introduction
The Formovie P1 aims to be one of those good things that come in small packages. Formovie has managed to fit a powerful projector into a very small body, measuring 150.8 x 83 x 24.6 mm and weighing just 300 grams. The P1 is a truly portable device that still packs a laser light source capable of an advertised brightness of 800 lumens. This allows for an advertised projected image up to 100 inches diagonal, which is terrific.
There’s also a speaker on board, and the P1 has the ability to do vertical keystone correction automatically. It also offers easy wireless display casting for iOS, Android, and Windows.
Currently, you can buy the P1 Pocket Laser Projector from Formovie official store for $399.
As far as we know, the Formovie P1 is also identical to the WEMAX Go laser projector. The specs between the two are perfectly matched, but prices seem to fluctuate, so you might as well consider which one is cheaper in your area if you like the Formovie P1.
Unpacking
Formovie has provided a great retail package to go with the P1 projector. The unit comes with a nice, thick carrying case with slots for the projector, the included power supply, and many other accessories.
The power supply you get is a 30W USB PD drive with a Type-C interface. It is rated for outputs of 5V at 3A, 9V at 3A, 12V at 2.5A, 15V at 2A and 20V at 1.5A. A USB Type-C to Type-C cable is also included in the box. You may wish to swap this for a longer one to improve the versatility of the P1.
Hardware
Let’s start with the Formovie P1 cheat sheet.
Formovie P1 at a glance:
- Dimensions: 150.8 x 83 x 24.6 mm, 300 grams.
- Optical Parameters:TI DLP; optical resolution qHD (960×540 pixels); aspect ratio 16:9; 8 bits; fixed focal length.
- Projection parameters:ALPD lasers; 800 lumens (advertised); 40~100 inch screen diagonal; launch ratio 1.2:1; 25,000 hours of light source life.
- Optical adjustment: Automatic vertical keystone correction; manual focus.
- Audio: Built-in single 0.8W speaker
- I: 1 USB 2.0 Type A port for data transfer; 1 HDMI 1.4 port; 1 3.5mm headphone port; 1x USB Type-C port for power.
- Wireless Connectivity: Wi-Fi for wireless transmission only.
- Other characteristics:Can be used as a wireless speaker; Powered by 15V@2A USB PD.
The P1 has a very attractive exterior, both figuratively and literally, since its matte black is really nice to look at, but it’s also a real magnet for dirt and fingerprints. The unit has a modern industrial aesthetic and can blend seamlessly into any setting.
The P1 does not have an internal battery. It needs to be connected to an external power source via the Type-C port to work. It draws power via USB Power Delivery at 15V 2A for a total of 30W. It’s 15V output, so you may want to keep the one provided by Formovie. Fits perfectly in the carrying case.
There is active cooling inside the P1. Three small fans are mounted near the front of the unit right next to the lens. They are quiet and barely audible in normal operation. Our best guess is that they draw air in from the back side of the unit’s mesh and exhaust it out the front.
We don’t take a tour of the available ports. Starting from the left, we have a regular 3.5mm audio jack for connecting an external stereo audio device such as speakers or headphones. There are no other audio out ports on the device which is a bit of a shame.
The USB Type-A port is meant for connecting external storage devices to the Formovie P1. It supports USB 2.0 data connections and provides enough power for something like a slim 2.5″ external drive or USB thumb drive. A full-sized 3.5″ external hard drive will require an additional power source to operate. The P1 it has a basic set of players for video, audio and photos and can also read basic text files.
The HDMI 1.4 port on the P1 appears to support resolutions up to and including 1080p@60Hz. Next, the image is downsampled to the projector’s native 540p resolution. The HDMI port does fine audio input, as expected. There is, however, no support for audio output (HDMI ARC). This is offset by the fact that you’re unlikely to actually use the P1’s built-in media player often due to its limited capabilities.
Last and probably least, we have the USB Type-C port, which is only meant to power the device. It has no data connection.
Let’s continue the hardware tour with the built-in buttons. These are nice, snappy and well-placed, in our opinion, although a d-pad arrangement would have potentially worked better for the directional keys.
The control scheme is really easy to understand. You get four directional keys, an OK button, and a back button. The up and down keys work as a volume control during media playback, while the left and right keys are next and previous. Holding down the back button always takes you to the P1 home interface, while holding down the menu key takes you to the settings interface.
The Formovie P1 has a single 0.8W speaker, which is far from impressive, but can get the job done in a flash. Interestingly, it is placed on one of the sides of the projector.
The reverse side of the P1 has a color-accented red ALPD label, whose aesthetic we like. Also, on this side, we find the manual focus wheel. It runs great, is very responsive and allows for very fine adjustments – no complaints about that. Autofocus would have been a nice addition to the mix, but we can’t be too greedy.
The front of the P1 has a trio of very small fans visible through the mesh. The front has a sliding design that provides protective coverage for the lens while the unit is off, which we really appreciate.
The sliding front cover doubles as the power switch for the P1. That is, the unit turns on when you open the lid and turns off when you close it. It’s a nice and easy to understand system.
The only other notable item on the P1 is a status LED on top of the unit. It seems to only flash when turning the unit on and off, and only in blue. The rest of the time it is off.
Before we get into the internals of the P1, it’s worth mentioning that at least a couple of important external bits are missing. One of them is an attack point. There is no way to attach the P1 to something like a tripod. It’s meant to sit on a flat surface, and that’s it.
