XGIMI Mogo 4 Review

Introduction

For years, home projection has been the realm of film fans and purpose-built, blacked-out rooms, but that’s beginning to change as brands such as XGIMI bring a different vibe to indoor cinema.

The XGIMI Mogo 4 is part of a new breed of projectors that aims to make the rather stuffy pursuit of home projection fun. Like Samsung’s Freestyle series, this isn’t about purist home cinema but one tailored for family and group experiences.

I felt the Mogo 3 Pro was a decent effort, but without a built-in battery, it wasn’t really a portable effort. The Mogo 4 fixes that issue, but is this pico projector more of the same?

Design

• Portable size and weight
• Tiltable design

Aesthetically, the Mogo 4’s design is a bit more ‘orangey’, but it is virtually the same conceit as the Mogo 3 Pro. Shaped like a coffee thermos, with its slim, conical form and integrated stand, the Mogo 4 can tilt up or down through a 360-degree range, compared to the Mogo 3 Pro’s 130-degree range.

You can point it to the ceiling, towards the floor – whichever angle you like, the Mogo 4 is as flexible as a yoga practice.

It’s easily luggable around the house (or outside, for that matter), though slightly heavier than the Mogo 3 Pro (1.1kg to 1.3kg), and comes with a detachable, point and click infrared mini remote control which puts the projector into its Ambient Colour mode. There’s no mention of an IP rating so bets to avoid it getting wet.

Unlike the Mogo 3 Pro, this is a truly portable projector with its built-in battery, and it also has its own PowerBase stand; though it is not compatible with the Mogo 3 Pro, nor is the Mogo 3 Pro’s stand compatible with the Mogo 4.

The PowerBase doubles up as a tripod stand (there’s a mounting screw in the bottom), with its own internal battery offering up to 5 additional hours – double that of the Mogo 3 Pro’s PowerBase stand. It’s an extra £109 on top of the Mogo 4, which itself is £509 – or £579 if you buy the projector and stand together.  

User Experience

• Google TV
• Not the most responsive remote
• Missing iPlayer and Channel 4 in the UK

The Mogo 4, like the Mogo 3 Pro, comes with Google TV; however, it’s missing both the BBC iPlayer and Channel 4 apps. This can be remedied by casting from a mobile device.

The actual Google TV interface is one I find less cluttered than Fire TV, relatively responsive, and careful not overwhelm the viewer with constant suggestions. Booting up can take up in the region of 43 seconds – not the fastest, but speedier than the Mogo 3 Pro.

Curation and personalisation remain weak areas. Despite using Google TV on a variety of devices for a couple of years now, it doesn’t seem to have a clear idea of what I like, or even what I’ve watched, as it shows the titles I’ve already seen despite giving Google TV access to streaming apps such as Disney+ and Netflix.

There’s the main remote, which is light, easy to operate (the feel of the buttons and clicky feedback are nice) and more responsive than the same remote that the XGIMI Mogo 3 Pro comes with. It helpfully comes with backlit buttons if you’re watching in dim light, a shortcut button, and quick access buttons to the likes of Prime Video.

Features

• HDR10 support
• Game mode
• HDMI ARC input

There’s not much difference between the feature set of the Mogo 4 and the Mogo 3 Pro, aside from a few areas. In terms of HDR formats, all you get is HDR10 and with the iPlayer app still missing, the lack of HLG is less of a concern.

However, despite the HDR situation, don’t assume all apps have HDR support. Currently Netflix and Apple TV support HDR10, Disney+ does not, and Prime Video supports HDR but triggering it can vary from title to title.

There’s also a Game Mode with XGIMI Mogo 4 capable of registering 20ms of latency. Not the quickest, but decent enough for some casual gaming.

Resolution remains Full HD (1920 x 1080), and brightness is the same as the Mogo 3 Pro at 450 ISO lumens of brightness. That means you’ll only want to watch video on the Mogo 4 in a room with the lights off and – if you’re outside – once the day has turned to dusk. The expected lamp life remains 25,000 hours before it needs to be replaced.

The 10W Harman Kardon speaker built into the Mogo 3 Pro has been upgraded to a 2 x 6W system that supports Dolby Audio, Dolby Digital, and Dolby Digital+.

Connectivity includes a fully-fledged HDMI input with HDMI ARC support (if you want to add a sound system), USB 2.0, and USB-C for charging. One word of note is that the Mogo 4 doesn’t support HDR over a HDMI connection, so any HDR content will play in SDR.

