published 27 November 2025

We love a movie night - there’s something undeniably superior about an intentional movie night with a designated film, people, and microwavable popcorn as opposed to accidentally binging a Rocky marathon in your room as you fall asleep by number four. The key to any movie night, obviously, is a good quality image.

And if you're going big, go projector, which elevates it from five of you squinting at a TV (age increases, vision decreases), to a cinema-esque evening.

Whilst they’re the ultimate everyday luxury, a projector can be a bit of a faff; will you need to do some spontaneous feng shui to accommodate it? Will you need to rig up a sheet akin to a 90s washing line to project onto?

Thanks to brands like Hisense, gone are the days of clunky equipment with multiple cables, wires, extra (mandatory) technological accessories, and a light understanding of quantum mechanics. The all-in-one Hisense C2 Smart mini 4K projector is a spontaneous movie night's dream — compact, portable, with a great image and sound, plus all the smart platform bits you need to get a marathon movie session up and running in minutes. Projectors just got a whole lot more slick...

Hisense C2 Smart mini 4K projector: In Short...

Inbuilt auto focus and orientation
Easy set up - just plug and play
High quality JBL speakers
Able to project from the floor without the need for additional furniture
Available now at £1,199, available from Amazon, Currys and AO.com

Design: Easy to place anywhere

Whilst on the heavier side for a mini projector (weighing in at around 6kg), the design remains compact and sleek; the JBL speakers are built in with grille and output surrounding the central lens. The projector itself is attached to a circular base and hinged for directing the image just where you want it. The boxey shape allows room for some clear and loud speakers without the need for added soundbars or speakers.

The C2 Smart Mini Projector is the epitome of easy-to-use, modern efficiency. You don’t even need any tripods or props to place it on (or, usually, in our case, a teetering pile of mismatched books and old DVDs). You can pop it on the floor and rotate the head until it’s right for your space.

The whole thing is a sort of slate, charcoal grey, which gives it a quiet luxury feeling.

an image of a tv epsiode being played on the Hisense 4K projected onto a white sheet strung up on a wall

The Features

The starring feature in the C2 is its keystone correction and focus - it’s like the projector equivalent of a point and shoot. You plug it in, point, and let the projector do the rest of the work. Not only will it adjust the focus (although sometimes this does take it more than a couple of minutes), it has inbuilt obstacle avoidance, and wall colour adjustment which we put ot the test on our (slightly misjudged) orange walls.

It also has a 65” to 300” wide screen capability, meaning you get a huge projection range, no matter what space you’re using, with a relatively short throw. You don’t have to worry if you’re setting up in a smaller room that you’re going to get awkward overspill that detracts from the film. You might think that this giant projection might yield a less precise and focused picture, but luckily, that is not the case, with the laser projection creating high clarity and richly coloured pictures.

In use

an image of the hisense 4k being used to show Elio

As we’ve already touched on and praised, it might just be the easiest projector to set up we’ve ever used. And it gets better. The C2 is a smart projector, meaning that all your favourite apps are already integrated - we’re talking Netflix, Disney, Prime, YouTube, and more.

The most time-consuming part of playing something is the five minutes spent trying to work out which password you’ve used for each different streamer, because, obviously, you added an exclamation mark and a different number to each variation. Plus, you can screenshare, and use AirPlay and Bluetooth.

The biggest selling point for our girls' night was the fact that it has two USB inputs, meaning we could very easily connect our phones, and subsequently had a group session going through my Hinge with everyone able to get a good view and give their input. So now not only do I have a good projector, I also have a date for Friday night.

The verdict

If the upper echelon of happy medium had a projector, it would be this. It's perfect for tech-lovers who aren't necessarily tech savvy, and want a projector that suits all movie-watchers and tech know-how. It's a fuss-free projector that has all the most useful features right at your fingertips, meaning you can create an at-home occasion for relatively little effort and set-up.

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Hermione Blandford is the Content Editor for Shortlist’s social media which means you can usually find her scrolling through Instagram and calling it work, or stopping random people in the street and accosting them with a mini mic. She has previously worked in food and drink PR for brands including Johnnie Walker, Tanqueray, Gordon's, The Singleton, Lagavulin and Don Julio which means she is a self confessed expert in spicy margaritas and pints, regularly popping into the pub in the name of research.

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