If you're looking for an alternative to room-dominating black rectangles to serve up audiovisual entertainment, ultra-short-throw projectors can be a great shout. But they can be pricey. Budget-friendly brand Yaber has answered this with its new K300s model.
Aiming for the cheaper end of the market inevitably means that technology sacrifices have to be made. So though the launch price is compelling, the new Yaber UST projector is not going to present much of a challenge to higher-spec models like the PX3 Pro from Hisense or Formovie's Theater Premium. But it could serve as a gateway to the ultra-short-throw experience.
At the heart of the K300s is a RGB triple-laser light source that puts out 1,000 ANSI lumens of brightness – this means viewing in ambient light or during the day will likely be a washout, and a darkened movie space is going to be your best bet for your visual treats. Like the O2S Ultra from JMGO, Yaber's new model is able to snuggle close to the wall thanks to a 0.18:1 throw ratio, while promising up to 120 diagonal inches of imagery from 13 inches away.
The DLP projector supports 4K decoding, but its native resolution is 1,920 x 1,080 pixels. The unit manages 1,500:1 contrast, covers 150% of the NTSC color space and is said to offer color accuracy of under Delta E 1 for the promise of "vibrant colors," along with NavaGlow for technology "uniform visuals."
An included time-of-flight sensor and "advanced algorithms" are reported to make for snappy autofocus and auto keystone correction, while motion compensation nips blur in the bud. Built-in eye protection dims the laser lights as someone approaches to protect your peepers.
The projector sports one HDMI port, plus USB, audio out and Ethernet LAN. There's Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1 too, and Yaber says that the unit ships with a "Smart TV dongle" that includes Netflix and enables access to more than 7,000 apps as well as voice control.
And last but not least, the K300s rocks two 15-W Dolby speakers tuned by JBL that fire forward and slightly up for optimum dispersion.
The Yaber K300s launched at US$999.99 and is up for pre-order now. Regular sales start from January 15. The video below has more.
Product page: K300s
