Performance and Use

Turning the XGIMI Elfin on, it only takes a few seconds to get to the Android TV menu, similar to starting up a smartphone. The unit's fan is audible, but by no means annoying, clocking in at around 41.3 dBA from about 30 cm/1 ft from the unit. Unlike the Mogo or Halo, which have speakers on both sides, the Elfin does not offer quite the same potency with the front-facing speakers and seems a little lighter on the lower tones. That said, it is still clear and loud enough to entertain nicely.

Setting the unit up is a breeze thanks to auto-keystone and auto-focus, along with its obstacle avoidance capability which was introduced with the Horizon series and is absent from both the Mogo and Halo lines. You may pick from several picture modes or go for a single custom setting. For the images below, we set the unit to "Movie" mode.


At the advertised 800 ANSI lumens, the Elfin manages to throw an image up on a wall in the brightest possible daylight. While the brain and eyes can make up most of the details, a picture cannot convey that information. That said, the XGIMI Elfin is not meant to be used in such an environment or as a TV replacement. For that scenario, you should look at the Horizon line of XGIMI projectors.


Let's now look at our favorite trailer of a movie that is yet to be released: Top Gun Maverik. The trailer has such a great mix of dark and light scenes, and of the outdoors and sky, that it is a nice baseline to look at for what to expect. The environment was set to a medium bright room at first. Shots which offer bright details, like snowy mountains or a clear sky in combination with colorful aspects, like jumpsuits, come out quite well in this compromised viewing environment. The chair in the back of a scene which was drowned out in the Mogo Pro+ with its 300 ANSI lumens is far more visible with the Elfin, but that human standing in the shadows of the fighter plane lift is still completely invisible. The result is that the Elfin is good for casual viewing even if there is a light source around. As a comparison, Laser projectors can do 3000+ ANSI lumens and a commercial movie theater projector does 50.000+ ANSI lumens to achieve the required illumination at the needed distance and size.


With all the lights turned off, the XGIMI Elfin became much more fun to use. It is noticeably brighter than the Mogo Pro+, so much so that one could really use the Elfin as an everyday (or should I say night?) screen. Its ideal scenario could be in a small, windowless basement room for a small family movie theater, for example. Naturally, the Horizon Pro we reviewed is much brighter, but also costs at least twice as much. Watching cartoons is a joy with their simple color palettes, and throwing up Death Stranding in a scene with bright elements or the dark cave works quite well; there's plenty of detail on the black boxes being carried by Sam Porter, or the fauna attached to the edge of the cave.


While reviewing the unit, we also received an update that added some additional features and fixes to the Elfin. You can expect tweaks and system updates in the future as well. The Elfin does run Android TV. As such, you may access the Google Play Store and download most apps for the platform. However, Netflix for example, is still not natively supported, so you will have to use something like a FireTV or Google equivalent instead for that.