A Tiny, Portable Projector to Replace Your TV

It is time to start planning your Super Bowl party, and therefore, it is time to get your TV situation dialed in. Multiple-smart television options are on the market, wafer-thin, with crisp picture quality and screen sizes ranging from sensible to IMAX. But I’m going to go ahead and recommend something more versatile, more portable, and less expensive. Electronics giant TCL has just put out its first smart projector: The A1 is light, powerful, Google TV enabled, and ready to make a high-quality television screen out of your wall. Leave the television set behind and take this baby anywhere.

TCL A1 GTV Projector

Size Is Everything

The A1 is tiny and minimalist. It weighs in at just five and a half pounds and measures just seven by ten inches. There are no physical buttons, one input each for HDMI and USB. But it’s Bluetooth enabled and WiFi equipped, so unless you’re plugging in a game system, you’re unlikely to need either of them. One tap on the top of the unit reveals a few touch-sensitive buttons: power, autofocus, volume. That’s about it, and that’s about all you need.

It’s as Smart as It Needs to Be

A smart projector works in basically the same way a smart television does. Turn it on, give it a moment to warm up, and you have a home screen preloaded with streamers and FAST TV services. Netflix, YouTube, and Prime Video have dedicated buttons on the remote; everything else is already in the onscreen menu or available for download on the Google TV store. We added PlutoTV and the Night Flight Plus service, and even though logging in required a bit of swiping and tapping on the remote, it was still a breeze.

The A1 has a handle that doubles as a stand, allowing you to angle the unit up or down depending on where you put it relative to whatever you’re using as a screen. It’s also got automatic keystone correction, so whether it’s on the ground projecting upward or off to the side projecting at an angle, the unit senses the screen and the picture remains a perfect rectangle. Screen sizes adjust from 45″ to a gargantuan 120″, and any time the unit is moved, it takes a moment to autofocus and comes back at a crisp 1080p.

A Bright, Clear Picture

I broke this baby in on my office wall over the Christmas season. There wasn’t room on my desk for it, so I put it up on the top of my bookshelf, about 15 degrees to the left of the whiteboard that I used as the screen. I pulled up a YouTube video of a Yule log and there it was, as square as the whiteboard itself, in a picture resolution that rivaled that of our main television, the sound of the A1’s fan serving as very light white noise. The picture was almost too good; I actually had to switch to Pluto’s Love Boat channel because it felt too much like my office wall was on fire.

Take It Outside

Where the A1 really shines is in our backyard. A Covid tradition in our household that has endured to 2025 is Backyard Video Night: On Fridays, I’ll create a collaborative YouTube playlist and send the link to our guests, and everyone chooses some old music videos or comedy sketches or commercials. It’s like watching vintage MTV in a dorm room. Our old, bigger, bulkier projector required us to plug a laptop in via HDMI, but with the A1, I can connect to my YouTube account directly from the unit. There’s no screen mirroring, no danger of a push notification or a text message interrupting the flow. Plus, the A1’s Dolby speakers kick out some good sound, which we supplement by connecting it to our outdoor Bluetooth speakers. I don’t know whether our neighbors love this tradition, but we do, and the A1 makes it easier than ever. It also works as a Bluetooth speaker, with LED lights that pulse to the beat of your music, but I can’t honestly see myself using this feature.

The A1 uses LCD projection with an LED light source, and I’m going to be honest: I have no idea what that means, except it’s evidently energy efficient, the picture is nice and bright, and the automatic color correction makes the colors really pop, even on an outdoor screen that’s gotten dusty and sunbaked. It’s not quite bright enough to be visible in broad daylight, so we’ll have to wait until twilight to move our Super Bowl party to the backyard. Next move is to buy the screen this thing deserves.

I’ve seen people complain that the A1 has no hands-free voice control. But given how many times I have accidentally triggered my Alexa and Siri—and the confusion and annoyance it has caused me, my partner, our guests, and Alexa and Siri—that is perhaps for the best. There’s a microphone button on the remote, and having to use it is by no means a hardship.

Final Verdict

I’ve had the A1 for a couple months now, and I prefer its simplicity to the relative chaos of our living-room television and its input switching and complicated remote. This is the best and the smallest and the easiest projector we’ve had so far, and it might just be my favorite TV I’ve ever owned. At $499—sorry to be this person, but it’s on sale on Amazon right now—it’s one of the cheaper options on the market. Cop one for your Super Bowl party. Your guests will thank you, and Kendrick deserves no less.

TCL A1 GTV Projector

Cons

• No hands-free voice control
• Doesn’t work super well in bright sunlight (but what does?)