Of all the types of projectors, portable models with an ultra-short throw are perhaps the most practical: they create a huge screen even in a small room and at the same time they can be easily taken with you - whether to a new apartment or even to a guest for an evening. It is to this category that our today's "guest" belongs - Samsung The Premiere 5, the younger model in the premium The Premiere line.
Specifications of Samsung The Premiere 5
| Resolution | 1920×1080 pixels |
| Matrix type | DLP |
| Light source type | triple laser |
| Luminous flux | 560 ISO lumens |
| Distance from the screen | 22-43 cm |
| Image diagonal | 60-100” |
| HDR support | HDR10, HDR10+, HLG |
| Operating system | Samsung Tizen |
| Connection | 2x Micro HDMI, Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.2, 2x USB-C (power and data transfer) |
| Power consumption (maximum) | 100 W |
| Dimensions (W×H×D) | 240×309×182 mm |
| Weight | 3.5 kg |
| Recommended price in Ukraine | 89,999 UAH |
Package contents
The box also includes a remote control, a carrying bag for easy carrying of the projector, a user manual, a power supply, a USB Type-C cable, and the original Touch Stand for projecting an image onto a horizontal surface. In general, it's a sufficient set to get you started, although an additional HDMI cable would have been nice — like other portable Samsung models from the Freestyle series, The Premiere 5 is equipped with a Micro HDMI input, and such cables are not very common.
Design
At first glance, the Samsung The Premiere 5 looks most like a smart speaker: a relatively small (only 20 cm high) white column "wrapped" in a ventilation grille that resembles a protective cover for the speakers.
Thanks to the rubberized feet, it stands securely and does not slip on any surface. There is also a standard tripod socket — if you have a tripod, you can place it anywhere in the room, without being tied to a table or other flat surface against the wall.
From above you can see the distance sensor, lens and touch button block with indicators.
All connectors are located on the bottom, on either side of the tripod socket. These are two USB Type-C ports (one for power, the other for data transfer) and two Micro HDMI inputs (one with eARC support).
Remote control
Like all other Samsung devices recently, The Premiere 5 comes with a SolarCell remote control (model TM 2361 G) — the only difference is that here it is in a white case, like the projector. It is a compact and thin remote control with a typical set of controls and their location for a model of this size.
The SolarCell One Remote has a built-in microphone for voice control. Unfortunately, the proprietary voice assistant Bixby does not yet know the Ukrainian language, so you will have to control it in English.
The remote gets its name from the presence of a solar panel on the back of the case, which charges the built-in battery, and can also do so from room lighting. If you need to quickly recharge the remote, you can do so via the USB-C port.
Technical specifications
Samsung The Premiere 5 is a laser projector with DLP (Digital Light Processing) projection technology. Its native resolution is 1920×1080 pixels, and the maximum luminous flux is 560 ISO lumens.
The projector is equipped with an NQP AI processor, whose AI capabilities are used, among other things, to adjust color, contrast, and brightness according to ambient light levels, improve voice sound, and automatically adjust game mode settings.
The Wi-Fi 5 + Bluetooth 5.2 module is responsible for wireless communication, the speaker system is a built-in two-channel one with a power of 10 W.
In operation
The projector turns on very quickly and is ready to work literally 5 seconds after pressing the power button. All image settings are performed automatically: The Premiere 5 in a couple of seconds estimates the angle at which the image is directed to the wall, and effectively corrects trapezoidal distortions and performs autofocus. If the automatic settings do not suit the user, manual corrections can be made in the appropriate system menu.
The projection size is regulated by the distance to the surface on which the projection is made. Since The Premiere 5 is an ultra-short-throw projector, it stands almost against the wall: according to the official specifications, from a distance of 12 cm it creates a screen with a diagonal of 40 inches, from 22 cm — 60 inches, and the maximum recommended distance is 43 cm, in which case the screen will be 100 inches diagonally.
If the user does not have that much free space on the wall, in the settings you can reduce the image and even change its position (within the maximum possible screen).
