Crenova YG600 LED HD Projector Review

Crenova YG600 LED HD Projector Review

Buy it at Amazon: Crenova YG600 LED HD Projector [Affiliate Link]

Takeaway: Bright LED suitable for daytime viewing, but best in very dark settings. Great audio, color saturation, and contrast for its price class.

You'll receive the projector, remote control, 5ft power cable, 8" RCA input cable, 5 ft HDMI cable, and an instruction manual. The projector is fairly large weighing nearly 8 lbs and measuring 13"W x 9"L x 4"H. On the front of the projector is the 3" diameter lens which has a hard plastic cover cap. To its right you'll find the front IR receiver for the remote control and below that a push button release for the tilt foot which pops out the bottom. The tilt foot can raise the front of the projector up about 1-1/4" and can be adjusted by holding the release button and pushing the foot in part or all the way in.

On the top of the unit you have the power button, back button, source selector, menu key, and menu navigation keys. The large dial behind the lens controls its focus and the small dial is the keystone for adjusting pitch if the unit is tilted upward. On the back you have the power plug on the bottom left with the power switch about that. Then across the top is the VGA input, two HDMI inputs, two USB inputs with the left one also supplying 5V power, the AV/RCA input for the included cable, a headphone out port, microSD card slot, and rear IR receiver for the remote control. In the bottom right, the vent door over the fan is removable for cleaning, to prevent overheating. On the bottom are four rubber feet that are removable and reveal M3 mounting points for ceiling mounting brackets or racks. Note however, that there is no ¼" or 3/8" mounting hole for tripod mounting, so you'll need to have a flat surface to use the projector on if not ceiling mounting.

The remote requires 2 AAA batteries which are not included, and it has additional keys and functions like volume control, channel selection, play/pause, fast forward, and rewind. Since this unit needs to be plugged in to run and has a pretty short power cable, you'll typically need to run an extension cable unless you happen to have the perfect spot height and distance from your screen that also happens to be near an outlet. I was able to set up this projector in my living room, which is pretty small at 15x14, and project the image to fill a 120" screen. However, the projector is rated to go even larger, up to 200" given enough space (the distance would need to be around 18'). This projector is compatible with both front and rear projection screens because you can flip the image vertically and/or horizontally, depending on whether or not you've ceiling mounted the unit.

In very bright conditions, e.g. a room with all the lights on, or outdoors during the daytime, the projected image will appear pretty washed out given the ANSI lumens rating of around 200. However, with most of the lights off, the projection looked pretty good even with a little ambient light coming from in front of and behind the screen I was using. However, the projector is best viewed in pitch dark conditions e.g. nighttime with the lights off or in a darkened room with blackedout windows. The menu interface for browsing USB media and SD cards is quite basic, though the main menu allows you to choose video, music, photos, or text documents to open. And while the projector doesn't have WiFi capability, the HDMI and other input methods worked fine and allowed me to add WiFi streaming via a Chromecast, FiveTV stick, or Apple TV. I also appreciated the fact that I could power these mobile streaming devices using the 5V USB port (non-input) on the back. Note that when connecting an input to this projector, while it accepts input resolutions up to 1080p, the native output resolution is 1280 x 768 (720p) and downscales higher resolution video accordingly. That said, the image quality is a lot better than 480p projectors that I've used and has great color saturation and contrast for the price.

One of the things that surprised me about this projector is that the fan is fairly quiet. In fact, when watching a movie and sitting only a few feet in front of the projector, the fan noise was undetectable. The built-in stereo speaker was clear and loud with only a slight tinge of sounding boxy. The projection of the speaker was also very good in a small room (with the sound set to the 'Surround' setting there seemed to be a slight boost to volume) and there was little distortion at higher volume levels. For the best audio experience though, I recommend connecting an external speaker via the headphone jack using a standard 1/8" jack audio cable, though it doesn't support Dolby audio.

Overall, this projector does a great job with displaying high definition video in dark conditions with very good color, brightness, sound, and saturation. The built-in speaker does a fine job on its own and is perfectly suitable for movie nights, though if you use an external speaker you can bump up your experience a notch. The projector also works great for gaming or even business presentations since the HD resolution makes text fairly easy to read.

Buy it at Amazon: Crenova YG600 LED HD Projector [Affiliate Link]