Thoughts on Amazon budget projectors??

Hi everyone. I'm curious as to how many of you use Amazon budget projectors and what your thoughts are on them. I've never owned what would be considered a quality name brand projector, but I'm on my third cheap model. What got me thinking more on them though, is just how much better the latest one I bought is. Was curious as to who among Us have bought some of the latest ones and your thoughts of how much better they have gotten.

My projector journey started something like this. A few years back I ended up with a cheap Motorola Z3 phone that had the connectors for the Motorola mods. On an impulse buy I bought a Motorola projector mod for $50. I believe the regular price was $200 or something ridiculous like that. It was 480p and 50 lumens. However I have to say it was a lot of fun, my son who was four at the time really enjoyed it, I even found myself watching a show on it every now and again. So about a year and a half ago I shopped cheap projectors on Amazon. I found a Fangor brand Bluetooth projector. It was loaded by cheap projector standards anyway. Had three hdmi, bluetooth, USB, microSD, and was native 1080p resolution. Was advertised brightness of "5500 Lux.". Got it for right at 100 bucks or so which made it far cheaper than similarly featured projectors in its class. Thought it would be fun for the kids and I, so I ordered it not really expecting too much. I have to say we found ourselves using it quite a bit. The room had to be completely dark but the picture looked surprisingly good. The mono speaker in it was terrible, but I Bluetooth it to my old Polk audio soundbar and sub, add in a Roku and away to the movies we go. The kids love it. Even my wife and I have watched a few movies and shows here and there My best guess is the projector was roughly between 150 and 180 lumens.

Got antsy to up my projector game a bit more, and take a look at the latest cheap projectors on Amazon. Was shocked to see the projectors were now advertising brightness as high as 1000 ansi lumens. Found one for $199. Supposedly regularly $299. Had to give it a shot, had enough rewards points to cover it anyway. If it didn't look good I was prepared to send it right back.

https://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-...08KDJ6XDJ/

I've spent the past week with this new projector. I have to say, it's been much better than I expected. First thing I noticed when I opened it was it is about twice as big as my old Fangor. Has a leg that screws downward to hold it up, instead of putting it on a little tripod like my old one. The dual 5 watt speakers sound much much better than the old mono speaker. However I still find myself using a soundbar of course. And most importantly it gets much much brighter than the Fangor. I have no idea if it actually hits its advertised 1,000 ANSI lumens or not. But it is really bright compared to what I'm used to. Can now watch easily during the day with the shades pulled, instead of just in a pitch black room. Almost seems too bright when pitch Black, not sure if there's a way to turn it down or not. Biggest complaint is that really bright scenes with lots of white colors seem overcooked. Haven't really messed with the settings all that much, but will probably try to tweak the settings when I have more time. Another moderate complaint is the fan is somewhat loud. Less annoying than the other projector though, as it's more of a deep fan noise versus the high pitched noise of the smaller Fangor projector.

Curious as to if any of you have tried this projector or any of the other similar ones recently? This one is branded Xnoogo. Never heard of it before. Seeing some updated offerings from Wiimius and dozens of other weird sounding brands. This one is 1080p. Got to say it still looks pretty decent though. I'm sure these cheap projectors are about to go 4K sometime real soon. That should make these offerings even more interesting. Any thoughts or experiences?