General Performance and Use

The Wemax Go clocks in at around 44.5 dBA when in use, which is a bit on the high side. The simple math is that a compact device can't provide a large heatsink or fan, thus any active cooling needs to be fast and furious, which will in turn generate more noise. the 1-watt speaker does the job and provides some audio, and does not blow out at high volume, which is nice. That said, don't expect to get voluptuous lows and clear highs, just enough for a complete audio/visual viewing experience.


The images you are seeing are projected against the wall in the afternoon, in the winter months when the sun sets fairly early in my neck of the woods. Casting from an Android device works well, and the connection is solid. There is noticeable lag between actions on the phone and what is consequently shown on screen. Rotating the phone naturally also rotates the layout on the projector. The 540p resolution is noticeable and makes reading small text rather difficult at such a large screen size.


For further testing, we plugged in a Chromecast with Google TV. The lack of detail due to the resolution was quite apparent in both visual assets and text. The Google TV interface is most certainly optimized to work best with 720p or higher resolutions these days. Also noteworthy is the higher than usual brightness of the projection, as are bright colors using pungent base colors. That said, they do feel a bit overblown at times. As the Wemax Go supports HDMI CEC, you may use the buttons on the unit to navigate the UI of Google TV, thus providing a fallback option should your remote run out of batteries.


That same trend continues a bit when looking at cartoons, which tend to have a limited color palette. In the above image, the yellow is meant to be "The Simpsons" yellow, but is a tad too strong. While the palette used in Rick & Morty feels overly muted.


Low resolution aside, the cave scene of Death Stranding looks much better balanced, but the sky is no longer clearly visible due to the overzealous brightness, and the usually black to dark gray cave wall on the right edge of the scene almost blends in with the apartment wall.


Real-world scenes in movies, such as our favorite ace in the sky, Maverick, do fare alright in scenes that have no extremes. Looking at the group shot in the hangar, you can see details that are not meant to be that bright in the background, while the chair that is usually not visible is right there to feast your eyes up. The same goes for that actor in front of the jet elevator you are not really meant to make out with the picture more balanced. All this means that the brightness of the Wemax Go is a bit too much, at least out of the box.

Nighttime Performance

At night, with the Wemax Go not having to fight with the ambient lighting to get your attention, blacks are black and contrast feels much better. But looking at the image of the native Google TV YouTube app, some colors still stick out more than others.


Taking back to the skies of the Maverick world, you can see that the image is generally a bit more balanced without the ambient illumination of daylight. Yet the usually oh so illusive chair in the background is again readily visible, while the general in the scene has that yellow tint to him again. The shot with the jet elevator now successfully hides the actor in front of it, while the cloudy sky feels less blinding, actually showing some of the gray texture. In general, the Wemax Go ALPD manages to project a better picture in the dark.


The yellowing tint effect can also be seen in a close-up of our favorite hero Maverick. His face and hand have those rogue swatches, while the rainbow effect on his visor feels appropriate.