If you prefer the convenience of streaming, there’s Google Cast and DLNA over Wi-Fi, while Bluetooth 5.1 allows you to connect a mobile device and play audio from the Mogo 4’s sound system.

Given the Mogo 4’s more casual, lifestyle appeal, there are convenient features to make setup easier, such as Auto Keystone (to create the perfect square shape) and Auto Focus, which automatically sharpens the image based on its size. You can project from 40 to 200 inches, though XGIMI recommends 120 as optimal.

Intelligent Obstacle Avoidance ensures the Mogo 4 can resize the image so objects to the side don’t infiltrate the image. Intelligent Screen Fit can figure out whether it’s beaming onto a projector screen and adjust the image to fit. With Eye Protection, the Mogo 4 dims the image so anything walking past (like your cat) isn’t blinded by the lights.

Buy the Mogo 4 straight from the XGIMI website, and it comes bundled with XGIMI’s Creative Optical Filter (a selection of three). These can be locked onto the lens, and it’ll project colours and other atmospheric elements like a lunar landscape or a dreamscape to help you sleep. It’s nice to have if you’re approaching the Mogo 4 as less of a projector and more of a vibe machine.

XGIMI quotes 28dB of noise from the fan, quieter than the Mogo 3 Pro, but my non-scientific means of assessing the fan noise came out to be 45dB, which was louder than the Mogo 3 Pro…

Battery

• Built-in battery
• 2.5 hours of battery

Finally, XGIMI has added a built-in battery to its Mogo series, making it a bona fide portable projector in the same vein as its Halo series.

XGIMI rates the built-in battery as capable of lasting for 2.5 hours. Carrying out a series of tests, I found it’s not quite 2.5 hours – closer to two in the projector’s Standard mode.

Switch to Eco mode (the projector automatically switches to this mode if it’s playing off the battery) and you can get around three hours – that’s a watch of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer – before it conks out. That’s an improvement on the similarly priced Optoma Photon Go, which manages about half that time.

As well as powering from the mains with the USB-C connector, you can plug your own adaptor as long as it’s a 65W charger.

Picture Quality

• Warm, rich colours
• Little to no contrast
• Can’t really do HDR

Anyone expecting the Mogo 4 to replace a traditional projector with its performance should check those thoughts at the online checkout. The brightness isn’t particularly bright, and like the Mogo 3 Pro, the colours don’t seem to be accurate out of the box – but the Mogo 4 isn’t trying to be.

This is a projector that enjoys beaming out rich, warm colours. Watching Miss Maisel on Prime Video and there’s a solid sense of detail with colours that are frequently rich, punchy and appealing – accuracy be dammed.

The same applies with a Disney+ stream of Alien: Romulus. Black levels can look good without delivering the depth a TV can manage, and while it’s not the sharpest image (some edges look a little crooked when up close), the richness of the film’s colour palette stands out, even if it’s not the subtlest.

Where it inevitably struggles is with darker scenes. Blondie on Netflix has black tones that look fine enough, but the lack of brightness and the lack of depth in the black levels result in a lack of contrast. What Alien: Romulus and Blade Runner 2049 further reveal is a lack of detail in the darkest parts of the image. It’s not hard to make out what’s happening in a scene, but there is the sense that you’re not seeing everything you should.

Watching sports and motion is smooth – colours again have a rich appeal, the greens of a football pitch stand out quite vividly. It’s an attractive image.

Sound Quality

• Clear with dialogue
• Bigger sound than you might expect

The performance from the Mogo 4 mirrors that of the Mogo 3 Pro. Highs are clear, sound comes across as quite natural in tone, and there’s a decent sense of dynamism too.

Dialogue is clear – slightly warm, but there’s no obvious processing happening that I can hear. If you find it a struggle to hear what’s said, there is a Dialogue Enhancer mode. The four main modes cover Movie, Music, Game, and Sports.

I find it avoids the thinness of some projectors – the Optoma PK31 being a recent example – and while it’s not the clearest or sharpest sound I’ve heard, there’s a nice energy, punch and sense of scale that I didn’t expect from a projector of this size.

There is the option of using the Mogo 4 as a Bluetooth speaker, and it doesn’t let itself down too much. Granted, it’s not outdoing a JBL Flip 7, but it delivers clarity and crispness with vocals. There’s energy to Sigrid’s Have You Heard This Song Before, but it’s lacking with the low frequencies, with a bass performance that’s thin and hollow.

Should you buy it?

FAQs