Hisense C1

While Hisense is well known as a TV brand that spends megabucks on sponsoring major sporting events (such as the Euros and football World Cup), it’s actually also one of the AV world’s most established projector brands. Its so-called Laser TVs, which have been delivering cinema-sized experiences for strikingly cheap prices for years now, are actually based on ultra-short throw projectors sold alongside ambient light-rejecting screens to create a TV-like experience. Only bigger.

Hisense’s new C1 projector, though, marks something of a departure for the world’s second-biggest TV brand. It swaps the usual UST (ultra-short throw) approach for a more standard long-throw design, one that’s small enough to be carried between different rooms and easy enough to set up to appeal to a more ‘casual’ user. Surely Hisense can’t manage to translate its Laser TV experience into a more traditional projector at the very first time of asking, though. Right?

Picture quality

To get a handle on the picture quality Hisense’s C1 can provide, it’s worth spending a moment looking at the technology inside it. Starting with the fact that, despite costing just £1699, it uses a so-called ‘TriChroma’ laser phosphor light engine. This immediately opens the door to potentially richer, bolder colours and more efficient brightness than you tend to get with regular lamp projectors. Plus, you won’t need to keep replacing bulbs every few thousand hours - Hisense claims an effective lifespan for the C1’s lasers of at least 25,000 hours. Enough for more than 10,000 films - or to keep up with even my slavish Call of Duty addiction.

As with Hisense’s Laser TVs’ UST projectors, the C1 uses a DLP (Digital Light Processing) optical system rather than LCD, along with Texas Instruments’ XLR technology to deliver a claimed 4K resolution. This is not a true native 4K resolution in the usual TV sense - it relies on a form of pixel-shifting to create a 4K effect. The way this works with DLP rather than other projection systems, though, is rated by the Consumer Technology Association in the US as a true 4K experience. 

It doesn’t take long watching the C1 to gain a lot of respect for the CTA’s assessment. Whether it’s a 4K feed delivered from a 4K Blu-ray, 4K game or one of the video streaming services carried by its built-in smart system, the results always look much more detailed, sharp, textured and three-dimensional than anything you’d see from a mere HD projector. In fact, it looks much more like the output of true 4K projectors such as Sony’s VW series.

The sense that you’re watching a 4K, rather than HD, image extends to a striking lack of visible pixel structure in the image. Curved or diagonal edges don’t look jagged, and the overall image finish is smooth and filmic.

The C1 also grabs my film-loving attention with its contrast. Unlike most high dynamic range-capable casual projectors, the C1 doesn’t just focus on brightness. It delivers deeper, richer black tones with HDR sources than any Hisense projector I’ve seen before, in fact, immediately making dark scenes look more credible and involving as well as helping the C1’s pictures achieve a more consistent feel as they switch between bright and dark scenes.

I should say right away that there is a brightness price to pay for the C1’s unusually credible black colours and contrast. Its pictures clearly aren’t as bright as those of Hisense’s Laser TV UST projectors. Hisense claims a peak light output of 1600 lumens for the C1, whereas the projector part of its latest 100L9HT Laser TV is rated at 3000 lumens. 

While I’d recommend that you try to keep the room you’re using a C1 in as dark as possible, it does not mean that the C1’s pictures look drab or flat. On the contrary, the C1 reminds you that a convincing, truly dynamic HDR experience is as much about the dark parts of the image as the bright areas.

The impressive balance the C1 finds between the bright and dark parts of HDR pictures contributes to an unusually potent colour performance by affordable laser projection standards, too. In fact, out of the box the C1’s ‘Standard’ and ‘Dynamic’ presets actually come on a bit strong, tipping some of the purest, most vibrant tones in HDR sources into looking a bit forced and artificial. Sufficient settings are provided to calm this over-exuberance, though. Or you can simply turn to the C1’s ‘HDR Day’, ‘HDR Night’ and ‘Filmmaker Mode’ settings to immediately be presented with a more controlled, balanced picture that, crucially, doesn’t become in the least bit dull or lose sight of the all-round contrast strength that’s the C1’s biggest attraction.

First impressions of the Hisense C1’s motion-handling are the first real sign of trouble. Many of the motion-processing options provided end up causing issues such as stuttering or too many obvious processing side-effects. Fortunately, it turns out that there is one option (‘Film mode’) that’s capable of taking the edge off the slightly aggressive default judder you get with 24fps films, without creating the over-smooth ‘soap opera’ effect or generating many processing glitches.

The main limitation of the C1’s pictures is that some areas of colour lack a little tonal subtlety. In particular, people can sometimes look mannequin-like thanks to the projector not resolving enough of the subtle tone-shifts required in such areas to make faces look three-dimensional and lifelike. Ultimately, though, this issue is not nearly severe or common enough to seriously undermine the C1’s ridiculously enjoyable efforts.

Sound quality

The C1’s unusually cubic shape and a logo saying ‘Sound By JBL’ both raise hopes that Hisense’s new projector’s audio will prove a cut above the projector norm. And so it proves.

