AWOL LTV-3500 ultra-short throw projector review: the bright stuff

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The UST all-in-one 4K projector can produce thirty five hundred lumens. We have a lot of reason to test an otherwise unknown brand with the addition of Dolby Atmos support and a class-leading price.

I was looking for a replacement for a big ugly TV with something that was similar in quality and brightness, and I stumbled upon the AWOL Vision Tri-roma Laser Projector model LTV-3500. I know it's a fool's errand, but I'm happy to accept it given the steady advances made by UST projectors over the last few years. The cost and hassle of mounting a front-projection unit on the other side of the room can be avoided with these kinds of projectors, which sit mere inches from the wall.

I have been testing a $4,199 projector and a $769 Ambient Light Rejection screen provided by AWOL. For nearly $5,000, or five times the cost of my 55 inch TV, I have been able to install a giant projected image in my living room that my family favors over our TV.

What have I done?

AWOL Vision is a brand started by co-founders Andy Zhao and Steven Shulman. Shulman tells me that it has its own in-house teams for software, support, and mechanical and Industrial engineering, as well as a relationship with Hisense in China. The world's first laser TV was introduced by Hisense. AWOL has sole discretion to determine product pricing, sales, and service, according to Shulman. The company recently patched a number of bugs and annoyances that were present on the first round of devices that began shipping to Indiegogo backers.

• Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge
• Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge
• There’s a special pocket (lid off for photo) just for the Fire TV stick.
• Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge
• Great for casual gaming with friends, but nothing serious.
• The boot-up screen is... bright!
• Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge
• Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge
• Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge
• Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge

The AWOL Vision projector is usually sized for 4K USTs. Its front profile is about the size of two high-end soundbars stacked on top of each other. It measures 23.6 x 13.9 x 5.7 inches and weighs 27 lbs.

The LTV-3500 has a star feature. It's so bright that it makes me flinch when I start it in a dark room. The projector sits so close to the display surface that most of the light reaches the screen to create a highly viewable image. Adding an ALR screen can help compete with overhead light sources and give a boost to contrast and color saturation as shown in the following images.

My home is over 180 years old and has walls that are less than perfect. It's bad for UST projectors, which cast light at extreme angles resulting in dark shadows created by raised plaster and holes that look dead. The uniformity of the screen on my walls is very beneficial to me.

ALR screens help increase contrast and reject ambient light. AWOL Vision sent me a screen for testing. It took two hours to assemble the screen and it wasn't attached to my wall. It's leaning against the wall in my setup and far from optimal, which explains the overbleeding light in some of the photos.

• 3840 x 2160 @ 60Hz with Dolby Atmos and HDR10+ support
• 3500 lumens from a laser light source that’s rated for 25,000 hours
• Runs Android 9.0 OS but bundles a Fire TV Stick 4K Max for streaming
• Single Chip DLP (0.47 inch Texas Instruments DMD)
• Integrated 36W stereo speakers
• 30ms lag in Game Mode for casual gaming
• Eye safety feature to disable laser when nearby motion detected
• MEMC content smoothing for monsters
• Ethernet, 802.11a/b/g/n/ac(dual-band) Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth connectivity
• Inputs: 2x USB 2.0, 2x HDMI 2.0
• Outputs: Mini USB (debug), 1x Optical S/PDIF, 1x HDMI eARC

The AWOL screen claims to improve contrast by 100 times and absorb up to 95 percent of overhead lighting. It does have the advantage of maintaining better viewing angles without the risk of hotspots, but it isn't going to lighten the image like AWOL's Daylight ALR screens. I can't vouch for their math, but the photos above showing the projected image split across my wall and the ALR screen at mid-day speak for themselves.

The LTV-3500 can produce a 120-inch image when set at 13.6 inches from the wall. I can only position it 7.5 inches from the wall. The resulting 90-inch image is still enormous, especially compared to my 55-inch TV, but it doesn't fill the ALR screen.

