Projectors Tests Reviews

Xiaomi Laser Projector 3: test/review

Published on: 25-10-2025 / Modified: 25-10-2025

I hadn't tested a Xiaomi projector for a few years, although Xiaomi had managed to produce some very good projectors in all price ranges. The Chinese tech giant had faded a little in this field to concentrate on Chinese territory, but with the arrival of this Xiaomi Laser Projector 3, things may be about to change. The version I'm going to test is a Chinese one, which you'll have to use with an HDMI stick or box (Google TV Chromecast, Apple TV,...), which fortunately represents only a small effort to be able to enjoy a triple laser projector of this caliber. As the Chinese versions are often better than the international ones, it would be a shame not to take advantage of them

I'm going to test this projector with my usual protocol based on real measurements to identify the strengths and weaknesses of this video projector. If you still have questions, don't hesitate to ask them in comments, and if this test has convinced you, don't forget to go through my links to make your purchase

Where to buy?

The Xiaomi Laser Projector 3 is available from NothingProjector, and I've got a discount of almost 10% to give you the lowest price without paying import duties. If the price drops, the promo code will allow you to lower it even more

To activate the promo code, click on the following link:

Activate promo

You'll be redirected to the home page, but the promo code will appear in your shopping cart

Then to purchase the projector, simply add it to the shopping cart:

Xiaomi Laser Projector 3 / NothingProjector

Price Xiaomi Laser Projector 3

Not yet available / tested

Timeline

October 24, 2025: I receive the projector from NothingProjector.com, and the test can begin. I hope to complete the written test in a week, and it will probably take another week to publish the video test on YouTube.

Why this projector?

With a price tag of around €800, this Xiaomi Laser Projector 3 enters the territory of the XGIMI Mogo 4 Laser, and that's interesting because on paper the Xiaomi should outperform the XGIMI...in theory anyway. Xiaomi claims 1000 lumens and 1600:1 contrast, which is quite rare in this price range. It certainly won't have the flexibility of the XGIMI and it doesn't have a battery, but this type of projector could be suitable for a wide audience. At this stage of the test, all this is very theoretical, but that's what I suggest you check out in the next few paragraphs.

Unpacking

The box suffered a little on the journey, it must have done part of the trip crushed under a heavier box. Fortunately, the projector is very well packed and I did not notice any damage to it. The box contains the projector, a USB charger with European adapter, a remote control, two AAA batteries and a manual...in Chinese

Operating system

This projector runs on Android 11, which is only available in Chinese. Fortunately, you can switch the projector's settings to English and then easily switch to an external solution of your choice, such as a Google Chromecast TV HDMI stick

The first step is to answer a few questions in Chinese, and I've added a few screenshots with an arrow for you to follow. It's pretty easy, you can't go wrong.

Then I'll show you how to switch from Chinese to English with the images below. I'll add a chapter in my YouTube video (when it's ready) to show you step by step how to do it

Once you've gone through these steps, you'll be able to stay on your HDMI solution without ever having to use the Chinese part again.

Finish

This Xiaomi Laser Projector 3 marks a complete break with previous generations; Xiaomi has completely departed from what they've done in the past to take on a format that's fashionable at the moment, a flip-flop format. The projector has a metallic color that gives it an impression of solidity, but it's all plastic. It's also very light, weighing less than 3 kilos.

The toggle allows it to be tilted into the ceiling position and even a little beyond 90°, and the same is true in the other direction. The projector can be rotated through 130°

The optical compartment looks very imposing with this opening, but this is mainly a visual effect because the optical compartment is no larger than most other projectors of this type. This projector uses a 0.47 DMD chip, as do many other, more expensive projectors, and this is an advantage over the XGIMI Mogo 4 Laser, as it enables a larger image to be displayed without a grid effect

Rear connectivity is limited to the minimum, with only a USB port, a headphone output and an eARC HDMI port. As this is the Chinese version, you're going to have to associate an external HDMI solution with it, thus condemning this output without being able to connect anything else to the projector. This is probably not a problem for most buyers, but if you intend to connect a Blu-ray player or an amplifier, you'll have to plug and unplug the cable every time.

At the rear, there's a huge ventilation grille, which doesn't necessarily mean that this projector will be noisy - I'll come back to this point later in the review. Laser projectors are less power-hungry, so they don't generate as much heat as their LCD equivalents.

On top, there's nothing out of the ordinary, just the logo and a label on a perfectly smooth surface. The ignition button is on the back

The base is fixed, which means it can't rotate on itself like XGIMI's latest rocker projectors. You can therefore turn it up or down, but not sideways, without turning the projector completely.

