Viewsonic M2 Projector Review

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If you are looking for a killer gaming projector, this aint it. With nearly 200ms of input lag using the HDMI input, it’s really not for that. But, if you want an amazing home theatre projector that doesn’t break the bank, keep watching. But first, if you haven’t already, consider subscribing for more videos every Monday, Wednesday and Friday!

Viewsonic isn’t new to the projector game, in fact I’ve reviewed a number of their other models, including the little brother to the M2 I have here, the M1. This is a full 1080p, 1200 lumen LED, semi-portable projector that packs a punch for it’s around £600 price tag. It shares the same UI as the bigger X10-4K, which isn’t really a good thing, and a few other similarities too. 

Lets take a look around the thing. In front, you’ve got a Harmon & Kardon speaker setup, as well as the lens that hides the impressively bright LED – meaning no need to change the blub. On the back, you’ve got the I/O, so HDMI, USB C, MicroSD, USB Type A, audio out and DC in, and on the bottom you have an adjustable foot to help aim the projection, and a little panel you can slide out revealing another USB type A port, and a micro B port. 

The type A is for the included WiFi dongle. Now, you might be thinking, if Viewsonic went to the trouble of cutting a hole in the bottom, adding an extra USB port, and including a cheap rebadged WiFi dongle, why would they not just build WiFi into the projector? Yeah I don’t know either. At least this time the signal is a bit stronger, so I have less to complain about.

Powering it on, you’ll find the same Android based, clunky UI as was on the X10, with the same weird WiFi password character limit – 19 if you were wondering – meaning I can’t connect it to WiFi. The workaround is to press skip, then go into the settings and connect to your WiFi there, as that input doesn’t have the same character limit. Once you are in, you can visit the rather… interesting… app store. It’s pretty limited, and seems like all Google services are unavailable, as when I went to install the Twitch app, it prompted me that it might not work, and it was right. No content there at all. 

Plex, on the other hand, worked brilliantly. It refused to establish a direct connection to my in-home server, but streamed flawlessly, even if that UI is also pretty clunky too. There is a “smart Youtube TV” app you can install, which seems to just be a repackaged YoutubeTV app that I’m not sure I really trust to sign in with, but worked great for content consumption.

On weird thing is that it seems to run at 1080p 60FPS in it’s own UI, and has motion smoothing so 30FPS content looks like it’s 60 – it’s weird, I’m not sure I mind it for youtube, but for films it can be a little off putting and I don’t think you can turn it off.

Image quality is remarkable. It’s “only” 1080p, but thanks to the great colours and decent brightness, I was very impressed at the sharpness and detail it gave. If you were using it at like 80” or higher, it may be a little lacking, but for the 50-60 inches I had it at, it was great. 

Sound quality wasn’t bad either, not great by any stretch, but not bad. It had a fair bit of clipping at certain points, despite the volume being pretty low, and seems to fire at the screen in the hopes of it bouncing back and giving the perception of a wider sound stage, which it does to a point, but the distortion leaves me wishing I had some good speakers attached instead. 

If you’d rather use it as a standard projector, using the HDMI input, be prepared for the input lag. Using it with something like a Roku or Chromecast wouldn’t be so bad, but with a PC it’s not great. Moving the cursor around felt like it was moving through jelly – jello for you americans – either way not nice. Measuring the total system input lag, so from a mouse click to a gun firing in game, the lowest I could get was 171ms, with the average being a lot closer to 200ms. That’s slower than my average reaction time. 

The long and short of that, is it’s not suitable for gaming. Possibly of any kind. FPS games had the same jelly effect, and honestly made me feel a little sick playing, and even for more “group games” like say Mario Kart, this isn’t going to be fun. Maybe for the Jackbox type games, but that’s not saying much. 

So, for around £600, is the M2 worth it? Well, if you want a great small home theatre setup, and have some good speakers you can plug in, I think so. The versatility of using the built in UK, or a plug in device like a Roku or Chromecast means it’s a great content consumption experience. If you want a do it all projector, for a bit of family and friends gaming too, probably not. Even a cheap 1080p or 4K TV would be better, especially now they are coming in 55” and 65” variants for this kind of price or lower.