Leica Cine Play 1

Pros

• Aluminum body looks and feels luxurious
• Lots of settings to fine tune the image
• Decent speakers

Cons

• Leica pricing
• Color isn't very accurate

Leica is best known as the maker of high-end cameras and lenses. We recommend one of its smaller models in our best point and shoot camera guide. And what is a projector other than a camera in reverse? Well, a lot more, to be fair, but I can see why Leica has stepped into the space. 

The Cine Play 1 is a compact, gimbaled projector with some impressive specs, including a claimed 3,000 lumen light output. Interestingly, it doesn't use the Google TV interface like the majority of modern projectors and instead uses Hisense's VIDAA OS. 

Overall performance is good, but a list price of $3,795 is indicative of the "Leica tax" that also results in their cameras being more expensive than other similarly-performing models. Even at $3,000, which you can find it at regularly, the Cine Play 1 struggles to compete with similarly-priced projectors.

Specs and such

• Resolution: 4K 
• Lumens spec: 3,000 (claimed)
• Zoom: Yes (0.9-1.5)
• Lens shift: Gimbal (vertical adjustment only)
• Light source type: RGB laser

Nearly every projector I review has a body made of plastic. Some feel cheap, others feel less cheap, but very few use metal. The Cine Play 1 is notable for having an aluminum shell, which looks and feels significantly more luxury than other projectors. Great when the lights are on, I suppose.

The Cine Play 1 has most, though not all, of the features you'd expect in a projector in this price range. That includes a gimbaled base, motorized zoom and an RGB laser light source that Leica claims puts out 3,000 lumens. Most of the gimbaled projectors I've reviewed also have a sort of "lazy Susan" in their base for easy horizontal swiveling. The Cine Play 1 doesn't, but then again, how hard is it to physically rotate a projector?

In its most accurate mode (Theater Day not, interestingly enough, Filmmaker), I measured the projector at 2,100 lumens. With the Brightness Enhancer feature set to Ultra I measured 2,647. Given the differences in measurement techniques and unit-to-unit variation, this is reasonably close to the spec. However, in this mode the image is noticeably greenish and the fan noise is significantly louder, something that's especially noticeable since usually the Cine Play 1 is normally very quiet. It's worth noting that with the Brightness Enhancer set to High the image is far less green, though still fairly blue/cool, and only slightly less bright at around 2,541 lumens. The fan noise is still noticeable.

I'll talk more about this in the conclusion, but one of the things I was hoping for with the Cine Play 1 was an impressive contrast ratio. I measured an average across multiple brightness modes of 1,386:1. This is for sure decent. It's about 40% above the average of all the projectors I've reviewed for CNET, and nearly 2.5x the median. It's also right in the same range as other projectors around the price. The Xgimi Horizon 20 Max was 1,367:1 for instance, and the JMGO N3 Ultimate was 1,859:1, though that had some brightness ramping in the black levels, so the ratio might have been slightly lower. Epson's Home Cinema 5050, while significantly larger and designed for more permanent placement, is around the same price, and has a vastly higher contrast ratio of 5,203:1. However, it's a bit dimmer at around 1,731 lumens in its brightest normal (that is, not green) mode.

The Cine Play 1's brightness and contrast are fine, but I was hoping for more given the price and the name. I also would have liked to see more lens shift options, like what the JMGO N3 Ultimate has, but those features are not super common so their absence here is forgiven (mostly). There is an option for lens shift in the menu, but it only works if you're in the digital (not optical) zoom range, but you shouldn't use digital zoom since that reduces image quality.

Connections

• HDMI inputs: 2
• USB port: 2
• Audio output: Optical, 3.5mm headphone
• Internet: Wi-Fi, Ethernet
• Streaming interface: VIDAA
• Remote: Not backlit

Nearly every projector I've reviewed in the last few years has had the Google TV operating system. This is… fine, I guess. It's likely very cheap to implement. If it's anything like on the TV side, Google may even pay companies to include it. Early versions of the operating system lacked adjustments that other, non-Google projectors had, limiting picture quality tweaks. This is generally a solved issue now, however. 

I bring this up because the Cine Play 1 is the first projector I've reviewed that uses Hisense's VIDAA OS instead. Coincidentally, I have a Hisense projector next up in my review queue. Overall, VIDAA seems fairly smooth to use, with less clutter than Google TV. The apps are laid out in a row, and there's a small window that shows what the most recent source is showing. Since it's not Google, you might not be able to find every app you want. All the major ones are here, but if you've got a favorite but less popular app, best to check if it's available first. Or just connect a streaming device, which you can do via the one of the HDMI inputs and if necessary, power it via the adjacent USB.

On the operations side, the Cine Play does have a nice "cine" touch. When you turn it off, instead of issuing a shutdown warning or the image turning off instantly, black bars come in from the sides to simulate curtains closing. Classy.

