Alfawise A8 Smart Budget Projector Review

Talk about low-end budget projectors, the brand name Alfawise has to be mentioned. Skilled in the art of crafting, designing and manufacturing of electrical appliances (like projectors, tablets, vacuum cleaners, window cleaners etc) for home and office use, the Alfawise brand is continuously stepping up it game and not seeming to stop anytime soon; particularly when it comes to the production of cheap and affordable appliances.

Projector-wise, the Alfawise X 3200 Lumens projector is an attestation to the expertise of the China-based manufacturer in the aspect of manufacturing budget projectors. And though the X 3200 cost a little above $150, the product in this review cost even less, and offers almost equal value in terms of quality.

The Alfawise A8 will be going under out review beam in this post and we will be looking at the specifications of the budget low-end projector, its highlight features, price, where to buy, and if it is worth it’s money… or not.

Just to serve as a little intro (and spoiler), like the S320 LCD projector, the Alfawise A8 smart projector also sells for less than $100. It actually sells for $72.99 and with this product, you really do not have to break the bank or your savings to get a decent projector to serve the purpose of home theatre entertainment, gaming, for movies or cinematic kind of experience, and for presentations.

Is the Alfawise A8 projector worth it’s money? Or it is another low-priced projector with abject quality? I guess you will find out soon enough.

Alfawise A8 Projector: Design

Available in Black and White colour options, the Alfawise A8 projector is made out of low quality plastic material. And truly, I wasn’t expecting much from the projector – at the price point it sells for. However, the plastic material is durable enough to withstand pressure and accidental fall at certain distance. The white colored variant is used in this review.

The Alfawise A8 has a dimension of 8.07 x 5.91 x 2.17 inches (representing length, width, and height respectively) and weight 0.97 kilograms. Though a budget projector, it still come with a bit of a bulk.

At the front, the lens takes it position at the left-hand side, while the Infrared (IR) sensor for remote control is also on the front. The Alfawise A8 ships with a plastic cover out of the box; to be used as a protective covering from dust, dirt and accidental damage of the lens glasses.

Connection Ports

On the rear, there are a couple of ports and connections inlets embedded. There is an additional Infrared blaster on the rear for improving remote control response irrespective of where the projector is facing. Ports on the Alfawise A8 projector include a 3.5mm headphone jack, an AV IN port, HDMI port, a single USB port, TF/SD card slot, and a VGA cable port.

With these ports, there are numerous ways by which you can connect and play multimedia on the Alfawise A8 projector.

On the right-hand side of the A8, the power cable port (or DC IN) is placed. Also, the built-in speaker is present. The speaker quality is good. Sound was considerably audible enough during gaming but didn’t do well enough when watching movies. This is however dependent on the size of the room, and other noise in the background. This can, however, be solved by using a headphone in the 3.5mm jack in the rear, but this means your proximity will be limited close to the projector.

To control the projector, a remote control powered by two AAA batteries ships with the device. Alternatively, you can navigate and control the Alfawise A8 using the control keys at the top of the projector. Projection focus, size and keystone errors can be corrected using the rotating wheels also located at the top of the A8.

To conclude this section, I’d say the design and build factor of the Alfawise A8 projector is impressive considering the price point. There are projectors with better design that cost almost the same or slightly above but the Alfawise A8 build is spot-on — after all, it’s all majorly about the projection quality, yeah?

Display

The Alfawise A8 projector is a 1800 Lumens projector and going by what we saw, this doesn’t seem totally true. The projection brightness was decent enough in dark rooms; in fact, it gave the best image and colour quality. However, under lit conditions, it performed poorly for a true 1800 lumens projector.

In addition, it is paramount to state –at this point – that the Alfawise A8 projector is perfect for as a home cinema — gaming and movies as quality can reach up to Full HD 1080P. This is not the ideal projector for office presentation and seminars. Why? Brightness is a little poor under lit conditions, plus projection size can only reach a max of 100 inches which is poor for text display.

Connectivity and Multimedia

The Alfawise A8 projector comes in two version. One comes with support for Android, while the second version doesn’t. Interestingly, both versions come with support for Bluetooth and WiFi. For a $73 projector, that’s super impressive. The projector is also compatible with popular gaming systems: Sony PS4 and Xbox.

With the built-in speaker and large display, you can take your gaming to the next level. Have a glimpse of how gaming on the Alfawise A8 projector looks like in the embedded video at the end of this article.

Supported picture formats include jpeg, bmp, png, jpg, and gif while video formats supported are mpg, av, ts, mov, mkv, dat, mp4, vob, 1080P. Supported audio are mp3, aac wma, ac3, and m4a.

Lamp life

Alfawise states that the LED lights powering the lens of the A8 projector can last up to 10 years – given its 20,000 hours lamp life.

Price

Presently, the Alfawise A8 Smart Projector is available for purchase on flash sale from GearBest. The basic version retails for $72.99, while the Android Version costs a little more; $109.85.

There are links to purchase the projector below.