[REVIEW] Wanbo X5: The best projector in its price category with a brightness of 1100 ANSI lumens

Packaging contents & quality

The Wanbo X5 projector was delivered to us by a DPD courier in a box measuring 33.5 x 32.5 x 18 cm. Similar to the Roborock brand, Wanbo packs its products in two boxes. One is the standard product box, while the second one is protective.

Inside, the projector itself is protected with foam inserts to ensure nothing gets damaged during shipping. Besides the projector, you’ll also find a remote control, a power cable, and a user manual in the box.

We rate the overall packaging quality positively.

Design and build quality

Unlike many well-known projectors from the Wanbo brand, the X5 model comes with a traditional, wide projector design. Its dimensions are 265 x 235 x 119 mm with a total weight of 2.6 kg.

It’s white with golden elements, which gives it an elegant look. It’s made of plastic, but it feels solid and well-made.

As for the layout of the individual parts, the front houses the light source and the brand logo, where the sensor for automatic image focus is located.

The sides feature speaker grilles, while the back has a cooling grille and the individual ports. Here you’ll find two USB 2.0 ports, HDMI, AV IN, and a 3.5 mm headphone jack.

On the top, you’ll also find control buttons, which isn’t common with the latest projectors. Since there are four directional buttons with a center button for confirmation, a back button, and a power on/off button, you can control the projector almost fully even without the remote control.

The bottom has folding support feet, which let you tilt the projector slightly upward. There are also ceiling-mount threads, but they’re hidden under the rubber feet. There’s also a pull-out filter on the side that catches dust.

High brightness

The new Wanbo X5 will delight you despite its relatively low price with exceptionally high brightness up to 1100 ANSI lumens. Even the Wanbo Mozart we tested recently had higher brightness—specifically 900 ANSI lumens—which was already quite decent.

The Chinese manufacturer pushes this limit even a bit higher, making the picture clearer and letting you use the projector during the day without any significant room dimming. However, compared to the Mozart model, the difference isn’t really clearly noticeable—in writing this review we unfortunately didn’t have the mentioned model available for a direct side-by-side comparison.

So the Wanbo X5 can project even during the day, but don’t expect miracles. Without dimming, the image isn’t as vivid as when you pull down the blinds—but compared with other cheap projectors, it’s noticeably brighter and nicer. Of course, our best projector experience came later in the evening, once it started getting dark outside, or on overcast days.

Image quality, automatic focus and corner correction

The picture quality of the new projector is decent, and the light source here is an LED lamp. The Wanbo X5 offers Full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080 px with an image size from 40 to 120″. In our view, you could also get a slightly larger image at a shorter distance from the wall or screen.

During testing, we projected onto a plain wall from a distance of about 2.2 m, where the image felt a bit smaller compared with other projectors. We’d definitely welcome a larger image at that distance.

According to the manufacturer, at a distance of 1.3 m you get a 40″ diagonal, at 2.6 m it’s 80″, at 4 m it’s 120″, and at 6 m even 180″, even though the specs list a maximum size of 120″. Such discrepancies in parameters are fairly common with Chinese products.

Wanbo X5 supports decoding in 4K quality and HDR10 technology. Colors are quite vivid, and we appreciate the ability to adjust them in the settings.

Advanced features like automatic focus together with automatic corner adjustment are also available if your projector isn’t positioned perpendicular to the wall. This feature is quite reliable, but like with other projectors, it reduces sharpness in certain areas. So if you’re projecting from a slight angle, the entire image won’t be equally sharp.

You can also change the additional focus manually using the buttons on the remote control, and adjust the corner correction in the settings.

User interface and operating system

The Wanbo X5 projector runs on Android version 9 with a user interface similar to Android TV. That user interface is perhaps the biggest weak spot of these Chinese projectors. There’s no official Netflix support or support for other streaming platforms—so while you’ll find them in the Google Play store, you won’t be able to play movies and series in full resolution.

In terms of design, the interface is the same as on the other newer Wanbo projectors. At the top, you’ll find a menu with search, the home screen, apps, music, video, and settings.

Under this menu there’s a banner with media content options from well-known streaming services, and below it you’ll find the apps themselves. Among the defaults, you’ll find Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, YouTube, HBO Max, and more, but some are only available as links to download.

