Samsung The Freestyle projector Australian review: Is it worth the hype?
If Covid has taught us one thing, it’s how to get even more creative with our home entertainment. I have friends who love to throw up a screen in the backyard, throw down some blankets and watch the movies under the stars.
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AS a kid, my dad loved to break out the carousel projector and put on a slide night to show us some of his overseas adventures.
Dad, a missionary who travelled to the Pacific Islands, PNG and other far flung places around the world, would delight in telling a story or seven while taking us through pictures of smiling Islanders.
The pictures were pretty grainy and the slide projector was nothing to look at.
Far forward about 30 years, and today’s projector technology is out of this world in comparison.
And if Covid has taught us one thing, it’s how to get even more creative with our home entertainment.
I have friends who love to throw up a screen in the backyard, throw down some blankets and watch the movies under the stars.
Watching the ads for Samsung’s super portable The Freestyle projector, where young people are running around showing off images in all sorts of places, you can easily get drawn into the hype.
So how good are they really?
We’ve been putting The Freestyle projector to the test – enjoying everything from Netflix movies to Samsung’s own TV channels.
It comes in a package that’s small enough to fit in your hand and easy enough to move from room to room.
For the super laid back experience, you can even beam straight onto your ceilings to enjoy a show in bed.
For the most part, I’ve just enjoyed turning out the lights at the front of the house, pulling down a blind and projecting onto that.
With the right amount of room, you can get a full high definition picture up to the size of 100 inches. That’s a lot of TV real estate.
And with a price tag of just over $1200, it’s certainly a viable alternative to a television, or at least your second home entertainment option.
Previously, home theatre projectors used to be pretty large, expensive and hard to set up.
The Freestyle is super easy to get going.
Once you are connected to your home internet, you can watch any of the streaming services you may be subscribed to, after logging in.
You adjust how big your TV is on your wall or screen. I am only a couple of metres from my front window so I had it scaled to about 60 per cent.
When I first set it up, I tried adjusting the focusing manually and was able to get a slightly sharper picture.
The Freestyle has a keystone correction to make images square rather than having the edges on an angle.
When I moved it to another wall, I found this didn’t work as well as it should have but that appeared to be a one off.
Since moving the projector around, it seems to adjust pretty well to the different environments.
One of the downsides is that you really need a dark room for it display well.
The upside to that is that you find yourself turning off my lights around the house to get a better looking display.
The Tizen operating system that is included with the projector is super easy to use and there’s a great little remote that comes with it to give you easy access to fast forwarding or rewinding content, changing channels or streaming services or adjusting the volume.
The Freestyle has its own 5W RMS 360 speaker built in but the sound is nothing to rave about so I tended to plug in my own earbuds and keep the rest of the house happy.
To achieve a 100 inch display you need to be about 2.7 metres away from your wall or screen.
The projector has a 550 lumens brightness and while not offering 4K, the quality is good.
You can mirror you own phone to the projector, enabling you to show off videos or photos to the family.
In future years, no doubt this will be the stuff of ’slide nights’.
The Freestyle features Airplay so you can connect not only Android phones but also iPhones.
Bluetooth connectivity also means you could add a better set of speakers to the offering.
There’s also a micro-HDMI port so you can connect a gaming console or Blu-ray player.
If you want to take The Freestyle on the road with you, say camping, you can connect up a power bank but you will need something with 50W power input so normal power banks that you use to charge a phone, for example, won’t do the trick.
The line-up off apps available is comprehensive including Netflix, Stan, Apple TV+, Prime Video, 9 Now ABC iview, SBS On Demand and many Samsung TV Plus channels.
The smart HD offering was initially priced at $1,499 when it was announced in January, but it has come down to $1,299.
There are definitely more affordable alternatives on the market so it’s well worth keeping a look out.
WHAT SAMSUNG SAYS ABOUT THE FREESTYLE
Where do you see most Aussies using it – in a second room, or even as their main TV?
We’d seen a strong trend of consumers wanting the experience of a bigger screen TVs but not wanting the challenges that come with a big screen set up! The consideration of space and having an easily movable 100-inch screen was top of mind when we designed The Freestyle – it’s the perfect second screen to rooms that wouldn’t usually be able to fit a traditional TV. We’re seeing consumers use it in kids’ bedrooms, in kitchens, outside in the backyard, essentially anywhere with a surface to project onto.
Portability and quality are obviously the two big selling points, what sort of research did Samsung do in trying to find out what people really wanted?
We had found that since the pandemic, the importance of TV, as well as consumers’ watching experience, has significantly expanded and changed. Samsung’s customers had the desire for a bigger screen and excellent picture quality, anywhere and anytime.
There was also a desire to take high quality entertainment wherever they go, whether that be inside the home like the kids bedroom or in the spare room or outside of the home, into the backyard or on holidays.
Samsung also found that easily accessing content on traditional projectors was a common challenge, The Freestyle’s Smart capabilities and simple set up is a point of difference when it comes to projectors.
Do we expect to see people setting up their own mini screening sessions outdoors?
Absolutely! The Freestyle is the perfect travelling companion especially camping. Weighing only 800 grams The Freestyle is a big screen Smart TV in a small package. The Freestyle also connects to an external battery pack with the USB-C cable meaning it can be easily set up and used wherever.
I see it can be used with an external power source, is that something that will become more popular as powerbanks get more bigger storage and more efficient.
We identified that Australian’s love making their outdoor experience the best it can be, the portable battery means more freedom to enjoy their favourite content even when camping. We expect this to become more popular as more consumers want the tech they have at home, especially the big screen viewing experience, wherever they go.
Overall, how big a market is there for this sort of product? Will it replace the TV eventually?
We’ve seen The Freestyle be a very popular addition to Australian’s homes due to its portability and the cinematic experience it offers. The Freestyle provides the opportunity to project a 100-inch screen virtually anywhere. It may not replace the TV but with all its Smart features, it’s a great additional screen and continues demonstrate that Samsung can offer the right screen for any occasion or need.
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Originally published as Samsung The Freestyle projector Australian review: Is it worth the hype?
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