Entry Level - Best LED Pocket Projector: AAXA M6

AAXA M6 Overview

There’s so much more to like about this LED projector. First of all, it’s seriously bright – claiming a massive 1200 lumens which is a ton for something this small. OK, in fairness, it didn’t measure that bright. In fact, it topped out in the mid 800 lumen range, but even its best mode was over 800 lumens, and that rivals the best modes of some traditional lamp-based projectors.

When you consider that today, most lamp based projectors claim at least 2000 lumens, don’t despair. Let’s say you want to watch a movie at night – kill the lights, and no problem projecting to a 100” size or larger – consider that officially, it takes only about 450 lumens to have an image as bright as the one in your local Cineplex. We only really need more lumens to fight ambient light!

The M6 with that 800 lumens finds itself to be a viable portable projector for business use, as well, complete with sound – a pair of 2-watt speakers. They will handle a room adequately, but skip the symphony performances. There’s an audio out to feed sound into a bigger “stereo system.” The audio out is labeled as a headphone jack.

Consider the M6 to be a dual threat, but we’ll stick to the home side usage in this report. Read the full review, of course, for more.

Hey gamers – about 43 ms input lag, not great, but pretty good. Acceptable for all but the really hard core (we tell folks that if it’s 50 or less, pretty good, 33 or less, very good, 16-17 excellent, and better than that – extremely rare.

There are three power modes (and therefor different battery life when you are not plugged in). Eco is extremely quite while Full Power is a bit noisy. Well, no real surprise there – that’s true of most projectors, regardless of the size.

For a pocket projector, there’s a pretty good collection of inputs. Primarily, there’s an HDMI input, a small SD card slot and USB. There’s also an extra stereo audio input, AND, a traditional VGA input. AAXA has us pretty well covered, even for those who want to use an old school (pre HDMI) PC.

A few more tidbits – it weighs a mere 2.5 pounds (talk about portable, including battery) but not including the provided power brick (figure an extra 1 lb. or less). As is pretty standard for pocket LED projectors, there’s no zoom lens – just set it as far back from your screen or wall to get the size image you want.

Now the AAXA M6 doesn’t have a really full set of calibration adjustment controls, but no one’s going to calibrate a projector this low cost anyway, so here’ the punchline you’ve been waiting for. Overall picture quality is at least very good for a pocket projector, and fun to watch. If you want to be a perfectionist about color, there are better choices, but, if, for example, you bought an LCD TV 5 years ago and have never changed the mode or adjusted the color, this projector will probably look better anyway.

The Bottom Line

A Note From The Reviewer

Hi everyone – I’m Nikki, and I did the review of the AAXA M6. As the only Millennial reviewer at Projector Reviews, I have the unique positioning of understanding the mindset and needs of my generation. This is a great little projector for Millennials – especially those who travel.

I enjoyed having this projector stream Netflix content (The 100, at the time of this review) while I was working – I had the M6 on top of another projector’s box and projecting on my wall. I appreciated the portability and could see the M6 as your travel companion so that you never have to watch your shows on a tiny hotel TV. 

I paired the M6 with the NVIDIA SHIELD streaming player, which is about the size of a video game case. The two work excellently together and are small enough to fit into your carry-on bag. That the NVIDIA SHIELD can also stream video games (ranging from incredibly stupid to games you already have for your PS4 or Xbox) is a major plus, as you can not only watch Netflix and other streaming apps on the go, but play video games as well. Expect a review for that player on our sister site, SmarterHomeAutomation.com, where I will discuss using the player with the M6 further, publishing sometime in October.