You can use this projector with a tripod, as the screw thread on the underside of the base is quite standard.

The remote control is ultra-basic, made entirely of plastic, and the buttons are not illuminated. If you're using an external HDMI device, you probably won't need it except to switch to HDMI port 1. It remains to be seen whether it will be possible to access the menus in Chinese to manipulate the projector's settings and improve image quality.

Projection room

My projection room is rectangular, 4.6m by 2.9m (height 2.2m). I have two projection walls, one white wall 2.9m wide with just white paint with a possible 4m setback. I then have a 133 inch ALR screen on another wall with a possible setback of 2.8m. I mainly use the ALR screen except when the layout or type of projector is not suitable for this situation.

Battery autonomy

This projector is not equipped with a battery.

Power consumption

I measured the projector's power consumption with the laser at maximum and came up with just over 70 watts. If I lower the brightness to maximum, I get a consumption of just under 40 watts. That's really very low, and the laser on this projector is really very efficient

Operating noise

This Xiaomi Laser Projector 3 is extremely discreet. Even if I stick my decibel meter close to the projector, I don't pick up the slight hum it emits (less than 40 dB). If you use the "custom" mode, which is a little brighter, the projector will make a little more noise, but not to the point of becoming a problem.

Image quality

Not yet available / tested

Colorimetry

More explanations on colorimetry

Measuring color fidelity (colorimetry) is not a subjective question, it is something completely measurable. This measurement is carried out with a device (colorimeter, spectrometer, ...) which measures the difference between the real color and the displayed color. This difference is expressed in delta E (abbreviation: dE). A dE greater than 3 indicates a deviation perceptible to the human eye.

The dE must therefore be as low as possible but projectors rarely have a dE lower than 3 out of the box. They are often between 5 and 10, only a calibration can correctly adjust the colors.

For a perfect calibration, you must call a professional. I give you my parameters which correspond to my situation. These settings might work for your situation but it is not a guarantee, so take them as an indication of the direction to follow.

I measured color fidelity in the 3 available configurations and obtained the following results:

In an ideal world:

dE colors, white, gray
White temperature: 6500K

Standard:

dE colors: 8.7

dE white: 10.67

White temperature: 7453K

dE gray: 35.27

If these values don't speak to you I'll show you a comparison of primary and secondary colors as well as the gray scale. R represents the reference, M represents the color actually measured

You need a delta E of less than 3 to consider that the color rendering is faithful. With this comparison you can determine your tolerance threshold with regard to drift, but some drifts are very obvious, like the one on cyan for example. The white is too cold and is slightly bluish

If I focus on the grays, I get this:

It doesn't take an expert to see that the grays take on a bluish tint, so here we have an image that is too cold

Movie

dE colors: 6

dE white: 9.91

White temperature: 5603K

dE gray: 35.27

With Movie mode, the image is a little too warm but more faithful with a white temperature a little too low.

Even if from a technical point of view, colors still deviate too much, the difference perceptible to the eye is much less obvious than in standard mode. Cyan is back in line and no longer deviates as much, and the rest of the colors are more or less in the same range. Without modifying the settings, Movie mode produces the best image:

Vivid

dE colors: 6.22

dE white: 11.58

White temperature: 8483K

dE gray: 9.55

Vivid mode produces an even cooler image than the Standard world, but there's a significant difference in colorimetry. Colors are much closer to the reference, but saturation has been forced a little. If you look at the following colors, you'll see that they're much brighter/intense than the reference. Again, from a purely colorimetric point of view, this is not correct, but I think it's the kind of image that will flatter the retina with very vivid colors.

Here you can clearly see the white deviating towards blue

This projector doesn't have advanced settings to correct the image, but I still obtained a better result after calibration:

dE colors: 4.05

dE white: 0.67

White temperature: 6503K

dE gray: 3.61

Even if I didn't manage to bring all the colors below 3, the result is clearly better than all the previous configurations. I'll share my settings with you in the section provided.

If I now turn to the number of displayable colors, I see full coverage of the REC2020 space, which means that this projector has a huge color palette to meet HDR needs.

The black triangles correspond to the various most common standards (REC709 for television, DCI P3 for cinema and REC2020 for more recent formats). We can see here that this Xiaomi blows away the counters with its above-average color display capacity.

Image Settings
This projector doesn't offer a great deal of latitude for calibration, but it is possible to significantly improve color fidelity by applying a few basic settings.

