Emotn N1 review: A small portable projector that puts Netflix at the forefront

I’ve reviewed a lot of projectors over the years, from regular to ultra-short throws and a few smaller portable smart projectors. My biggest complaint with many of the portable ones is that Netflix isn’t supported natively and you have to jump through hoops to get it working, often with a subpar experience.

Estimated reading time: 15 minutes

Emotn isn’t a company I’d heard of until recently, but its latest offering did pique my curiosity. Our Emotn N1 review looks at a small portable projector that is Netflix-certified, and as a result, puts Netflix at the forefront of its experience. Read on for our full review!

The Quick Take

Had our review of the Emotn N1 portable smart projector gone out when it first launched, some sections would have been scored much differently, namely performance and price/value. As with some products, all it takes are a few updates to make things better and that holds true for this projector.

The Emotn N1 portable smart projector is brighter and more affordable than most of the competition. Not only that, it does offer a solid Netflix experience out of the box, as well as Prime Video and YouTube. Unfortunately, as it runs a proprietary interface, you can’t install other popular streaming services like Disney+, Hulu, Crave, or the like and will require a streaming stick if you wish to do so.

That being said if Netflix and/or Prime Video are your go-to streaming services, the Emotn N1 portable projector is a pretty decent consideration, assuming you’ll be near a power source, and the current sale price almost makes it an impulse buy.

Specifications

The Emotn N1 portable smart projector we reviewed has the following features and specifications (as provided by the manufacturer):

• Perfect viewing experience with Netflix and more!
  • Official license from Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube TV and more
  • Watch your fave content on a big screen with a full HD clarity
  • Stable and smooth Linux operating system
• Superior image quality and brightness
  • 1080P Full HD image
  • 500 ANSI lumens
  • Up to 120” inches
  • HDR 10 supported
• Premium sound quality: Dual 5W Speakers with Dolby Audio compatibility
• Ease of Use
  • ToF autofocus; ±20 degrees auto keystone correction
  • One-click to open Netflix, Prime Video & YouTube TV on the remote
• Other Features:
  • Connections: HDMI, USB, DC, LAN, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
  • Built-in stand: Adjust the angle of projection by up to 12 degrees
  • 30,000H Lifespan: watch 2 hours per day for over 40 years
  • Eco-Friendly: 20% power consumption of a TV
  • Totally ads-free Smart Linux OS
  • Noise under 26db
  • Bluetooth speaker mode

Display Technology	LCD
Brightness (ANSI lumens)	500
Light Source	LED
Light Source Lifespan	30,000 hours
Resolution	1080p (1920 x 1080 FHD)
Supported Formats	HDR 10
Throw Ratio	1:25:1
Image Size	60 ~ 120″
Auto Focus	ToF Laser Auto Focus
Auto Keystone Adjustment	±20 Degrees Auto Keystone Correction
Manual Keystone Adjustment	Yes
Speaker	2x 5W
Dolby Digital	Yes
Dolby Digital Plus	Yes
RAM	1GB DDR3
Storage	8GB eMMC 5.1
Operating System	Linux
Content	Bluetooth
Input	1x USB 2.0, 1x HDMI In, 1x DC-In, 1x LAN
Output	1x Line-out
Wi-Fi	2.4GHz/5GHz, 2T2R, 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
Blueooth	Bluetooth 5.0/BLE
Operating Temperature	5° C ~ 35° C
Power Consumption	110W
Noise	＜26dB @25° C
Dimensions	7.17 x 4.92 x 7.56 inches
Weight	4.24lb

What’s in the box

• Emotn N1 Officially Licensed Netflix portable smart projector
• 120W power adapter
• AC Cord
• Bluetooth Remote Control
• User Manual

Design

As far as design format is concerned, the Emotn N1 portable smart projector follows the squarish design motif as opposed to a cylindrical design. It’s pretty compact, sitting about 7 1/2″ in height, just under 5″ in width, and just under 7 1/5″ in depth. Underneath the front is a small kickstand which can be used to angle the projector up to give it some extra height.

Speaking of height, I have a 106″ projector screen which is, of course, set up for my main projector. The bottom of the screen sits 31″ from the bottom of the floor. While I had to adjust it minorly when I got an ultra-short throw projector, this was pretty much a similar distance from the ground for my ceiling-mounted projector which sat about where I had the Emotn N1 (and other long throw projectors) set up. In the case of the N1, I had to sit it on some extra boxes and have the kickstand up for it to fill the screen. The bottom of the projector sat at about 35″ from the floor, which is higher than the bottom of the projector screen itself. Unfortunately, this did cause some viewing issues for me as I have my seat centred in front of the screen and the projector was in the way of my viewing. On that note, it wasn’t an issue for people watching from off to each side of me. I did try it in a few other spots and it does have to be fairly high up to fill the screen, depending of course on how high your screen is from the ground.