Many all-in-one projectors run Android TV, but the AWOL LTV-3500 doesn't. The package includes the excellent Fire TV Stick 4K Max dongle. The Amazon stick can be tucked into a specially designed Nook on the back of the projector with an HDMI jack for the stick input andusb to power it. It's a little clumsy, but it makes accessing your account easy compared to the hoops you'll have to jump through to get uncertified Android TV projectors to run the streamer's app. The Fire TV interface can be brought up in a reasonable 30 seconds with the LTV-3500. There is no mode that allows the projector to boot in a few seconds.

AWOL uses a triple-laser light engine. The LTV-3500 can reproduce more than 100 percent. It is impressive for a projector to have color space. The 4K image produced by the AWOL Display LTV-3500 is a sight to behold in person.

A good enough image that's also giant can easily trump a display that's small. The kind of experience you want when watching films, TV serials, gaming, or watching sports is created by bigger displays. Despite the TV's superior color reproduction and contrast, my family has been choosing the AWOL over the TV for the last few weeks.

The large image on the ALR screen is very watchable, even though the AWOL colors do wash out under the stress of ambient light. It looks worse in the color-corrected photos than it does in the naked eye. The High Dynamic light mode was not usable. In some scenes it does terrible things with faces as it slowly and inexplicably shifts skin tones from red to green. I left my review unit in bright and sidious modes after some experimentation as I am often fighting with the sunlight until about 9pm each night.

The LTV-3500 does not meet the required brightness to produce the image-popping contrast achieved by modern TVs. The sheer size of the image you get is its main appeal over a TV. In general, the AWOL's colors are vibrant, especially when viewed in a darkened room, and images are sharp.

The speakers inside the LTV-3500 do a good job of producing sound in a pinch. Movie, music, and sports can be preset. You can pair the projector with a speaker. Home theater installations will use the projector's S/PDIF jack or the HDMI eARC for the sound.

The fan noise produced by the AWOL projector can be heard ten feet away, but is said to be no more than 30dB. The light hum continues even when you choose the option to close the screen, something you might want to do if you're listening to music on the Fire TV stick. The noise is bothering me when I'm focused on it, but mostly it's in the background. I feel a sense of relief when the projector is off.

Most people don't care about the giant black rectangles in their living rooms. My wife hates it. It was the reason I lived with a 32-inch screen for a decade prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, and it gave me the motivation to buy a bigger set. With society reopening, a bit of regret is setting in because the TV sits unused 98 percent of the week.

We would happily replace our ugly television with an AWOL LTV-3500 and ALR screen if money were no object. My wife and I are not bothered by the giant gray screen which looks like an accent wall. How does interior design work?

Five grand is a lot of money and my family wouldn't get enough use out of it to justify the replacement cost. Now that life is returning to some semblance of normal, there are plenty of entertainment options beyond the couch.

The Hisense L9G TriChroma Laser TV is the only similar projector and screen bundle in the same price range. It's a little more expensive at $5499 to $5999 depending on the screen you choose, and it's dimmer at 3,000 lumens.

If you live in the US, you can get the AWOL Vision Tri-roma Laser Projector model LTV-3500 for free in June. It is also available with a variety of ALR screen bundles. If you have the cash, you're unlikely to find another projector that's as bright and colorful as the 4K UST projector. Mister moneybags, well done on finding a TV replacement.

All photography by Thomas Ricker.

Every smart device now requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it. It is impossible for us to read and analyze all of these agreements. We're going to start counting how many times you have to use devices when we review them since they are agreements most people don't read.

Conditions of use are required of AWOL Vision by Elevation Technologies Partners, Inc. It says that the Data Protections Policy is carried out by Elevation Technologies Partners, Inc.

You have to agree to the company's conditions of use and privacy notice before you can use the Fire TV Stick 4K Max. Since the voice assistant plays a large role in this device, it is important to be aware of privacy settings.

The Fire TV platform has its own privacy settings that allow Amazon.

• “Use personal data collected by the operating system of this device for marketing and product improvement purposes.”
• “Allow Appstore to collect information on the frequency and duration of use of downloaded apps.”

The interest-based ads option lets you opt out of apps that use your device's advertising ID to build a profile for targeted ads. You have the option to reset your advertising ID.

There are three mandatory agreements and a privacy policy for Fire TV.