Projectors are a wonderful way to watch movies in a cinema style at home but often the effort involved is completely unattractive.

One has to consider audio cables, cables to the notebook, PC or other input and then you have to adjust the projector to get that perfect image.

What impressed me about the subject of today’s review – the Vivibright GP100UP projector was not its Full HD resolution, nor its competitive price, but its ease of use.

Vivibright GP100UP projector review – Plug it in and go

The GP100UP comes in two flavours – one with an Android operating system and one without. The folks at Gearbest sent us the Android version to review which retails for R2 517.59. The projector is big but also rather light at 2.2kg which is good for anybody that wants to mount the projector to the roof.

At the rear you’ll find two HDMI ports, a VGA port, two USB ports and two 3.5mm jacks for headphones and speakers.

The projector has a pop-out foot at the front to adjust the tilt of the image but it isn’t adjustable which can be a pain.

You’ll also find an IR sensor at both the front and rear of the projector so that you don’t need to do Jedi lightsaber tricks to get inputs from the remote control to register and a focus and keystone adjuster just next to the lens.

Vivibright GP100UP projector review – Tech specs

The failing of projectors is light.

As great as having a 100inch display is it doesn’t help if I can’t use it during the day.

The GP100UP has that problem but to a lesser extent. The projector is rocking a 3500 lumen 200W lamp which performs well at midday with the curtains drawn. However when faced with direct light it does struggle and while watching darker scenes (such as those in the The Babysitter on Netflix) during the day (even when the curtains are drawn) you will strain your eyes to make out what is happening. This is a failing of projectors in general and it is not unique to the GP100UP.

At night the picture is still a bit dark out of the box but adjusting the brightness fixed that right up.

The GP100UP has a native resolution of 1280 x 800 but it supports a resolution of up to 1920 x 1080p. I was curious to see whether this was actually 1080i but lo and behold the projector reported that it was displaying a Full HD image at 1920 x 1080p. The image is sharp and the only time I noticed any sort of image tearing was while playing Mortal Kombat for six hours straight and that was due to the notebook I was using thermal throttling thanks to a heatwave.

One gripe I do have is that the colour of the projector can be a bit washed out especially when that pesky sunlight is still about.

For image adjustment purposes there is a physical wheel alongside the lens which can be used to adjust the tilt of the image and pull focus. These wheels are a bit sticky out of the box but they do get smoother the more you use them.

The GP100UP also contains a speaker which is louder than I expected it to be. The speaker doesn’t have much in the way of bass but if you’re just having one or two friends over the volume is ample even if the sound leaves you disappointed.

My advice is plug in your own speaker system.

Because the GP100UP runs Android it also contains a quad-core Cortex-A53 CPU @ 2.0GHz, 1GB RAM, 8GB of storage and a Mali-450 GPU.

The system is a bit slow but keep in mind that you are getting the added value of not needing to plug a video source into the projector. There is a version of the GP100UP doesn’t have the Android operating system and it is cheaper if you’d prefer to save some dough.

There is something you ought to know about this projector that I haven’t touched on yet – it is loud.

The projector’s cooling system kicks in the moment the power comes on and the noise is immense. The pay-off is that the projector remains very cool to the touch but Vivibright claims the projector peaks at 35db which is similar to the ambient noise in a quiet urban area. That noise is going to be in the same room as you so if you plan to watch movies you might want to crank up the volume.

Vivibright GP100 projector review – Conclusion

The GP100UP is a really great projector with great specifications and ease of use. Mind you the image is not as sharp as it is on a TV but your display can fill up a wall.

Yes Full HD can’t compete with a 4K TV but if you can look beyond that you can have a TV that isn’t just named after a wall but is actually the size of your wall.

It can get a bit loud and this being an imported product means that replacement parts might be hard to come by.

With that having been said the GP100UP costs R2 517.59 on Gearbest and that is a rather tempting price for a projector especially when locally all you can get for that price is a rather weak LED projector.

My time with the GP100UP was enjoyable and its ease of use meant that I was less hesitant to wrest it from its box to enjoy an evening of Netflix with my friends.

If you can look beyond the droning fans, don’t mind the slow Android experience and don’t mind using your own sound system the GP100UP is a great addition to your living room.

[su_box title=”Vivibright GP100UP Specifications” box_color=”#f37021″]

Maximum Resolution 1920 x 1080 (Full HD)

Brightness 3200 Lumens

Native contrast ratio 2 200:1 (Static) 10 000:1 (Dynamic)

Projection distance 1.2m – 7.5m

Projection type Front and Rear

Lamp life 30 000 hours

Lamp power 200W

Input 2 x HDMI, VGA, ethernet, USB, 3.5mm jack, IR

Price R2 517.59

Available from Gearbest

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*Disclaimer: The Vivibright GP100UP was sent to htxt.africa for review by Gearbest.com who has said htxt.africa may keep the projector.*