At any rate, as for the rest of the projector design. There is a power button on the top, centered near the back with the Emotn logo printed on the top across the middle. The front of the projector houses the 1080p LED lens which is set into a black housing which sits on the top half of the projector. Below this is a squarish area with circles drilled through the front cover which is an exhaust vent to keep the projector cooler while in use.

On the back side of the projector is where you’ll find your ports. These are oddly located at the top and include the barrel plug power port, a USB-A port for streaming from USB sticks, an HDMI port, an Ethernet port, and a 3.5mm line-out port. Below this is another circular grille motif which is where the speaker is. This same grille also acts as the intake for air which cools the projector and blows the warm air out the front of the projector.

Both sides are plain, with no features on them. As for the bottom, there is your usual regulator information printed on it, a standard tripod mount port, the aforementioned front kickstand, and four small rubber nubs for when it’s sitting on a flat surface.

Unlike many other smaller projectors, the Emotn N1 does not have an internal battery. While it can still be classed as a portable projector due to its size, it can’t be used without having to plug it in which limits its uses.

The included remote is about what one would expect with a portable projector. Small, it’s 6 1/2″ in length and just under 1 3/4″ wide. From the top of the remote to the bottom the buttons include a round power button and mute button, a select wheel with an action button in the middle, a back button and another with a circle, volume up/down buttons with a focus button in the middle, and four buttons for Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube, and menu. The Emotn logo is centred on the bottom of the remote. As in typical fashion, a small plate can be removed from the back for the two AAA batteries that are required. It’s a minor thing but you should note that batteries for the remote control are not included with the Emotn N1.

Setup/Ease of Use

As with every smart projector, there is some setup required. Fortunately, it’s pretty straightforward and guided when it comes to the Emotn N1. After plugging it in and powering it on, the following steps will get you set up and ready to go:

1. Pair the Bluetooth remote control by pressing and holding Vol- and Right on the remote until the indicator light flashes.
2. Select your projection mode (front, front ceiling, rear, rear ceiling).
3. Accept the Data Collection (limited non-personally identifiable information will be sent to MediaTek, ucfunnel Co, and their service providers) and Firmware Updates Notice.
4. Enable wired or Wi-Fi network.
5. Set up Netflix.

And that’s it! Unlike smart projectors which use the Android TV interface, this one is pretty quick and easy to set up. Once set up, launching Netflix, Prime Video, and YouTube can be done from the remote or the home screen. Navigating with the remote is easy as well, and so is controlling the volume.

Display

Before I get too far into this section, keep in mind the score here is when compared to other portable projectors I’ve used. Even though it gets a 9/10 here, for reasons I’ll discuss in a minute, by no means does it compare with a full-sized projector or a 4K UST projector with a much brighter lens.

Most portable projectors sit around the 300 ANSI lumen range. A few of the newer ones, the Emotn N1 included, have bumped this up to 500 ANSI lumens, which is a huge improvement. While it’s still not enough to get you a bright picture in a sunny room, it does give you a bit more flexibility in where you can use it, or how much earlier you can start using it if outside.

As with any projector, especially smaller ones, the closer you can place it the screen is better as you lose brightness the further back. However, doing so reduces the size of the overall image. In our case, the projector did fine setup for the 106″ screen in a darkened basement. When the lights were on, it was still visible but washed out. As such, you’ll want to use it in a darker room, or later at night when there isn’t a lot of sunlight coming through your windows.

There are also five picture modes to choose from: Cinema, Sport, Vivid, Standard, and Custom. Custom lets you adjust Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, HUE, Sharpness, Gamma, and Color Temperature. To be honest, I didn’t notice a lot of difference between these settings as they were pretty subtle and just used custom with Brightness at 80-100 with the rest at the default settings. The projector also supports HDR10 which did make a bit of difference for the better in the picture quality for supported content.

Software

The Emotn N1 runs on a custom Linux-based interface. As such, you won’t see the familiar Android TV interface present on a lot of projectors these days. The interface can’t be customized either so you are stuck with what you get. That being said, the projector does run pretty smoothly and the interface is easily laid out.

