Hisense is the best cinema upgrade under £1200 thanks to massive price cuts
The Hisense PL2 is an Award-winning short throw projector, and it can currently be yours for £1139 at Sevenoaks. That’s a £860 saving on the price we reviewed it for when we gave it five stars less than a year ago.
Despite previously dropping to £959 during the Black Friday sale, this was a very rare discount, and it’s not expected to drop that low again for a while.
The Hisense PL2 is the direct successor of the Hisense PL1, and has entered the market with a bang, carrying five stars and taking the Award-winning crown from its predecessor. Make no mistake, this is one of the best projectors we’ve tested this year.
As a very short throw projector, it delivers large images even when sitting close to the screen or wall, meaning you can save some serious space by adding this to your home cinema instead of a large TV.
And it’s because of the deep refinement that the PL2 really shines. Visually similar in design to the PL1, it breaks the mold by producing a much larger 80-150-inch image compared to the PL1’s 120 inches.
Also, Hisense has increased the maximum brightness to 2700 ANSI lumens (from the PL1’s 2100 lumens), allowing it to work in challenging, bright conditions.
It is also equipped with two HDMI 2.1 inputs (one with eARC), as well as a basic HDMI 2.0 input and ethernet, USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 sockets. For gamers, it’s worth noting that 4K/120Hz isn’t supported, but it can handle 1080p/120Hz, which means you can sacrifice a little resolution for responsiveness.
Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG are all supported. And another welcome addition is HDR10+, a variant of HDR10 that optimizes the projector’s brightness and color settings on a frame-by-frame basis.
Running Hisense’s VIDAAA U7 software, it has strong app support, with Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV all readily available.
Visually, there are some minor adjustments to make, our expert testers chose the Filmmaker mode with the lowest motion and noise settings, which turn on dynamic tone mapping and the Warm 2 color profile for the best results. But overall, it’s another significant improvement over the PL1.
And when it comes to sound, the PL2’s built-in 15W sound system is impressive but far from perfect. This led our experts to say, “This makes it a good performer by UST’s built-in speaker standards, but nowhere near enough to watch a proper movie. If you want the best results, use the budget for a different speaker system if you don’t already have one.”
With its launch price of £1999, we already consider this projector to offer great value for money. However, at just £1139 at Sevenoaks, this is one of the best value home cinema deals so far this year.
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