Th projector has two 10-watt speakers that can play decently loud, and overall sound is pretty good. The bass is a bit boomy, but there is a surprising amount of it. Like all projectors you're better off connecting to a soundbar or receiver and speakers.

Lastly, the long, thin remote is mostly metal and has a high-end heft to it, befitting a high-end product. It is not backlit, however, making it harder to navigate in the dark.

Picture quality comparisons

JMGO N3 Ultimate

The JMGO N3 Ultimate is a close competitor to the Leica Cine Play 1. Both are gimbaled projectors, though the N3's is also motorized. It's a few hundred dollars cheaper than the Leica and, while rated for far greater brightness, produces measurements which are fairly close. I connected each of them to a distribution amplifier and viewed them side by side on a 102-inch 1.0-gain screen.

First: the good. Like most projectors in this price band, the Leica is very bright. While the JMGO is brighter, by about 350 lumens in my testing, that's not that hugely meaningful in the real world. Side by side the N3 does look very slightly brighter, but that 15% difference just isn't that big a deal. Or to put it another way, the difference between a 350 lumen projector and a 700 lumen projector is very noticeable. The difference between 2,100 and 2,450 isn't as much.

Contrast, too, looks fairly similar. I had some difficulty measuring the contrast ratio on the N3 Ultimate because it would turn off its lasers when given a 0 IRE (black screen) regardless of settings. So the 1,859:1 I measured is less precise than I usually prefer but it's in the ballpark. That's higher than the Leica's 1,386:1, but again, these are both solid numbers and side by side they look very similar. Maybe there was a little better depth to the image on the JMGO, but barely. 

The biggest difference, and where I was most surprised with the Leica, was color. Leica cameras are known for their color accuracy, and the Cine Play 1 was noticeably less accurate than the N3 Ultra. First, none of the color temperature modes I tested were accurate. The most natural lacked red, giving skin tones a mild pallor. The other colors themselves were slightly off as well. None looked bad per se, but the projector was definitely less accurate than the N3 Ultimate. This was true regardless of picture mode, including Filmmaker. So the result looks a bit less lifelike. It didn't look artificial, it wasn't that poor, but I've reviewed a string of accurate projectors lately, so the performance here was surprising. 

There are extensive picture settings, so if you want to have your projector professionally calibrated you can improve colors and color temp, but I have a hard time recommending you spend even more on a calibration when the projector is so expensive to start. There are other, cheaper projectors that are far more accurate. Again, it's not bad, but the projector gets a B- in a class of less expensive As.

A word or several about RGB laser light sources. The Cine Play 1, like all RGB laser projectors, has an issue if you wear glasses. Depending on your prescription and lens material, you may see chromatic aberration, or color fringing, around bright objects. This is especially noticeable when they're on a dark background like the white credits on a black screen, streetlights at night and so on. It will look like the image "splits" with a single-color "ghost" on either side. This is especially noticeable if you're sitting fairly close, since you'd naturally look at the corners of the screen through the corners of your glasses, exacerbating the optical issue. This is separate from the DLP rainbows some people see with certain DLP projectors. This won't affect everyone who wears glasses, and it certainly won't affect those who don't wear glasses. For what it's worth, I do notice it and find it annoying enough that I personally wouldn't buy an RGB laser projector. Check out the BenQ W4100i instead as it uses LEDs and doesn't have this issue.

While I didn't compare them head-to-head, the Leica's performance is fairly similar to the Valerion VisionMaster Pro2. That projector is slightly brighter, at 2,301 lumens in its normal modes, but again that's not enough of a difference to matter in the real world. Neither projector has particularly accurate colors, though the Pro2's are a little worse. Both have attractive, to my eyes, exteriors. The Leica is available for a few hundred more, which is probably worth it if you want a gimbaled base. I'd still pick the JMGO over either, however.

Rangefinding

If you're not researching and testing the dozens of models that come out every year, then the projector market is interesting in ways you might not expect. For example, I've found that the vast majority of projectors share many of the same parts. Other than Epson, and higher end brands like Sony and JVC, nearly all projectors use one of a handful of DLP chips made by Texas Instruments. They also tend to use many other off-the-shelf parts that are identical across brands. 

It's what each company does with these parts that's the key, which is why there's often significant performance differences between projectors. The lens can be a huge factor in this, so I was interested to see if Leica would use its long history of superb optics to do something special with the lens. The results were, well, disappointing given naturally elevated expectations associated with the name. To be clear, the performance itself isn't disappointing, but with the name on top I think it's fair to expect a bit more. It should exhibit performance which was at least on par with brands with a fraction of the history of Leica, for instance.

Rant aside, the Cine Play 1 is a good projector; it's just not a great one and for the price that's a fair expectation. You're absolutely paying for that little red circle on top. For many people, that's a reasonable tax to pay and that's totally fair. The chassis alone looks quite luxurious in a sea of plastic boxes. If you're just judging on performance, however, it's "OK" and there are better options for less money.