In the settings, you’ll find quite a lot of options, from adjusting the projection position, colors, focus, or corner correction via Bluetooth, WiFi, or sound settings. Slovak language is also available, but many terms are translated incorrectly, and above all the settings are quite confusing this way.

Pre-installed apps

All the apps you’ll find in the “My Apps” menu include File Manager, SpeeakerModel, Chrome, Miracast, YouTube, Netflix, OfficeSuite, EShareServer, Prime Video, MX Player, and i Mirror.

You can also install additional apps through one of two app stores: Google Play or the App Store. We like that the manufacturer has pre-installed the web browser Chrome already, which isn’t typical for projectors and TVs.

Another interesting feature is OfficeSuite, but working with documents or spreadsheets on the projector using the remote control is pretty impractical. So if you want to use such apps, we recommend connecting a mouse and keyboard, or a combined gadget 2v1.

We don’t like a lot of links for installing various apps and multimedia content from different platforms. These links unnecessarily clutter the system, and we’d much rather have a clean system without all those extra links.

Performance, memory, and connectivity

As usual with projectors, the manufacturer doesn’t provide almost any hardware specifications about the processor or memory—so the only officially available info is the size of the internal storage, which is 16 GB, plus the RAM with a capacity of 1 GB.

The system runs at a pretty good level and we didn’t notice any major hiccups, but overall smoothness and response speed aren’t the best. There’s a noticeable bit of delay when opening apps and when navigating the menu, but it’s nothing too serious. However, responses aren’t as smooth as on TVs, Android TV boxes, or TV sticks.

When it comes to wireless connectivity, dual-band WiFi version 6 is a nice touch. Bluetooth is also included, this time in version 5.0. Between the ports on the back you’ll find 2 x USB 2.0, HDMI, a 3.5 mm headphone port, and AV IN.

Sound, noise level, and remote control

Speakers often don’t have particularly great audio performance, but with the Wanbo Mozart model we’ve already been convinced that a projector can also deliver quality sound. The Wanbo X5 doesn’t fall far behind—its two 5 W speakers play quite well and loudly.

The noise level of the projector itself is often an issue, especially with cheap projectors that tend to be loud. The Wanbo X5 produces noise around 35.5 dB (measured at a distance of 1 m from the projector). It’s not a lot, but if you sit close to the projector, you can hear it.

The remote control remains the same as on the other Wanbo models. It’s white and needs a pair of AAA batteries to work, which aren’t included in the package.

Besides the traditional directional buttons with a confirmation button in the center, you’ll also find, for example, buttons for focusing, entering settings, calling up the settings menu, or switching to cursor-mouse control.

The remote control is very well made—its buttons are rubberized, they press nicely, have a good response, and overall the remote feels very comfortable in your hand.

Multimedia content playback options

Nowadays, the most popular choices are probably various apps from TV channel providers and streaming services, where you can find different movies and series.

As we mentioned, there’s no official Netflix certification, so you can’t enjoy its content in full quality. We did have the chance to test the Antik TV app, and it works without any issues.

Screen mirroring from your smartphone also works, as does playback via a USB flash drive. Because of the lack of certification, the best option is probably connecting an Android TV or Google TV TV stick—through it, you’ll enjoy the projector more than via the preinstalled system.

Wanbo X5: Final verdict

Wanbo X5 LED projector stands out especially for its great price-to-performance ratio, with the most tempting feature being the high brightness up to 1100 ANSI lumens. Thanks to it, the image is bright enough, and you can use the projector even during the day with only mild room dimming.

The overall image quality is good—colors are vivid and you’ll appreciate features like automatic focusing and automatic corner correction. The sound quality is also solid, and we praise the excellent remote control.

However, there are also downsides. One of them is the system—it mostly works smoothly, but it isn’t perfectly fast and it includes several unnecessary links to apps and multimedia content. You should also be prepared for slightly higher noise levels.

The price-to-quality ratio is, however, very good—which is why Wanbo X5 is definitely worth considering. If you’re willing to live with minor imperfections and you’re not among the most demanding users, you’ll be satisfied with the projector.