Projectors were once only designed for a specialised home theatre room, or an office board room. Today it’s a vastly different story with some of the best projection technology packed into smaller units making them portable. The Hisense XR10 embodies all that has happened to this segment and it’s spectactular.

EFTM Snapshot: At ten thousand dollars this isn’t a simple portable projector, it’s a high-end projector that you can move from room to room or take with you to a holiday home. Capable of a screen size bigger than any traditional wall. This is an example of technological leadership, not just outstanding projection technology.

It’s the FIFA World Cup, and Hisense are a sponsor, so what better time to unbox the company’s flagship projector for 2026 and check out how it performs.

The box for this unit is enormous – for a projector, and it’s not because of the size of the projector itself – it’s because of the suitcase it comes in. The Hisense XR10 comes with a leather-like roller bag with a handle making it more like holiday luggage than the container for a projector.

Setup is a perfect breeze, because this is – under the hood – a Hisense TV. It uses the same VIDDA operating system, so when you see the screen, it’s just another Hisense. Connect to your WiFi and you’ve got access to all the apps – pre-installed, ready to use.

What’s most noticeable from the moment you power on the XR10 is the brightness. I set this up in the late afternoon, with the sun beaming in directly behind it onto the walls. For almost any other projector I can remember using, this would mean utter wash out for the picture. But for the XR10 it was all easy to see.

Now, with 6000 ANSI Lumens this thing is bright. For some context, that’s double the brightness of Hisense’s flagship last year. Frankly, that doesn’t mean too much. But here’s the thing, I set this up on the side wall of our lounge room. On the main wall, a 100 inch Hisense TV.

This XR10 was pumping out enough light to rival that enormous traditional TV. It was spectacular.

At first, with the Projector set back around 2.5 meters, we were getting a screen around 116 inches. Push it back a bit further and we stretched it to 130 inches.

Hisense say this thing is capable of an image up to 300 inches. But I needed to understand this better, and because I’m no maths wiz, i turned to ChatGPT.

At 100 inches your “screen” is measuring in with a height of 124.5cm. The 130 inch screen we projected had a height of 161.9cm.

So with the ceiling at 2.4m, take away the cornice and the skirting board, the biggest realistic image you’d ever want on an average home wall is going to be 185 inches, coming in at 230.4cm tall.

Crazy to think that’s possible. Even more crazy to think about what sort of home you’d have where you’ve built a wall big enough for a 300 inch screen (That would be 373cm tall!).

But we pushed it as much as we could.

In part, this is thanks to the fantastic Auto-Keystone feature which allows the XR10 to be placed at any angle, with the image projected squared off as if it’s a screen mounted on your wall – not distorted by perspective.

Using what Hisense call Lens Shift, you can manipulate the position of the projected area too, and when combined with the zoom, you can also achieve an image far larger than any projector in the same position in the room.

Where Hisense technology really excels is when you enable the Auto Obstacle Avoidance. This uses sensors and AI to determine if there is something on the wall, like a light switch and project around it.

For me, this was not on by default. Now, to create this space, I needed to remove to hanging prints from our wall. So there were Plastic Screw holes on the wall, barely visible to me on the image. However, when I turned on the Obstacle Avoidance – boom, the image was framed JUST under those plugs. Utterly amazing.

Another AI feature is to do with image colour calibration based on the colour of your wall – not all white paints are “white” you realise?

Well, I enabled this, and the side-by-side it gave me didn’t impress me much, so I reverted back to default settings. Perhaps I should have calibrated it in the daylight, but either way, I wasn’t complaining about the image or colours I was seeing.

With built-in sound from Devialet you don’t need any attached speakers or sound system. Of course, if installed into a room as a dedicated viewing room – I would get external sound, but for us, enjoying the Socceroos and a movie, perfectly great sound to my ears.

The Hisense XR10 is not “portable” in the traditional sense, it’s actually a heavy little unit. But for what it packs, it’s little – 29.2cm wide, 19.6cm tall and 27.2cm deep. Small enough for me to sit it on a metal bar stool. Of course, it can be professionally mounted like any other projector.

Portability comes from the ability to place it on any surface, in any room, and point it at any wall and enjoy the big-screen!

$9,995 is a huge jump from almost all the other projectors like this. Even Hisense’s own C2 series from last year are more than half the price, and for most people will still be impressed and love what they get.

But for cinephiles and videophiles looking for the detail, the brightness, the features – this is the one to save for – Assuming you want a dedicated theatre room or to choose where to watch on a whim, otherwise there’s a huge range of rather huge TVs you can get well within this budget.

Web: Hisense