Samsung The Freestyle 2nd Gen
One of the pleasant AV surprises of the last year was the Samsung Freestyle, a well-equipped portable projector with a great feature set and good image quality. In our review, it impressed us with its bright, clear, and colorful images, earning us a solid four-star rating.
Now there's a sequel in town and it's no wonder it's called The Freestyle 2nd Gen. And in the continuity of theme "2", new surprises await us. The projector was on display at Samsung's booth at this year's IFA Consumer Electronics show. So we decided to take a closer look at the new product.
PRICE
The Samsung Freestyle 2nd Gen is available to pre-order now in the UK and US for £899/$800. These prices are actually cheaper than the original, which will set you back £999/$900 to start with, so on paper at least it looks like you're getting better value for money given the few upgraded features. Delivery is expected to start on September 22 in the UK and September 11 in the US.
project
If you know the original Freestyle, you already know what the second generation has to offer. It looks almost identical: the compact design, the cylindrical body and the podium stand out from the competition. And again, the main body can be rotated 180 degrees for more flexibility and better positioning.
Samsung offers an optional carry case (£59/$60) that you can slip on for protection, plus three different weatherproof finishes (Forest Green, Coyote Beige and Flower Rose £29/$50) that you can use to protect you from the weather. water and dust.
Features
As for the technical characteristics, they are almost the same as those of The Freestyle 2nd Gen. The resolution is 1920 x 1080, HDR10+ and HLG are supported. It uses an LED light source with a claimed life of 30,000 hours and a claimed maximum brightness of 230 ANSI lumens. The original built-in speaker is back, capable of 360-degree sound reproduction, along with Samsung's very clever Auto Keystone feature.
Again, physical connectivity is limited to micro HDMI, but this projector's simplicity and portability are its unique selling points. With built-in intelligence and new gaming features, plus an emphasis on portability, you're unlikely to need or want to connect multiple sources.
However, this port does support HDMI ARC if you want to connect an external soundbar, and you can also connect speakers wirelessly via Bluetooth – again, a nice feature that allows for great flexibility.
To keep things simple and familiar, the second-gen Freestyle features the Samsung Tizen operating system found on its TVs. This gives you the option to choose from several streaming services, including Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+, all accessible via dedicated buttons on the remote.
Incidentally, the Solarcell Smart Remote comes with a solar panel on the back which, you guessed it, can be used to fully charge the remote, eliminating the need for rechargeable batteries.
The first big news about The Freestyle 2nd Gen is about the game. It doesn't have access to the Samsung Gaming Hub, so you can play Xbox games directly through it with an Xbox Games Pass subscription. All you need is an Xbox controller.
During our time with Freestyle at the IFA booth, we were able to quickly test out Team Sonic Racing and were impressed with the stable connection and noticeable lack of major lag between the Xbox controller and what was happening on the projector screen. .
The second new feature actually requires a second Freestyle Gen 2 projector. While a single device can create an image up to 100 inches, by combining two devices with Samsung's intelligent edge-matching technology, you can create an image even larger up to 160 inches. We're not sure why you need two projectors in your house, but we've seen it in action and the results are pretty good.
Paint
We've seen the projector project an image of varying sizes in various usage scenarios, from the back of a van to a street for movie night under the stars.
However, a bright showroom is never the best place to see a projector in all its glory, especially when it comes to contrast and brightness. But we watched a few different clips and first impressions were very promising.
In addition to our Sonic gameplay features, we saw a fast-paced movie with fast-paced action and a slow-motion movie that brought a more natural color palette to the screen.
The image had good detail, fairly saturated colors, sharpness, and good detail on faces and clothing. One of the things we criticized about the original was "sub-par black levels", but it was impossible to get a real sense of that in showroom conditions.
Early judgment
Of course, we need a good test device to see if the black levels have improved or if the image quality is closer to the original, but at a slightly lower price.
That's probably not such a bad thing, considering how much fun we had with the projector the first time we used it. Again, it seems suitable for general movie buffs and even gamers, although it's not the cheapest portable projector on the market.
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