While the best TVs may do their best to provide big-screen home cinema thrills, the fact remains if you really want a proper movie-goer-like experience, then only a projector will do. Fortunately, you no longer need to have a room the size of an auditorium to accommodate one, making them a much more viable alternative to a TV. The Hisense C1 is a great example, and for Black Friday sales in Australia, it’s received a huge AU$1,600 discount at Appliance Central. That brings its price down to just AU$1,899, roughly the same as a 55-inch LG C4 OLED.
The Hisense C1 isn’t an ultra-short throw projector – the kind that can be installed only a few centimetres from a wall – but it also doesn’t require professional installation on the ceiling. Instead, it can be placed on a coffee table or a console table behind your seating position, for example, and is capable of projecting an image up to 300 inches in size (and a minimum of 65 inches). Just note that you’ll need just over one inch of distance per inch of screen size you want. For example, a 300-inch image requires a distance of 317 inches from the wall.
All of the current HDR formats are supported, including Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10 and HLG – something even flagship TVs can’t lay claim to – while the JBL-tuned built-in speakers do a good job of filling whichever room the C1 finds itself placed in. Dolby Atmos is supported by the audio system, but if you feel you need to ramp things up a bit, an HDMI eARC port is onboard for connecting an external system.
We haven’t personally reviewed the Hisense C1 here at TechRadar, but our esteemed colleagues at Sound + Image have, and they found it to be a great performer even in brighter conditions. As with any projector, the C1 comes alive at night, proving “itself a fully able full-sized projector when illuminating a screen of 100 inches.” Hisense’s own VIDAA OS gets praise too, as it allows for apps such as Netflix to be installed natively. We’ve found that Android TV-based projectors don’t inherently support Netflix and so require workarounds. The fact the C1’s OS supports the full suite of popular streaming apps negates the need to connect an external media streamer.
We can’t guarantee this deal will last forever, so if you’ve been looking to upgrade your home theatre experience, the Hisense C1 is a fantastic, versatile option.
