Optoma has announced a new projector aimed at the home market — and with an interesting trick up its sleeve. At first glance, the UHL55 looks a lot like other projectors in this price range: it offers 4K resolution, 1,500 lumens of brightness, HDR10, DCI-P3 and BT.2020 color support, and HDCP 2.2 support for protected content. Unlike other home theater projectors, this one runs Android and offers support for Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant to control the projector with your voice.
Note that this isn't Android TV, but instead Optoma's own version of Android. (And that quite often means updates aren't a sure thing.) Optoma will also offer its own marketplace on the projector for downloading popular apps such as Netflix, YouTube and more. Of course, you can also plug any streaming stick into the HDMI ports if Optoma's store doesn't meet all of your needs.
Both HDMI ports are of the 2.0 variety, with HDCP 2.2 protection. This means both HDMI ports can be used to play protected content such as UHD Blu Rays. There are also two USB-A ports for flash drives, and the operating system will be able to read and display PDF, PowerPoint and image files straight from the flash drives. Both USB ports offer enough juice to power a streaming stick, so you don't need to snake another cable all the way up to your ceiling.
Finally, there's an Ethernet port for wired Internet, as well as 3.5mm and optical audio-out ports to connect to your speaker system. There are also two 8-watt speakers on board, so if you're bringing this around for business presentations you can just use the built-in speakers.
Optoma says the UHL55 will be shipping later this month, and it's already available for pre-order from retailers like B&H.
