- A portable projector for “when you’re away from home”
- Battery power for go-anywhere viewing
- Unusual “magic cube” design twists to adjust angles
One of the downsides of CES is that the huge scale of it means there isn’t time for presenters to talk in detail about every new product. And in the case of TCL’s latest raft of announcements that’s a shame, because I’m intrigued by one of the products the company only mentioned fleetingly.
It’s called the Playcube, and as the name suggests it’s a cube that plays things: video and presumably audio too. It’s a portable projector with an unusual design that TCL calls the “magic cube”: it’s made of two rectangular sections, one of which twists to adjust the direction of your projection.
TCL’s Playcube: what we know and what we don’t
We know three things about the Playcube other than its name. We know that it has that unusual twistable design; we know that it has a built-in rechargeable battery; we know that it’s very small.
TCL is relatively new to the projector business: it only announced its first portable projector, the TCL A1, in November 2024. That has an MSRP of $499 (around £395 / AU$770) and delivers 1080p resolution with 360 lumens of brightness on images from 45 to 120 inches.
That model has Google TV built in, which seems likely for the Playcube too.
Without knowing the price or seeing a spec-sheet (yet) it’s hard to know where in the market this projector will fit – although given that it’s TCL, it’s likely to be priced very aggressively.
Our current pick of the best portable projectors is the second generation Samsung The Freestyle, which is often discounted to a street price of $599 instead of the list price of $799. And our favorite ultra-portable pocket-sized projector is the Anker Nebula Capsule II, which is the size of a Coke can and has a list price of $579.99 (about £465 / AU$830).
We’re hoping to get full specs, pricing and a release date from TCL very soon (or perhaps even to experience it, at CES 2025). We’ll keep you posted – watch this space!
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