Televisions may be a lot lighter since we moved from CRT to LCD and OLED, but their increased display size still makes them quite difficult to transport around. There is an alternative, though, in the form of a home projector, and LG just unveiled its latest short throw CineBeam Laser 4K projector which can be positioned very close to a wall.

LG unveiled its first ultra short throw (UST) laser projector at CES 2018 and it was capable of producing a 150-inch display at 4K resolution. The HU80KA was like a mini tower you could leave on the floor and it cost around $3,000. The second-generation HU85L looks much more like a smart speaker and is clearly meant to sit on a cabinet.

A major selling point of the HU85L will surely be how close you can position it to a wall. With just two inches of clearance it can project a 90-inch display with a 4K resolution. However, if you increase the wall distance to seven inches, the display size increases to 120-inches which is going to be more than big enough for most homes. Brightness matches that of last year's model and is rated at 2,500 ANSI lumens.

There's no detailed spec for this projector just yet as LG is saving the big reveal for CES 2019 in January. We do know that it will offer USB, Ethernet, and HDMI connectivity to allow easy access to media, be it streamed, downloaded, or played off Blu-ray discs. LG is claiming to have eliminated the image distortion usually associated with UST projectors by using a "12-point keystone adjustment feature." It will be interesting to see how that impacts visual accuracy when we get a first glimpse of it in action next year.

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Dimensions and price have yet to be revealed, but I'd hope this model costs no more than the HU80KA it will replace. And as seems mandatory for all new gadgets now, this will be a smart projector with LG's AI solution ThinQ allowing the projector to accept natural language voice commands. You'll be able to utter phrases such as "turn off projector after the movie has finished" or "play yoga videos on YouTube" and the HU85L will understand what you mean.

This latest CineBeam Laser 4K projector is going to act as a bit of a wake-up call for other companies offering UST projectors, especially if this one is priced at around the $3,000 mark. We recently reviewed both the 100-inch Hisense Smart Dual Color Laser TV and the 120-inch variant, which cost $9,999 and $12,999 respectively, but found them to be expensive, not particularly bright, and lacking in terms of the user interface. Dell has a laser projector, but it costs $4,799 (down from $6,000), and Sony's laser projector is $25K.

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