When turned on, the home screen shows a tiled interface with Netflix being the leftmost square, covering two rows. To the right of the Netflix tile, the top row consists of YouTube, YouTube Kids, TG, Tikilive, and Bluetooth Speaker tiles. The bottom row is where you’ll find tiles for Prime Video, Open Browser, app store, Screencast, and HomeShare. Below these tiles is the Continue watching for <signed in user> row as seen in Netflix. This row includes the last two shows you were watching as well as three Trending Now suggestions.

Along the top of the screen is a source icon in the upper left corner with a settings cog beside it. In the upper right corner is your network status (Wi-Fi/Ethernet) and the current time. The source icon lets you select HDMI, Home (projector interface), or USB. The settings cog lets you access the projector settings which include Setup, Picture Mode, Audio, Projection, Network, Keystone, Zoom, Focus, Bluetooth, and About.

Overall, it is a very simple interface but easy to figure out and navigate.

Ecosystem

The Emotn N1 projector is marketed heavily as having native Netflix support, something that is lacking in almost all other small projectors. Dangbei echoed the responses from other projector manufacturers in saying that the Netflix certification wasn’t easy to get hold of but went on to say it is, unfortunately, a trade secret how they achieved this, but they are proud of their new product.

That being said, this projector has native support for Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube, and YouTube Kids — as far as the popular apps go. Other apps available are likely ones you haven’t heard of which include TG (Toon Goggles) which consists of a lot of cartoons and animated shows you’ve never heard of, Tikilive (a cable alternative), Open Browser for web browsing, an app store, Bluetooth speaker support for streaming music to it from your device, Screencast support, and HomeShare support for sharing pictures, videos, and music from your local area network.

As for the included app store, which is Netrange, there are 126 to choose from (at the time of this review). Again, not a lot that I’ve heard of before and the only ones I have include the likes of Vevo, Deezer, Plex, and a few games like 2048, Tetris, and Lunar Lander.

Performance

At first, performance did seem a tad sluggish with the Emotn N1’s 1GB of RAM. However, there have been a few updates which have drastically improved the performance and there is almost no lag when moving around the home interface, selecting an app, or within an app using the included remote.

Playback of Netflix, YouTube, and Prime Video content is smooth as one would expect. The projector also starts up and shuts down relatively quickly, so you’re not waiting around to start binging your favourite Netflix series. While I scored this a 9/10 at the time of publishing, at launch this was definitely more around a 7.5 or 8 so it’s nice to see the improvement here.

Sound Quality

With a pair of 5W speakers on board, I had a decent idea of what to expect from the audio. The Emotn N1 does get very loud. In my basement with the projector pretty much centred in the room, 40-50 volume was perfect. However, as is usually the case in smaller projectors with onboard sound, there isn’t a lot of bass on the default settings, but not to fret. I found when I went into the audio settings and adjusted the bass to about 65, it did sound better, albeit punchy as opposed to warm and full. Alternatively, I found enabling Surround Sound (disabled by default) and leaving the bass setting at 50 was also better, but still punchy. When played at full volume, it doesn’t sound tinny like some other projectors, nor does it distort.

With the speaker covering the back of the projector, the best place to sit is almost directly behind it. The further left and right of the speaker you get, even while still behind it, the more you hear the audio only from your opposite ear. Should you be unfortunate enough to be seated beside it, the sound does lower, and again, you’re hearing it mostly coming from the direction of one ear.

There are some audio options you can play with, including four Sound Styles: Standard, Sport, Movie, and Music. I did notice a slight difference between them, based on the content I was watching when switching them up.

Price/Value

Even though Dangbei and Amazon have it listed for $399 MSRP, it is selling for $279.99 on Amazon if you use the current $110 off coupon. At launch, it retailed for $599, which, to be honest, was a tough sell based on the limitations of the projector. As far as portable projectors, the price point was definitely right, especially considering the image and sound quality. However, if you want to watch from other streaming services aside from Netflix or Prime Video, you’ll need to ante up for a streaming stick of some sort as well. However, with the current selling price, the value is much better. Add in that extra $110 off and if Netflix, Prime Video, and YouTube are your thing, it’s an excellent deal.

Had I scored this at launch, the Price/Value of this projector would have been about an 8, but with the recent price drop, it’s an easy 9/10.

Photo Gallery

Wrap-up

The Emotn N1 portable smart projector puts Netflix front and center with native support for better or worse, depending on how you look at it. If you use streaming services outside of Netflix or Prime Video, you’ll likely want to give this one a pass. However, if Netflix and/or Prime Video are your primary sources of streaming entertainment, it’s nice not to have to jump through hoops to get Netflix installed and view content using it. The current retail price is pretty decent for the specs of the projector, and the picture and sound quality are decent considering its size.

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