You must first access the image settings from the remote control, by pressing the button representing 3 horizontal lines to the right of the series of buttons with the back to home and back. This button will bring up a superimposed window where you can choose the image configuration. Using the right arrow, you can access the "custom" configuration and from here, you can apply the following parameters:

Brightness 45

Contrast 59

Saturation 46

Clarity 50

Tone 50

Gamma 2.4

Color temperature: custom

Red gain: 3

Green gain: 10

Blue gain: -17

With these values and on my screen, I get a perfect white with a delta E of less than 1 with a white temperature of almost 6500K

Although this considerably improves color fidelity, it doesn't save all the colors, I still have quite large deviations on certain colors but since it's impossible to go further with the configuration, I can't do any better for the moment

This projector doesn't have specific settings for HDR, it's an automated process, so I don't have the possibility of improving this type of format

Brightness

More explanations on brightness

The brightness for a projector is absolutely crucial. The brightness is measured in ANSI lumens and the values provided by the manufacturer are very often higher than reality.

I measure the brightness with a lux meter and I convert my measurements into ANSI lumens in relation to the projection surface. You thus obtain a real value.

A video projector, even if it is bright, cannot compete with a television. The contribution of light (natural or artificial) will have the effect of drastically reducing the contrast of your image. With a brightness lower than 1000 ANSI lumens, the projector must be used in total darkness.

The configuration of this projector is pretty basic, with only 4 settings (standard, movie, vivid and custom).
In theory, this projector can display 1000 lumens, but often when I measure the actual brightness of a projector, my measurements are much lower. This is not the case with this projector.

Here are the results of my measurements on my white screen:

Standard: 863.94 lumens

Movie: 704.97 lumens

Vivid: 691.15 lumens

Custom (without boost): 912 lumens

The custom mode is therefore brighter and my measurements do not take into account the boost mode, which is so unusable that the colorimetry deviates so much. We're pretty close to the advertised values here, so this projector is brighter than an XGIMI Mogo 4 Laser

However, this level of brightness isn't enough to use this projector in daylight. Here are a few illustrative examples:

This photo compares the same image on my white screen with a night/day comparison. The photo taken in daylight is still viewable, but at the cost of a loss of contrast and quite significant color drift

If I take my photo taken in daylight on the white screen and compare it under the same conditions with an ALR screen, I get a much better result, demonstrating the effectiveness of this type of screen. Unfortunately, this type of screen is rather expensive, costing at least €500 for a good, reasonably-sized screen. If you're interested in this type of screen, I've included a link to a comparison of over 30 screens further down in this review

Sharpness

Image sharpness is just fine, provided you don't use too large a screen. A priori, this projector should have a 0.47" DMD chip, but when I tested the sharpness, I had my doubts because I see a slight gap in the pixels. This is typically the sort of thing that happens with too large a screen size and smaller chip sizes

If I focus solely on sharpness, it's good enough to distinguish lines 1 pixel apart. The purple coloring you see in the photos comes from my phone's inability to take a picture of a triple laser projector

Contrast

More explanations on contrast

Contrast (on/off) is used to measure the difference between white and black. This measurement gives an indication of the ability of a projector to produce a good rendering in dark scenes.

A contrast lower than 500:1 should be considered as a very low contrast and the consequence will be especially visible in dark scenes where you will lose details. This is less of a problem for sports, bright films or even cartoons.

A low contrast ratio does not mean that a projector is not usable, you just have to be aware that for films like Aliens, dark scenes will no longer allow you to distinguish details.

This projector is advertised with a native contrast of 1600:1, which would indicate a very good native contrast ratio without the use of tricks such as dynamic contrast. I was positively surprised by the reality, because real contrast is often lower than what is advertised by the manufacturer. This is not the case with this projector, in fact it's the opposite!

I measured a contrast ratio between 1640:1 (Vivid mode) and 1890:1 (standard mode) and even a little over 1900:1 in custom mode. This is clearly a strength of this projector because in this price range, there aren't many triple lasers and if I compare it to the XGIMI Mogo 4 Laser, this Xiaomi does much better!

I priced my usual image from the Batman movie to illustrate contrast and compared it to a photo taken in daylight. In dark scenes, this projector is clearly not bright enough to watch a film of this type in daylight

Motion compensation

Image size and projection distance

More explanations on the projection distance

The projection distance determines the size of the image and the size of the image is determined by the projector's throw ratio. If a projector has a throw ratio of 1.2, it will have an image width of 83 cm with possibly a gray border.

The distance also plays a role in the brightness because the brightness decreases with the square of the distance. A projector placed at 4 meters will therefore lose 4 times more brightness than a projector placed at 2 meters.

Keystone image correction does not modify the projection cone, it resizes the image inside the projection cone. This means that in the event of a significant correction, you will see a large gray border appear around your image.

