- Author: Flicker & Chill
- Original Link: XGIMI Titan Noir Max: my personal experience/review
Other Reviews:
- XGIMI TITAN Noir Max Review: Real User Feedback from AVS Forum Community
- XGIMI TITAN Noir Max Projector Review and Comparison with TITAN
The TITAN Noir Max is the most ambitious 4K projector XGIMI has ever built. After living with an early review unit, here's what I think: including where it's exceptional, where the firmware still needs work, and how it compares to the HORIZON 20 Max.
- Disclosure: XGIMI sent me this as an early review unit, but they have no editorial control over what I write. I've bought and used XGIMI products before, so this is my honest take on the projector.
XGIMI TITAN Noir Max (TNM) is an RGB triple laser projector with 10,000:1 native contrast, a dual intelligent iris system and optics that are a serious step up from anything I've used in the past. 2× optical zoom and ±130% vertical / ±50% horizontal lens shift with lens memory coming via firmware. Where I live the sun sets very late this time of year, therefore 7,000 ISO lumens (or roughly 5,000 usable lumens in movie modes) genuinely helps when there's plenty of ambient light around.
There's no built-in smart TV which I think is a deliberate choice to focus the projector on image quality and leave streaming to your own devices (ie Nvidia Shield). This is no problem for home cinema enthusiasts. Personally I like that it means no outdated app firmware will be lingering on the projector as the years pass.
Build quality is great and what you'd expect at this price. It looks and feels like a proper home cinema with high-quality materials and a design that's genuinely nice to live with. Although, the power brick is external and quite large, so ceiling installation needs planning, but luckily XGIMI's official ceiling mount houses the brick and cables.
Setting up the projector is easy thanks to a clean UI and its highly capable optical zoom and massive lens shift range. You actually have installation flexibility rather than forcing the room around the projector. In practice this matters a lot as with my living room setup it's sometimes preferable to project a smaller image to not light up the whole room.
Luckily, the zoom range gives me that flexibility (roughly 80" at the short end up to 300" at the top, depending on throw distance).
Also, switching between 16:9 and 21:9 aspect ratios is easy via the picture menu. Long-term I'm planning to set this up in a dedicated cinema space where the same range lets me push for a much larger screen without repositioning, but you can find my current minimalistic setup in one of the photos projecting onto a white wall.
1. Picture Quality
Black Levels and Contrast
Black levels and contrast is the highlight of this 4K movie projector and thanks to this night scenes have actual shadow structure. Iris at f/7.0 with DBLE on dark content is the most JVC-like black floor I've seen from a DLP.
Dual Iris
The dual iris is the architectural reason this works as one iris controls laser output, the second sits closer to the lens and fine-tunes light to screen. Colorwise the triple-laser saturation hits gamut extremes that projectors physically usually don't reach.
Color
Full DCI-P3 and BT.2020 coverage in the modes that matter. In regards to sharpness, it is still XPR pixel-shifted 4K, but the new SST chip and X-Master Red Ring Pro lens resolve detail very well at large screen sizes. I also tested with a full white image (using a standard 100% white test pattern from YouTube), the image is even across the screen with no visible hot spots or color cast.
Moreover, I read that Projector Central's instrumented measurement clocked it at 93% brightness uniformity on a 100" image which is a great result.
It is also important to mention that I don't see any laser speckles at all on my wall, even on bright uniform fields where it would typically show up. That said, I'm not particularly sensitive to it, so if you are, your experience may still vary.
Anti-RBE
Anti-RBE also works very well and I am glad this has been fixed. I don't see any rainbow artifacts at all in my use, even in the high-contrast content that usually triggers them. If you're RBE-sensitive, this is the first DLP I'd recommend without hesitation. Only one small caveat below in the critique section.
3D
3D. I've only tried only one movie so far, but it was a fantastic experience. The brightness headroom does real work here since active-shutter glasses lose roughly half the light. There's no auto 3D detection yet (you switch it on manually from the menu), but MEMC is available and the 3D effect itself is strong. If you have 3D content gathering dust and want to watch it on a big screen then this projector alone might justify upgrading.
Picture Mode
Finally, HDR tone mapping is also solid, especially in dark scenes. Moreover, the picture modes are generous and easy to navigate: SDR (Standard, Movie, Sports, Filmmaker, ISF Day, ISF Night, Performance, plus a custom slot), HDR (adds IMAX Enhanced, Dolby Vision Dark, Dolby Vision Bright), and a separate Gaming preset family. For anyone planning to calibrate, the controls go deeper than expected at this price as both 2-point and 11-point white balance, full gamma controls etc are also available.
2. Sources, Formats, and Audio
Supported Formats
I'm using a 4K Google Streamer and all the format notifications come through cleanly: Dolby Vision, HDR10, HDR10+ etc. There are some rare cases when you need to check yourself which format is active. I experienced this when streaming via YouTube, but it's quite straightforward to find this in the menu.
Streaming Apps
On streaming apps via the Google Streamer: Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu have all worked without issues. I currently don't have a Disney+ subscription so I can't confirm that one personally. I have seen it flagged before with XGIMI projectors so I will have to come back to this one.
