Setup

To evaluate the Wemax Nova, we will be using the Grandview Dynamique DY3 100" ALR screen, which provides a 140° viewing angle and gain of 0.4. It is set in a living room with natural sunlight from the left and ceiling lighting from the right. To the left of this setup is a 55" LED TV for a comparison of size.

For the Wemax Nova to project a keystoned and focused 100" screen, we had to place it 8.5" away from the ALR screen surface and 15.5" below the bottom edge of the ALR screen frame.

Software

Interface

The Wemax Nova is a fully fledged smart projector utilizing Android TV powered by a quad-core processor and backed by 2 GB of RAM, alongside 32 GB of storage, which is plenty. It ships with Android TV 9.0, which does not surprise as it was launched before version 10.0 was released. Much like most projectors of this type, the Nova does not support Netflix natively, unfortunately. As you can see, the Netflix ESN is empty in the settings, and you won't even be shown the APK in the Google Play store. The interface looks quite standard, but you will find a device-specific app on the Nova called "Launch Board." This app combines the projector-specific settings with some support elements. This is quite useful and convenient, giving you an easily found, central place for the setup and exploration of the unique elements of your new device.


As there is no physical dial to do so on the device, focusing the screen is done manually in software. The provided test image functions well, making calibrating the sharpness by pressing left or right on the remote easy. For keystone calibration, there is a separate menu item in the Launch Board app. It gives you eight points of adjustment with coarse and fine setting modes or a four-point variant. We stuck to the eight-point one, adjusted coarsely, and then switched to fine mode to fill the whole surface area of the Grandview Dynamique DY3 ALR screen.


Launch Board also allows you to enter a Bluetooth speaker mode to connect and stream your music through the 30 W, four-speaker system of the Wemax Nova. An animated user interface will show the song being played, but you may simply turn off the screen, all while the music goes on. Lastly, Wemax also created a shortcut to the file manager, which is a simple but very useful way to navigate any locally stored files, like movies, audio, or images.


There are three other shortcuts in the support app. One triggers the Android settings menu, which we will get to below. Then there is a shortcut to the same input selection you can trigger from the Android TV home screen, while the help section opens up a sub-menu that gives you basic insights on troubleshooting the Wemax Nova.

Settings

In the Android settings, there are two points of interest: the "Projector" and "Image" menu items. The others are pretty universal to the OS, so there is no need to dive into those. Under the "Projector" setting, you will find links to trigger the aforementioned focus and keystone functionality. Then there is one to select how the projector has been set up, and a last point to toggle the on/off state of the infrared sensors. Naturally, in a private setting, there is no need to turn it off, but you may want to do just that to avoid any interruptions in a commercial scenario.


Under the main "Image" setting are two sub-menus, one for image adjustment and the other for what Wemax calls "Brightness Mode." "Image Mode" offers a solid five presets. That said, there is no "game mode," which some brands use to trigger the lowest input lag possible. The Wemax Nova also allows for one custom setting in which brightness, contrast, saturation, sharpness, and hue are set individually. While one custom mode is fine, and expected, some may want the option to have a second one for specific applications. In addition to this, you may select the overall color temperature and how strongly the noise-reduction algorithm takes effect.


Under the "Brightness Mode" sub-menu are only two settings: "View" and "Highlight". Switching between the two results in the Wemax Nova screen blinking on and off to set whichever you selected. The visual difference was not immediately apparent here.


Lastly, when infrared human eye protection is triggered, the brightness is lowered to where you are left with a mostly dark screen stating that it has been triggered. For additional safety, it does not turn off on its own when you leave the area of effect. Instead, the user has to manually select "exit" for it to revert back to normal.