This projector has a projection ratio of 1.2, resulting in an image approximately 85 cm wide for every meter of distance between the screen and the projector. With a distance of 3 meters, you get an image 255 cm wide. You need to be careful with brightness, however, because the larger the image, the more brightness you need:

If you use the "movie" mode, for example, you have a brightness of just over 700 lumens, and with this brightness you can expect to project an image 95 inches (210 cm wide), to get an image bright enough for SDR and HDR. If you use the standard mode with 863 lumens, you can go up to 105 inches (233 cm wide). These are sizes impossible to achieve with an XGIMI Mogo 4 Laser

Screen choice

The choice of screen will depend on your environment and the screen size you're aiming for. A bright environment is not recommended for this type of projector, but that doesn't mean the image won't be visible, as you can see earlier in this article.

In total darkness and with "movie" mode, you can aim at a screen size of 95 inches with a neutral white screen. If you choose a screen with a gain of 0.6 to increase the depth of black, you'll have to reduce the screen size to 75 inches.

This kind of configuration allows a slight ambient light, but if you want to aim for a bright room with a white screen you'll have to reduce the screen size again, probably to 55-60 inches, but you'll have to accept a degradation in contrast.

Audio quality

More explanations on audio quality

I use several types of music tracks to illustrate the sound quality of the projector but the rendering will always be limited by the recording device. Since I always use the same device, you will be able to compare the difference on the same basis.

I regularly use well-known songs protected by copyright to illustrate the sound quality of a video projector. It therefore sometimes happens that YouTube decides to block my videos for these reasons. In this case, you can listen to the soundtracks directly on YouTube and hope that YouTube has not completely blocked my channel.

I'm going to integrate my usual test audio tape into my YouTube video when it becomes available. I used this audio tape in all the audio configurations available on the projector (music, film, game, etc.) and I have to say that I was positively surprised by the sound quality. This projector is equipped with two 8-watt speakers delivering a fairly fine, precise sound, and I found the sound delivered to be on a par with that of XGIMI in this price range. The low tones lack a little depth, but the highs are well reproduced.

Video games

Encoutered bugs

Not yet available / tested

ALR/CLR Projection screen

Are you looking for a good ALR/CLR screen for your projector? I may have what you need:
ALR/CLR NothingProjector Screen

Test / Review conclusion

This Xiaomi Laser Projector positively surprised me on several levels, because we're seeing more and more triple laser projectors flooding the market, but in this price range, image quality isn't always up to scratch. To put the results of this test in perspective, I'm going to compare this projector with another triple-laser projector in the same price range: the XGIMI Mogo 4 Laser. The XGIMI is a portable, battery-powered projector, while the Xiaomi is designed to stay in one place.

There are two criteria on which the Xiaomi blows away the XGIMI: brightness and contrast. With almost 1000 true lumens, you can envisage a large image (100 inches), which is impossible with the XGIMI. Contrast is excellent for a projector of this price, even surpassing that of many more expensive projectors. The XGIMI, on the other hand, offers a wider range of settings, which means that colorimetry is generally more accurate.

Color fidelity is therefore not on a par with that of the XGIMI, but that doesn't mean it's super bad. I've shared a few examples in this test that will enable you to define your tolerance threshold with regard to color deviation. I wouldn't be surprised if most of you find this deviation perfectly tolerable.

This projector has qualities other than those already mentioned. There's the flexibility of projection with its tilting stand, it's very very discreet, it doesn't consume much power and the sound quality is excellent

Not everything is perfect, however. First there's the fact that it requires an external solution to use it in your language, which isn't insurmountable - you can already find solutions for around thirty euros. I find that it lacks the finesse in settings to take advantage of its full potential, and it's a projector you should forget about if you're a gamer. Latency is too high for an excellent gaming experience

In this price range, the triple-laser market is not yet very crowded. The comparison with the XGIMI isn't very fair, because these are projectors with different vocations, but few other brands have ventured into this niche. With the promo code and at the time of writing, we're under €800 for a triple laser projector, which is very competitive.

Strengths

Contrast

Brightness

Flexibility

Sound quality

Color space

Low noise

MEMC

Power consumption

Weaknesses

Interface in Chinese (but correctable)

Limited settings

Latency too high for gaming

LAURENT WILLEN
Head of myself on this blog

I share my passions on my blog in my free time since 2006, I prefer that to watching nonsense on TV or on social networks. I work alone, I am undoubtedly one of the last survivors of the world of blogs and personal sites.

My speciality? Digital in all its forms. I have spent the last 25 years working for multinationals where I managed digital teams and generated revenues of over €500 million per year. I have expertise in telecoms, media, aviation, travel and tourism.