XGIMI MIRA 4K Triple Laser Ultra Short Throw Projector Review

Ultra-short-throw projectors have a tougher job than they did a few years ago. Big TVs are getting cheaper, with 98-inch models becoming more common. Plus, the brightness continues to improve across the board. Because of that, a UST projector has to offer more than just screen size. It has to be easy to live with while still being bright enough for everyday use, and priced aggressively enough to make sense next to an increasingly large television.

That’s where XGIMI is positioning the new MIRA. At $1,699, it sits well below a lot of the premium UST models we’ve seen over the past few years, but XGIMI hasn’t exactly gone light on the feature set. You’re getting a triple-laser RGB light source, Google TV, Dolby Vision, HDR10+, 3D support, and gaming features that go well beyond what you’d normally expect at this price. There’s also a MIRA Pro coming later in September, which keeps the same platform but bumps the brightness up to 3,000 ISO lumens.

Photo Credit: XGIMI

Features

At the center of the MIRA is a 0.39-inch Texas Instruments DLP chip combined with XPR pixel shifting to produce a 4K UHD image. The DMD itself is 1920 x 1080, so this isn’t a native 4K imaging panel. Instead, the projector rapidly shifts the image several times within each frame to place the full 3840 x 2160 pixel count on screen.

That’s pretty common with 4K DLP projectors. The quality of the optics and processing also matters just as much as the native resolution of the chip itself. One advantage of the single-chip DLP design is that there are no separate red, green, and blue imaging panels to align, so convergence errors aren’t something you have to worry about.

XGIMI uses separate red, green, and blue lasers rather than a laser-phosphor design, which gives the MIRA a much wider potential color gamut. XGIMI claims 110% of BT.2020 color volume and rates brightness at up to 2,000 ISO lumens. The 110% figure doesn’t mean the projector somehow reproduces more than the entire BT.2020 color space. It’s a color-volume specification, so the more meaningful number will be how much of BT.2020 the MIRA can actually reproduce accurately. I’ll get into that later with measurements.

The MIRA has a 0.175:1 throw ratio and can produce an image between 80 and 120 inches. XGIMI says you can get a 120-inch image with the projector sitting roughly 10.8 inches from the screen. There is no optical zoom or no lens shift, so placement matters. To help with setup, XGIMI includes autofocus, automatic keystone correction, and several screen-adaptation tools that make getting the image dialed in a little easier.

XGIMI also includes what it calls Dynamic Black Level Enhancement, or DBLE. With the feature enabled, the company claims a dynamic contrast ratio of up to 20,000:1. That number shouldn’t be confused with the projector’s native contrast. DBLE works by analyzing darker scenes and adjusting the laser output along with the image processing to lower the black floor when possible.

How useful that ends up being depends on the content. Bright objects, subtitles, and other highlights can affect how aggressively the system dims the light source, so the important thing is whether DBLE improves darker scenes without crushing detail or making brightness changes distracting. That’s something I’ll cover in the performance section.

Format support is pretty extensive for a projector at this price. The MIRA supports Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HLG, MEMC motion interpolation, and 3D. Gaming support includes VRR, 1080p at up to 240Hz, and a low-latency mode.

For audio, XGIMI partnered with Harman Kardon on a 36-watt built-in system consisting of two 8-watt full-range drivers and a 20-watt internal subwoofer. Dolby Audio and DTS Virtual are supported, and if you want something more substantial, external audio can be connected through HDMI eARC, optical, or analog output.

Design

The MIRA shares a lot of the same design language as XGIMI’s more expensive AURA 2, but it does it in a noticeably smaller package. The projector measures roughly 18.3-inches wide, 10.6-inches deep, and 4.8-inches tall, and weighs just under 10.6 pounds. For an ultra-short-throw projector, that is surprisingly compact and much easier to place on a narrower console or low cabinet.

Part of what helps the MIRA blend into a living room is the finish. XGIMI uses what it calls Moonlight Sand, with a light beige color across the chassis and acoustic fabric wrapping much of the front and sides. It looks more like a center speaker than a traditional projector, which I think works really well for something that’s likely going to sit out in the open all the time.

The fabric isn’t just cosmetic either. XGIMI says it uses a nano-coating designed to help liquids bead up instead of immediately soaking into the material. Obviously, I still wouldn’t recommend putting a drink next to a $1,700 projector, but it’s a nice bit of added protection.

