some cool night-sky imagery, but I'm not sure I understand the point of that. I suspect it was intended for a different projector (Xgimi makes a wide variety of models), as the Aura 2 obviously wasn't designed to point at the ceiling.

Of course, all of this amounts to little more than a fancy screensaver, which you can also get via just about any plug-in streamer. (Roku's new Backdrops feature, for example, offers hundreds of paintings, photos and the like.)

What's more, I struggle with the very idea of using a projector for art purposes. There's the aforementioned lack of a decorative screen. There's the need to leave the projector running all the time if you want art to be visible when you're not watching. (The best art TVs revert to a low-power, low-brightness mode for this.) And if you've carved out a special home-theater space (like, say, the basement) for your viewing, will you even bother leaving it running?

Xgimi Aura 2: Should you buy it?

Only if you have a time machine. Back in, say, 2021 or 2022, I'd have given this a fairly enthusiastic endorsement. It delivers a gorgeous 4K image and comes with pretty decent speakers to boot. Plus, the 2020 operating system wouldn't have seemed so out of date.

But it feels unacceptable here in late 2024, especially when it can't run Netflix and it's paired with such a mediocre remote. What's more, while big-TV prices have plummeted, UST projector prices have barely moved.

In fact, assuming you have the wall space for a 100-inch screen, there are few scenarios in which I would recommend a projector over a TV. The latter will cost you less — possibly hundreds less — and produce a brighter picture. Netflix, too.

Granted, a 100-inch TV weighs a ton and would be difficult to wall-mount. And if you're looking for something even larger, a projector is still the way to go. But I think for most home users seeking a big-screen, theater-like experience, a TV is the better splurge.