Xgimi Elfin Flip 4K Review

Design

• Flip to use
• 1.55kg weight
• Easy to carry

The Elfin Flip’s gimmick, if you can call it that, is that it flips. To be honest, it’s not that different a concept from Xgimi’s Mogo series, but in a different form factor.

The MoGo is more likely to be taken out of the home; the Elfin Flip is more for carrying around the home. When not in use, you can fold it away like an ironing board. When you want to use it, just push it out, and it takes on the appearance of a futuristic spacecraft from Star Trek. I do find myself unconsciously carrying out around like a book when I’m walking around.

The front (once you’ve figured out where it is) doesn’t feature a lens cap for protection, so it’d be wise to fold it back when not in use. At the rear are the connections, and when the Elfin Flip 4K is ‘flipped’ the external structure can act as a handle to carry it (it only weighs 1.55kg). It only folds flat one way – you’ll figure out which if it gets stuck.

The stand can rotate up to 150 degrees but you won’t be able to cast an image onto the ceiling like you would with the MoGo – it’s not quite that flexible.

It comes in a brushed metal grey finish which won’t stand out, but unlike the MoGo this series is more understated than flashy. On the underside is a mounting pin for those who want to wall mount.

Picture Quality

• Rich, bright colours
• Not the sharpest image
• Steady black levels

For a true home cinema experience, the Elfin Flip 4K isn’t really bright enough, and I’m sure you’ll see that complaint in more than a few reviews of this projector. But this isn’t aimed at the home cinema enthusiasts and I could see its flexibility and portability perhaps being a replacement for a TV in a small space. For the more casually inclined TV viewer, I see the Elfin Flip 4K working well.

You could watch it in a fairly bright room, but it’s not bright enough to combat ambient light (I’ve tried), and while colours still stand up fairly well in a brightly lit room, black levels and contrast are all but diminished.

Turn the lights down (or draw the curtains) and the Elfin Flip 4K finds its happy place. Watching a stream of Believe Me on ITVX, I was quietly impressed by the performance. Complexions can look a bit ‘samey’ at times, but the Xgimi can provide punch and colour to skintones well. The SDR stream features colours that look balanced to my eyes, but also gravitate to a warm, rich sense of colour.

Switch to HDR content and a stream of Alien: Romulus on Disney+ features strong black levels during the space-set scenes, though the borders at the top and bottom of the image do look grey.

Black levels hold pretty well though, and there’s depth to the image – the starfield in outer space isn’t all the same brightness but varied, which helps to create some contrast, the red and orange colours of the film coming across with brightness and punch, though yellow tones can look a little orangey.

Spider-Noir on Prime Video looks slightly brown in its night scenes, but it too looks bright. Clarity and sharpness aren’t soft but there’s a smoothness that robs projectors of the sharpness a TV can manufacture. At least there are good levels of detail in the faces of actors.

Swapping Prime Video for HBO Max and a stream of Supergirl, and I have to say, the richness of the colours really pops with this film. The neon-vibe of the bar where Kara first encounters Ruthye looks fabulous, the Xgimi providing plenty of punch and saturated colours that my camera can’t really do justice to.

The Elfin Flip 4K is consistently colourful and rich in its picture performance. It’s another attractive performance from Xgimi.

Features

• 1600 lumens
• 4K HDR support
• Max size of 200 inches

There’s not much here that’s necessarily different from the MoGo series in terms of features. There is the benefit of higher brightness, of course, with the Elfin Flip able to reach up to 1600 lumens.

However, there’s similar RGB Laser technology onboard that the MoGo 4 Laser carries, and you’ve got a 7W sound system designed by Harman Kardon.

Xgimi says the projector can cover 110% of the BT.2020 colour standard with a Delta E of less than 1 for colour accuracy (a big claim). There’s no Dolby Vision support as there is for the Horizon 20 series, with 4K HDR10 and HLG included instead. Disney+, Prime Video, HBO Max and Netflix all support HDR, while on the sound front, Dolby Audio is supported (Dolby Digital and Digital+) but not DTS.

There’s an optical zoom of 0.98 – 1.31 to get the image to fit to your wall (or screen), a contrast ratio of 20,000:1 while the image projected can cover from 40-inches to 200.