Compared with the AURA 2, the MIRA keeps things a little simpler. There’s no motorized lens cover on top, and the overall design feels more stripped down, but build quality still feels solid. One tradeoff of keeping the chassis this small is that the power supply is external, so you’ll need to find somewhere behind or inside your furniture to hide the power brick.

Around back, all of the connections are grouped together in a slightly recessed area and are easy to access. You get three HDMI inputs, with HDMI 2 supporting eARC. There are also two USB-A ports, Ethernet, an optical digital audio output, and a 3.5 mm analog audio output. Wireless connectivity includes Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2.

Remote

The MIRA’s remote is a little different from the ones I’ve seen on previous XGIMI projectors, and I actually like the more compact design. It has a beige finish that matches the projector and feels comfortable in the hand without being overly busy.

At the top, there are shortcut buttons for Netflix, YouTube, and Prime Video, along with voice control. A large directional pad sits in the center, followed by dedicated back, settings, and home buttons. The volume control is a little unusual, with a slim rocker positioned diagonally lower down on the remote, but it doesn’t take long to get used to.

The remote connects over Bluetooth, so you don’t need to point it directly at the projector or maintain line of sight while using it. The button feel is good overall, with a nice amount of tactile feedback. My only real complaint is the backlighting. Only a handful of buttons light up, while most of the remote remains dark. In a dimly lit room, that can make some of the controls harder to find than they should be.

Google TV

The MIRA runs Google TV rather than the older Android TV interface. Most of the major streaming services can be installed directly on the MIRA, so there really isn’t a need to add a Fire TV Stick, Apple TV, or another streaming device unless you simply prefer one.

Google TV feels more content-focused than the older Android TV interface. Instead of making you bounce between individual apps, the home screen brings movies and shows from different services together in one place. You’ll see personalized recommendations, recently watched content, and a watchlist that syncs with your Google account. All of the major streaming platforms are supported as well, including Netflix, HBO Max, Prime Video, and others.

Gemini is also integrated into Google TV on the MIRA, which makes voice search a little more useful. Rather than having to search for an exact movie or actor, you can ask broader questions or look for movies based on a particular subject. The Google TV interface itself hasn’t been completely redesigned around Gemini, but the added conversational search makes finding something to watch feel a little more natural. Running everything behind the scenes is a MediaTek MT9679 processor paired with Mali-G52 graphics and 2GB of RAM.

Setup

Setting up the MIRA is where XGIMI’s ISA 5.0 system comes into play. ISA stands for Intelligent Screen Adaptation, and it combines several automated tools including autofocus, keystone correction, screen detection, wall color adjustment, and surface correction. The system uses a combination of cameras and distance sensors to figure out how far the projector is from the wall or screen, then analyzes the shape and boundaries of the projection area before making its adjustments.

That’s especially useful with an ultra-short-throw projector because small changes in placement can have a surprisingly big effect on the image. Move the MIRA a few millimeters, rotate it slightly, or shift it off-center, and you can immediately change the height, width, focus, or geometry of the picture. ISA 5.0 is designed to take a lot of that frustration out of setup.

Once the projector is in place, the MIRA analyzes the image and adjusts focus automatically. For fixed-frame screens, there’s also a Screen Fit function. The projector detects the boundaries of the screen and adjusts the size and position of the image to fit inside the frame. This is actually a really nice feature in case the MIRA gets bumped. Instead of starting from scratch and manually lining everything back up, the projector can take care of most of that work for you.

XGIMI also includes several settings specifically for people projecting directly onto a wall. Wall Color Adaptation compensates for the color of the surface, so if your wall has a slight beige, gray, or cooler tint, the projector attempts to correct for that and bring whites and colors closer to neutral. It obviously isn’t going to turn a painted wall into a proper projection screen, but with lighter or more neutral wall colors, it can make a difference. There’s also a neat surface correction feature designed to compensate for minor waves or imperfections in the wall. The MIRA analyzes how those irregularities are affecting the shape of the image and applies a digital correction to make the picture appear more uniform from the viewing position.

There is a tradeoff to all of this automation, though. Features such as Auto Keystone, Screen Fit, and wall correction are digital adjustments. They aren’t physically moving the lens or changing the optics. Instead, the projector is resizing, shifting, and reshaping the image within the available area of the DMD. The more correction you apply, the more potential there is to give up a little resolution and edge sharpness. That’s why I still recommend getting the projector as physically aligned as possible before relying on the digital tools. Ideally, you want autofocus, keystone correction, and Screen Fit doing as little work as possible.