Particularly gratifying is the scale of the C1’s sound. It can get loud enough, for starters, to compete with good integrated TV audio systems. Even better, the extensive system of grilles and vents the projector carries, combined with some seemingly high-quality drivers, helps to cast the sound far enough away from the projector to make you forget that it’s coming from a little box in the middle of your room.

The C1’s staging is good enough to bring out plenty of well-placed details, too, without treble effects becoming harsh or overly dominant, while dialogue remains correctly locked at the heart of the soundstage. Best of all for anyone who likes a big, dumb action film or three (who doesn’t?) is that the C1 even rustles up some genuine bass, rumbling away enthusiastically when required without succumbing to crackling, drop-outs, or buzzing distortions. 

While there are some spectacular-sounding UST projectors out there, the C1 might just be the best sounding regular-throw projector I’ve ever heard.

Living with

The C1 gets off to a great start by looking a million dollars compared with your average affordable projector. Its compact footprint gives rise to an unusual, roughly cuboid body clad in a fetching bluish brushed aluminium finish. Build quality is far better than you’d expect from a £1699 laser projector. 

Crucially for a projector targeted at relative casual or even multi-room use, the C1 is outstandingly easy to set up. For one thing, it runs quietly enough (even in HDR mode) to make it possible to site it quite near your seating position. 

It can also auto-correct image geometry and focus whenever the projector detects that it’s been moved. The focus sometimes ends up a touch soft via this automated system, but manual correction is easy - and for the most part you’ll be left with nothing more to do after setting the projector down and switching it on than sitting back to enjoy the show. 

The Hisense C1 also appears to go way further than most projectors by supporting all four of the main HDR formats: HDR10, HLG, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. It turns out, though, that while the C1 recognises HDR10+ content, its HDR10+ playback is strangely buggy and inconsistent. Hisense’s response when asked about this is that the projector isn’t officially HDR10+ capable - but that doesn’t stop it going into its buggy HDR10+ mode whenever an HDR10+ source is, deliberately or accidentally, played into it. Weird.

Since the C1 isn’t as bright as many HDR-capable projectors, it doesn’t punch through high levels of ambient light as effectively as some of those rivals. Personally, though, I’d take the need to darken the room a bit in return for the C1’s much more enjoyable all-round picture quality over light but low-contrast images any day.

The C1 carries one of the most comprehensive on-board smart TV systems I’ve seen on a projector, courtesy of Hisense’s own VIDAA platform (all the big streaming hitters are there, including Freeview Play), while gamers, finally, are solidly catered for with 4K/60Hz HDMI support and a ‘Game’ picture mode that gets input lag down to a respectable 38.8ms.

Conclusion

The Hisense C1 is an excellent casual projector. Its premium finish and eye-catching design immediately make it a more attractive addition to a coffee table than most projectors, while its auto set-up routine, powerful sound and expansive built-in smart system make it a true plug-and-play affair. Best of all, rather than just blasting pictures out with as much brightness as it can muster, it goes for a balanced approach to images that gives it more serious home cinema potential than the vast majority of its similarly priced rivals.

Test Samples

Ripley Netflix

Mastered in 4K with gloriously dynamic black and white HDR, Netflix’s remake of Ripley really helps the C1 prove the benefits of an HDR-capable projector trying to deliver just enough brightness to make HDR pop while still making good black levels possible, rather than just going all-in on brightness at the expense of anything else.

It Chapter One 4K Blu-ray

The first of the recent It movie duo flits between ultra-dark sequences and deliberately exaggerated-looking bright daylight scenes - both of which are handled better by the C1 than they are by the vast majority of living room projectors. With many projectors it’s only the bright scenes that really look the part.

Mad Max: Fury Road 4K Blu-ray

Fury Road is a unique mixture of painted, tanned, pale, sun-drenched and cave-shaded skin tones, all of which benefit from the C1’s natural contrast and colour (especially in its ‘Filmmaker Mode’), but can look a little short of detail thanks to a seemingly slightly limited colour-tone palette.

The Hisense C1 is one of those rare ‘lifestyle’ projectors that manages to combine a living room-friendly design and easy set up with a focus on genuinely cinematic picture quality, rather than just pushing brightness too hard. It also sounds better than most TVs and all similarly priced projectors - all of which makes it a bargain.

Unusually for a projector, the C1’s built-in audio is good enough to mean we don’t have to start this section by discussing what external sound system to add. It also has an excellent built-in smart system, so we don’t need to discuss how to get streamed video into it!

So, let’s focus on premium external sources. Given that the C1 does a great job of delivering a near-4K look to 4K sources, using a 4K Blu-ray player rather than just relying on inferior streaming for movie nights would be a good shout. Given the projector’s strange issues with HDR10+, maybe go for a good player that doesn’t actually deliver this format, such as the HDR10 and Dolby Vision-capable Sony UBP-X800M2.

Similarly, if you’re looking for king-sized gaming as well as video experiences, add a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X that can take advantage of the projector’s 4K capabilities. Don’t forget that the Xbox Series X and some PC cards can also benefit from the projector’s Dolby Vision support.