Also missing from the mix is a remote control. While the buttons on the unit are good enough to get the job done, a remote would have been much appreciated.
On to the main piece: the P1 is a ALPD projector, which stands for Advanced laser phosphor display. It is undoubtedly the most advanced fluorescent laser technology. Laser projection basically has all the advantages of LED projection: the light source is compact and energy efficient, and allows for easier non-standard optical angles. You also get the benefits of virtually no maintenance and approximately 25,000 hours of life expectancy for the light source as advertised for the P1.
Laser projection also allows for higher brightness. Unfortunately, we’re not sure which version of ALPD technology the P1 uses. You can read more about ALPD in our UST Formovie Theater 4K projector review.
Regarding TI Instruments’ DLP technology, which denotes the use of a Digital Micromirror Device (DMD), which is an array of micromirrors that can be used for high-speed, efficient, and reliable spatial modulation of light. Each mirror is responsible for a single pixel and can be electrostatically tiled around a +/-12 degree hinge. In a projection system, a state of +12 degrees corresponds to an “on” pixel and a state of -12 degrees corresponds to an “off” pixel. Multiple light sources can be multiplexed to create full RGB color images using these deflecting mirrors.
Operation and performance
Setting up the Formovie P1 is a simple process. The automatic vertical keystone correction works great. As long as the projector is pointed well at the projection surface horizontally, the system takes care of adjusting the vertical angle optimally. However, we haven’t found any way to do any manual keystone correction in the software, which could be problematic if the automatic system isn’t working properly.
Focusing is done entirely manually, which is fine in our book as the system works well. We were able to narrow the P1 to a much smaller display diagonal than the advertised minimum of 40 inches. Conversely, anything over 85-90 inches diagonal was too dull to use even in a perfectly dark room.
Speaking of initial setup, if you intend to use iOS wireless display transmission, you will need to connect both your phone and Formovie P1 to the same Wi-Fi network. Connecting the P1 to Wi-Fi is quite tedious as entering the password is very difficult on the built-in controls. Seeing how the P1 is meant to be portable, you might have to do it more than once, which isn’t ideal.
Android and Windows wireless casting works without the need for a Wi-Fi connection. We had no issues with wireless display transmission no matter what device we used. There is some image lag, which is to be expected, but very little in the way of visual artifacts and noticeable compression.
The Formovie P1 has a very simple and stark look integrated media player. It supports video, audio, photo and text playback. The video part seems to play h.264 and h.265 (HEVC) videos correctly, except for 10-bit HEVC. Anything up to around 25Mbps plays without issue, but beyond that, the player throws a warning message that the bitrate is too high and you get some dropped frames. We were unable to decode any HDR content (HDR10, HLG, Dolby Vision).
Of course, you can skip any of these input alternatives and connect an HDMI cable to the P1. It works well with resolution support up to 1080p@60fps. However, we ran into a major problem with this use case. It is not possible to switch directly to the HDMI input and skip the projector’s main menu. You have to navigate and select the HDMI input every time you turn on the P1. This is a huge hassle to deal with.
In terms of optical and visual performanceFormovie says the P1 800 lumens. These, however, are not ANSI lumens. As far as we could figure out, only the P1 does this 300 ANSI lumens. We still found it to be quite respectable given the size of the projector. In our tests, the P1 was bright enough to produce a usable image up to about 55 inches during the day without direct sunlight. In a controlled light environment, we found it usable up to about 85-90 inches. The ideal scenario for us was a light-controlled room and a display that was about 65 inches.
The effective output resolution of the Formovie P1 is 960×540 pixels. While it’s by far FullHD, this isn’t an unusual resolution to see in projectors of this size. In practice, we found it extremely sharp, particularly for watching movies. While not ideal for office use, the P1 can certainly handle the odd presentation in a pinch. Just make sure you use bigger fonts in your slides and you should be good.
The Formovie P1 appears to use between 13W and 16W of power through its Type-C port when projecting, depending on the source. It’s quite efficient, and there’s an “eco mode” in addition to that, which has lower brightness and, consequently, lower power consumption. The P1 gets toasty but never excessively hot during operation. Its fans have never been uncomfortably loud in our experience. The sound was easy to drown them out, even with the built-in speaker.
Speaking of the speaker, it’s quite disappointing. It’s a single/mono unit with an output power of 0.8W. Nothing to call home in terms of output volume or clarity. The sound distorts quite badly even at higher volumes. We highly recommend using an external audio device with the P1.
While the Formovie P1 is clearly meant to be a portable movie projector, we’ve tried it game on it with astonishing success. Input latency isn’t bad at all. There are no dedicated games or another low latency mode on the P1, but the Standard one does the job well enough.
Final thoughts
The Formovie P1 is a great little projector. The use of ALPD technology results in a clear image without color fringing or other noticeable visual artifacts. The P1 is also bright enough for its intended purpose: a casual multimedia experience on the go. While its native resolution is quite low, it’s about par for a portable projector of this size. We’ve also found it usable for the occasional presentation in a pinch.
To our surprise, the P1 also has low enough latency to be quite adept at gaming. The only real disappointment is the built-in speaker, which isn’t particularly loud or clear. The lack of a remote control is a bit annoying, as is the inability to launch HDMI mode directly. These are all minor complaints. Apart from that, the Formovie P1 deserves a warm recommendation.
Currently, you can buy the P1 Pocket Laser Projector from Formovie official store for $399.
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