Performance

Let’s start with sharpness because the MIRA uses the smaller 0.39-inch DMD. The chip itself has a physical resolution of 1920 x 1080, with XPR shifting used to display the full 3840 x 2160 UHD pixel count on screen. The process happens quickly enough that from a normal viewing distance, you’re still getting what looks like a proper 4K image rather than something that resembles an upscaled 1080p projector.

The image still looks detailed and clean, but the smaller DMD does soften some of the finer detail a bit. The biggest difference compared with projectors using the larger 0.47-inch DMD is that distant objects and very fine textures can look slightly softer. That said, the presentation still works really well with movies because it never feels overly processed.

This is really where the tradeoff with the smaller chip comes into play. The 0.39-inch DMD uses mirrors with a pitch of around 4.5 microns, compared with roughly 5.4 microns on the larger 0.47-inch platform. In actual content, though, the difference is much less noticeable. Faces still have plenty of detail, and 4K material looks noticeably sharper than a standard 1080p source. Unless you’re sitting unusually close to a very large image or specifically looking for extremely fine pixel-level detail, I don’t think most people are going to find the MIRA lacking in sharpness.

A good example is Supergirl, particularly the fight against the Brigands. Close-ups of Krem’s face show off just how much detail the MIRA can still resolve. The individual studs across his forehead and cheeks remain clearly separated, and you can make out the texture in his skin. Supergirl’s hair is another good test. Individual strands remain visible around her face, and the projector does a nice job separating the lighter and darker layers as her hair moves across the frame. You can also see the texture in the blue fabric of her suit and the finer details around the red trim.

There’s also one inherent advantage to the single-chip DLP design. Red, green, and blue aren’t being produced by three separate imaging panels, so there’s no convergence alignment to worry about. You don’t have to deal with one color sitting slightly offset from another around fine edges, which helps the image maintain a clean look.

Brightness is another area where the MIRA performs pretty well for its size. XGIMI rates it at 2,000 ISO lumens, and when I pushed the projector into High Performance mode, I measured 2,228 ANSI lumens. High Performance mode isn’t something I’d actually use for movies. Fan noise becomes much more noticeable, and there’s a pretty obvious green tint to the image. To me, that mode is more about showing what the projector is capable of at maximum output than something you’d want to live with on a regular basis.

The regular picture modes give you a much better idea of what the MIRA is like in everyday use. At brightness level 10, I measured 1,407 ANSI lumens in Standard mode and 1,322 ANSI lumens in Movie mode. I wouldn’t call the MIRA a light cannon, but there’s enough brightness here to produce a convincing large image in a dark or light-controlled room. If this is going into a living room where daytime viewing is going to be common, I’d strongly recommend pairing it with a proper ALR or CLR screen. At that point, I’d almost consider the screen part of the overall purchase.

Color is where the RGB triple-laser system really starts to show its advantage. Because red, green, and blue are generated independently, the MIRA has access to a much wider native gamut than you typically get from a lamp-based projector or a single-laser phosphor design. With SDR content, I measured 91.3 percent coverage of BT.709, which is the standard for most traditional HD material as well as broadcast television.

The more impressive number comes once you move into HDR. The MIRA measured 96.55 percent of BT.2020 using CIE 1931, which is a wide color gamut for a projector in this price range. A movie like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse really shows that off. The film is already packed with aggressive color choices, but the MIRA gives those colors a lot of room to breathe. Reds and purples have a richness that immediately stands out. Even within Miles’ suit, the deeper reds and blacks remain separate from the neon colors surrounding him.

Contrast is another area where the MIRA performs better than I expected for a compact DLP UST at this price. In Movie mode, I measured sequential contrast at 1,977:1. You’re obviously not getting OLED-like blacks here, and it’s not going to compete with a high-end dedicated home theater projector when it comes to absolute black level. But the native contrast is good enough that darker material still has a sense of dimension before you even turn on any dynamic processing. That’s where XGIMI’s Dynamic Black Level Enhancement, or DBLE, comes in.

Rather than relying only on the native contrast of the DMD, DBLE analyzes the image and adjusts both the laser output and processing depending on what’s happening on screen. With DBLE enabled, I measured dynamic contrast at more than 28,000:1, which actually exceeds XGIMI’s advertised 20,000:1 figure. In movies, DBLE makes a noticeable difference. Black bars become less obvious, and scenes have more dimensionality.

A movie like The Batman is a great example. Much of the film takes place in the dark. With DBLE turned on, the darker areas have noticeably more depth, and the black bars fade into the room much better. Scenes inside the Iceberg Lounge are particularly revealing because you have deep shadows mixed with bright lights. With DBLE, it keeps those darker portions of the image from looking washed out while still allowing the brighter elements to stand apart. What I also liked is that I didn’t notice constant brightness pumping while watching. The adjustments happen subtly enough that I wasn’t sitting there watching the laser system work.