Convenience has always been a key mark of Xgimi’s projectors and it remains the case here.

The Intelligent Screen Adapt (ISA) covers smart features such as Uninterrupted Auto Keystone (adjusts the size automatically when the projector is moved), Auto Focus (getting the right sharpness), Intelligent Screen Alignment (matching the size of a 16:9 or 16:10 screen).

There’s Intelligent Obstacle Avoidance (resizing the image so it avoids objects in front of it), Wall Colour Adaptation (adapting the colours to the colour of your room), and Intelligent Eye Protection (automatically dims the lens if something passes by). Not all of these are enabled by default, so you’ll need to jump into the settings to ensure they’re ticked off.

Gaming-wise, Xgimi says it can deliver input lag of less than 1ms in its 1080p120Hz mode, and it also features VRR for the fastest performance, and ALLM to put the projector into its game mode when it detects a console or gaming PC. Playing Gran Turismo 7 on the PS5, I found the projector to be smooth in terms of responsiveness, and in its Game mode it delivered a bright and colourful image.

Connectivity covers Wi-Fi, with Google Cast and DLNA supported alongside Bluetooth 5.2 streaming. Physical connections covers two USB ports, two HDMI (including eARC) and 3.5mm/optical output for audio.

Sound Quality

• Warm, smooth presentation
• Punchy sense of bass

While sound isn’t a forgotten conclusion with projectors, it is often compromised. With the Elfin Flip 4K including a built-in sound system, it’s another area of convenience that it tacks on, but there are limitations.

On the good side is that the delivery of dialogue is clear. It’s not the most defined but characters in films and TV series sound distinct. There’s a slightly smooth tone that avoids sounding harsh, with the top end of frequency range sounding nicely bright. I’ve always like the balance Xgimi’s projectors offer – they do a good job of balancing dialogue, music and background effects and I’ve never found the Elfin Flip 4K to sound muddled.

Fan noise doesn’t pollute the audio performance by being loud. In fact, I barely notice it, even though it seems to be around 40dB, higher than Xgimi’s stated 28dB.

There is bass but it’s punchily delivered rather than a performance with depth and power. The soundstage isn’t wide but the best that can be hoped for a projector is that it casts audio away from its body, and the Xgimi performs decently in that context.

The Dialogue Enhancer doesn’t have a massive effect, even at its High setting. I’d recommend staying in Standard, which gives dialogue a boost over the other modes (Movie, Game, User, Sport), of which between them there’s not a whole lot of difference.

A solid effort that doesn’t mar the viewing experience, but you may want to consider adding a sound system if it doesn’t spoil the convenience of the built-in sound system.

User Experience

• Google TV
• iPlayer still missing
• Backlit remote control

It’s Google TV again for Xgimi’s projectors, and that comes with some benefits and negatives.

The negatives are that there isn’t the full complement of UK catch-up and on-demand apps. Of the core apps, BBC iPlayer remains MIA, which has been a problem since Google TV first launched. You can cast from the iPlayer app on a mobile device as an alternative.

The big global apps are all included, and Google TV remains visually easy to navigate. The Continue Watching rail has all the content you’ve recently watched on it, and I noticed that ITVX content appeared on it (as did YouTube), which I’ve not seen before on any other Google TV projectors or TVs. In fact, there seem to be a few sections that aren’t on TVs, such as a rail for short videos that I’ve not seen on other Google TV devices.

I would like the settings to be better explained. There’s a description for some, but others are left unexplained – not too helpful if you want to know what the settings can do and the effect they have. Considering the focus on convenience, Google TV has dropped the ball on this.

I do find it’s a bit slow on wake-up but once it’s connected to the Internet it does become quicker but some apps remain a bit slow (YouTube, surprisingly) and I’d like it if the remote was more responsive to presses, which is a complaint I’ve had about previous Xgimi projectors. At least some of the buttons are backlit, which is helpful to have in dark rooms.

Boot up is fairly quick at about 40 seconds, and set-up of Google TV seems quicker than before too – whatever Google has changed with the set-up process, it feels faster to get through.

The Xgimi also carries Gemini, where you can ask questions and have it spoil TV series and films for you. I’m still unsure about Gemini and other similar AI features, but it’s there for those who want to tap into the power of AI.

Should you buy it?