Audio
When it comes to audio passthrough, the TNM supports lossless Dolby Atmos with TrueHD passthrough from an HDMI source to an external amp or speaker system. To make it work, your source device (e.g., 4K Blu-ray player) needs to be set to Bitstream or source code output, and on the projector itself you need eARC set to Auto and sound output set to ARC. Worth knowing if you're running a full surround setup.
TITAN Noir Max vs HORIZON 20 Max
This was by far the most-asked question so it gets its own section.
Short answer: there's actually a real gap between these two 4k movie projectors for home theater, it might be even bigger than the spec sheet suggests.
Left: HORIZON 20 Max; Right: TITAN Noir Max
1. Contrast and Black Levels
Contrast and black levels is where the difference is most dramatic. The HORIZON 20 Max sits around 1,500:1 native; the TITAN Noir Max hits 10,000:1 at f/7.0. Basically its a 6–7× jump, and you see it immediately on dark content.
2. Color
Color is closer than people expect since both are RGB triple lasers. Where the TNM pulls ahead is in tonal stability across brightness, smoother HDR gradations and less highlight compression.
3. Brightness and Lens
The TITAN Noir Max is also brighter, holds accuracy better at high output, and gets the upgraded X-Master Red Ring Pro lens with 2× optical zoom and far more lens shift range. Installation flexibility is dramatically better.
4. 3D
3D isn't really comparable as the brightness headroom on the TITAN Noir Max makes a big difference here.
5. Gaming Performance
Gaming is quite similar as both share the DLPC8445 controller, both have the same Game Mode preset family, and both have the same calibration lockouts in Game Mode.
The Verdict
if you own a H20 Max and you're happy with it, it's still an excellent living-room projector. The TNM is the upgrade for better HDR in a controlled room or even a living room, better contrast and its especially good if 3D matters to you. I've added a comparison photo to give you a real sense of the difference. I find that the contrast difference is something that you notice immediately.
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Critique
These are the things that caught my eye the most after using the projector for a week. Worth noting upfront that I'm on the first shipping firmware, so some of my observations may differ from reviewers on later builds.
24p isn't there yet on my unit. Real Cinema Mode is the 24p playback path, but on my current firmware 24p playback isn't working yet. XGIMI has acknowledged this and from what I've read, recent third-party testing on a later production firmware build has shown the projector passing the standard 24p test cleanly. So the capability should be coming via firmware, but it just not yet there on the build I have.
OSD notifications and missing screen-off / audio-only mode. On the HORIZON series and most other XGIMI projectors I've used, you can turn the projection off and keep audio running. It's useful for breaks or to use the projector as an audio source and on the TITAN Noir Max it's not there.
Related: there's a recurring eye-protection notification that fires when you walk through the beam, telling you the feature has been disabled (after turning it on and off), and the notification itself can't be suppressed.
There's also a "HDMI Connected" OSD that pops up on every source or frame-rate change, which can't be disabled either. More broadly, the projector would benefit from proper user-side customization of notifications.
Anti-RBE produces a slightly different fan/coil noise when active. It's not audible during playback at all, just a subtle frequency difference you can pick up in silence.
Another thing to keep in mind is that (even though I did not witness it myself) some third-party testing has identified measurable laser PWM artifacts in very dark scenes with Anti-RBE on. It is supposed to be visible mostly in low-IRE content.
Worth knowing that different firmware builds appear to handle the RBE vs. artifact trade-off differently, and XGIMI is actively iterating on this through their Pilots Community beta program. The engineering team has even floated the idea of multiple Anti-RBE intensity levels (similar to how MEMC has Weak / Medium / Strong) so users can dial in their own preference.
I still have to stay on the lookout for this, but I am sure a firmware fix is nevertheless on the way that would address this too.
Summary (TL;DR)
This is the best image XGIMI has ever made.
The dual mechanical iris is a real architectural step up: one iris controls laser output, the second sits closer to the lens and fine-tunes what reaches the screen. The result is a black floor most DLPs traditionally can't reach, with native contrast jumping from ~1,500:1 on the HORIZON 20 Max to 10,000:1 here.
Triple-laser color hits gamut extremes most projectors can't, the lens shift range is genuinely class-leading for installation flexibility, and 3D is in a different league than anything else in XGIMI's lineup and possibly even across projectors in general.
Firmware still has some rough edges (24p not yet shipping on my build, missing screen-off / audio-only mode, a few notification quirks) that are covered in the critique above. That aside, with the Kickstarter pricing I find that this is genuinely a really great value for money projector.
Pros
- Deep blacks from the dual iris
- High-quality build
- Many picture modes and great calibration controls
- Excellent value at Kickstarter pricing
Cons
- Firmware updates needed for the full experience (24p, lens memory, anti-RBE)
- Some notification quirks
- No screen-off / audio-only mode
If you want to ask anything specific, drop it in the comments (original FB or Reddit post) and I'll try to respond with photos or short video clips where I can by the end of this week.