When it comes to HDR, there isn’t a dedicated setting labeled Dynamic Tone Mapping as you’ll find on some more expensive projectors. That doesn’t mean the MIRA is applying one static HDR curve to everything. You can see the internal processing reacting to different scenes as the content changes. With roughly 1,300 ANSI lumens in the more accurate picture modes, the MIRA has to compress HDR content into a much smaller brightness range.

I think the MIRA handles that balance pretty well. HDR has noticeably more punch and depth than SDR without the projector trying to pretend it can produce TV-like peak brightness. Smaller highlights still have impact, while darker portions of the image generally remain visible. Dolby Vision helps here as well. Since it uses dynamic metadata, the projector has more information available to adjust the image from scene to scene.

Blade Runner 2049 is a great test for MIRA’s HDR tone mapping, particularly the “You Don’t Like Real Girls” scene. There’s a lot going on here, with bright neon signs and overhead lighting. The MIRA does a nice job keeping those brighter signs from blowing out while still holding onto detail in the darker parts of the image. What I also liked is that skin tones and clothing still look natural despite all of the colored light being thrown around the scene. The tone mapping keeps the image balanced and gives those smaller highlights enough punch to make the scene feel HDR convincingly without sacrificing everything around them.

Motion is one of those areas that’s going to come down to personal preference. Some people aren’t bothered at all by the natural judder that comes with 24-frame-per-second movies, while others notice it immediately, especially during slower camera pans. XGIMI gives you several levels of MEMC, along with a more cinema-focused option, but the lower settings don’t completely get rid of judder. For me, the lowest setting was the sweet spot. Camera movement becomes noticeably smoother without immediately giving movies that overly slick Soap Opera Effect.

Gaming

Gaming is another area where the MIRA performs much better than I expected going into this review. At 4K/60Hz, I measured input lag at just XGMI which is plenty quick for console gaming. ALLM is also supported, so a compatible console can automatically switch the projector into its low-latency Game Mode. VRR is available as well, although it’s limited to 1080p, where the MIRA can run at up to 240Hz. For the lowest possible latency, you’ll also want to disable automatic geometry corrections like keystone adjustment.

I spent some time playing Madden 26, and the controls felt immediately responsive. Players moved cleanly across the field, and passes and tackles responded without any noticeable delay. On a 120-inch screen, sports games also take on a completely different sense of scale, especially during wider field shots where you can really appreciate just how much screen space you have to work with.

The RGB laser light source also helps give the presentation a little more punch. Team colors look vibrant, the field stays rich and saturated, and brighter stadium lighting has enough intensity to keep the image from looking flat. For most console gamers who are going to stick with 4K/60Hz, the MIRA has more than enough speed to make gaming feel responsive.

Audio

Audio is handled by a Harman Kardon-tuned system with 36 watts of total power, and for something built into a projector this compact, it sounds good. There’s more volume and body here than I expected, and the MIRA can get surprisingly loud without immediately sounding strained.

I used Billie Eilish’s Bad Guy to see how the system handled a track with a good low end and a lot happening across the mix. Even at around 70 percent of volume, MIRA stayed composed without obvious crackling or the treble becoming harsh. Bass is where you start to find the limits. There’s some weight to the low end, but let’s face it, you don’t get the deeper extension that you would from a good soundbar with a subwoofer or a dedicated speaker system.

XGIMI also gives you a decent amount of control over the sound. Bass and treble can be adjusted independently, along with balance, and there are several sound profiles to choose from. There’s also dialogue enhancement and a virtual surround mode that does a pretty good job of making the presentation feel wider and more spacious.

Final Thoughts

The MIRA is a well-rounded ultra-short-throw projector that gets a lot of the important things right. The RGB triple-laser system delivers rich color, HDR has plenty of impact, and DBLE helps give darker scenes more depth. What stands out most is that nothing about the MIRA feels overly complicated. Setup is straightforward, the smart platform is familiar, and once everything is dialed in, it’s easy to just sit down and enjoy it. It works equally well for movies, sports, and gaming, which is exactly what I’d want from a UST projector designed to live in a main entertainment space.

At $1,699, the price-to-performance ratio only makes the MIRA more appealing. There are more expensive UST projectors that can push certain areas further, but the MIRA delivers a really good overall experience without asking you to spend significantly more.