Tech review: Dreaming of a really big screen

Jim Rossman, Tribune News Service on Oct 14, 2026

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My dream house is going to have a home theater room with a big screen.

Sadly, my current house doesn’t have a good spot for a permanent screen.

I’ve reviewed half a dozen very nice projectors, and they all had to be placed 6 or 8 or 10 feet from the screen. The thing about projecting an image that far is that the projector light source has to be really bright or the room has to be really dark to look good.

This is why home theater rooms don’t usually have windows, and why more people haven’t replaced their living room TV with a projector.

I’ve been reviewing a different kind of projector — one that sits very close to the screen instead of across the room. The AWOL Aetherion Max ($4,499, awolvision.com) is an ultra-short throw (UST) projector.

The Aetherion Max is an extremely bright and extremely sharp projector that would have no problem replacing a TV, in the right room.

Features

The Max has an RGB triple-laser light source with separate red, green and blue lasers. It has a 4K resolution of 3,820 x 2,160 pixels. It has a brightness of 3,300 lumens. It has HDR support, Dolby Vision and can display 3D video.

The Max uses pixel shifting to achieve its 4K resolution instead of an imaging engine that’s 4K native. Don’t let this discourage you from considering the Max. The image clarity is stunning.

It can produce an image from 80 to 200 inches, and if you haven’t watched video on a 14-foot-wide screen, you’re missing out. The projector has a technology called Pixel Lock that keeps the edges of the image sharp at even the largest size.

The brightness isn’t uniform for all the projection sizes. You’d need a pitch black room for the 200-inch size. I’d recommend keeping the image around 120 inches if you expect to have any lights on or to see the image during the day in a room with windows.

The nature of ultra-short-throw projectors like the Max means the image shines up onto the screen through a specialized lens that’s precisely bounced off a mirror.

It has a low input lag of 1 millisecond at a resolution of 1080p at 240 Hertz. These stats might not mean much to you unless you’re a gamer, but the Max is a great projector for gaming.

The Max runs on the Google TV operating system, which means apps like Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, Apple TV+ and hundreds of others can be loaded into the projector’s storage.

It uses Wi-Fi or Ethernet to connect to your home’s network for streaming. You can also connect your DVR or cable box or computer through three HDMI ports (including eARC), a USB-C display port, two USB-A ports, one-gigabit Ethernet, 3.5mm composite AV input, a micro-USB port to trigger powered screens. It also has Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4.

It has a surprisingly nice speaker system, the Aetherion Max has two 25-watt full-range speakers and two 20-watt tweeters. The eARC HDMI connection for a home theater sound system should be considered if you want that booming theater experience.

AWOL Vision has an optional sound system called ThunderBeat that, when connected to the Max, turns the Max’s onboard speakers into a center channel.

Setup

This was my first experience with an UST projector. Getting the screen and projector set up took longer than I thought it would, but once you get it dialed in, it’s not hard to replicate.

The lens is a fixed focal length, so in order to make the image bigger or smaller, you have to move the projector closer or farther from the screen.

Luckily AWOL’s webpage for the Aetherion Max has a handy calculator to help you figure this out. It shows that if you want a 100-inch image, you need to place the projector 6.2 inches away from the screen and 9.35 inches below the bottom of the screen.

The power cord and the other ports are situated on the wall side of the projector. I tried to move the projector closer and closer to the screen to see how small the image could get and still be in focus. I could get the image down to about 65 inches.

You need to have a flat surface to project onto for the best quality image. I have a couple portable screens I keep in the closet to pull out for my reviews.

The first screen I tried rippled from the ceiling fan in my living room and I just couldn’t get the Max to show me a good picture. I changed to a different screen and everything instantly go better.

I need to invest in a nice rigid frame or even a pull-down retractable screen. The Aetherion Max is the kind of projector that will knock your socks off, but once you get it set up, you’ll want to leave it in place.

Before the Max, I just thought I’d seen how good a projector could be.

The Aetherion Max is on another level. I’ve got a very nice OLED TV in my living room that I’m also reviewing, and I set up the Max right next to it to see how it stacked up.

To my eyes, OLED shows the best color and the blackest blacks, but the triple-laser of the Aetherion Max is every bit as sharp and colorful. It’s really difficult for a projector to produce a good black, but the Max uses a seven-step lens iris and enhanced black level, and its blacks are the best I’ve come across on a projector.

The AWOL Aetherion Max has been a great introduction to UST projectors, and I’m hooked.

My next house is going to need a really big screen.