Like other projectors from the manufacturer (as well as TVs and Smart monitors), The Premiere 5 has its own "smart" shell, based on the proprietary Tizen OS. Its interface here is almost identical to what we recently saw on Samsung TVs. Neo QLED QN 70 F — except with additional parameters of the projector itself.
The interface is also presented in the form of a compact sidebar with icon-like items: it can be "expanded" to see a text description of each item. Here you can find search, Samsung account login, going to the home screen, and a couple of additional sections.
Daily + is a selection of branded applications for daily tasks — SmartThings, fitness trainer, etc., and Custom Ambient is a mode that allows you to project various background images or video screensavers onto the wall when the user is not watching content.
At the bottom of the main screen are the connected devices menu, privacy settings, and system settings — you can open them without leaving the current screen to the main menu using the "gear" button on the remote control.
For convenient wireless connection of mobile devices, the TV supports Apple AirPlay and Samsung Dex protocols.
You can connect a Windows computer wirelessly using the Easy utility. Connection this Screen – or wired, via HDMI.
You can also connect external drives to the projector via USB Type - C – something that the manufacturer's portable models in the Freestyle series lacked. The built-in media player supports 4K video, H 265 format, HDR video (HDR 10, HDR 10+ and HLG standards), and decodes audio tracks in Dolby Digital and DD + formats.
An interesting feature of The Premiere 5 is the projection of an image onto a horizontal surface and touch interaction with it. To do this, you need to connect the complete Touch Stand to the projector, additionally equipped with a camera and an IR sensor — and it will create an image on a table or floor with a diagonal of 37 inches. If necessary, the screen can be reduced again by zooming and moving the image — for example, if there is not enough space on the table.
For the touch control to work correctly, certain conditions must be met – the surface of the “screen” should not reflect light, there should be no shiny jewelry on your hands, plus there should be no source of infrared radiation nearby that could interfere with signal transmission. Note that in our case, out of the two positions selected for testing this use case, touch control was not enabled in one – although the lighting and surface type were the same.
If it is activated, the interface responds confidently to touches, there are practically no false positives or other recognition errors. The response speed is also quite high — so controlling the projector with your hands, without a remote control, is indeed quite possible in this mode.
Sounding
The acoustics in The Premiere 5 are a two-channel audio system with a power of 10 W. The speakers are located on the front panel behind a decorative "grille" and make a very pleasant impression with their sound: they have a good volume margin, high clarity, natural sounding dialogues and even quite good mid-low frequencies, which gives the sound a pleasant richness.
The frequency response test showed that the sound remains at a practically unchanged level up to about 120 Hz, after which it gradually becomes quieter, but still works well up to 75 Hz. Further, the volume and quality quickly decrease, at 50 Hz the sound is almost inaudible, and at 40 Hz it disappears completely. In general, a very good result for such a seemingly simple speaker system.
Image quality
From the minimum recommended distance of 12 cm (40" screen diagonal), the brightness of a regular white surface in "Graphics" mode is 260 cd/m². This is much higher than the recommended brightness of a desktop monitor in office use mode, and also higher than what we got when testing both The Freestyle models: then the first-generation model on a significantly smaller screen diagonal (30") had a brightness of 180 cd/m², the second — 225 cd/m².
At this brightness, you can use the projector even in a room with fairly strong ambient light — except that the black color in the image will then be the color of the surface used as a screen. However, purely subjectively, when viewing, such "black" appears darker than the screen in contrast to the bright areas of the image next to it.
So it can be noted that for working at a computer with a typical "office" image on the screen, the Samsung The Premiere 5 is quite suitable even during the day or in typical office lighting.
From the maximum recommended distance of 43 cm (100" screen diagonal), the maximum brightness is 60 cd/m² — this is quite enough to create a fairly bright "cinema" image in the dark.
The image quality is very good, the sharpness decreases at the periphery, but not critically. Chromatic aberrations in the corners are also very weak. The only thing worth paying attention to here is that at the native Full HD resolution at the maximum screen sizes, the dot size becomes so large that individual pixels, especially if the computer desktop is displayed on the screen, are easily visible at a distance of three meters or more, provided the user has sharp eyesight.
The color gamut is very wide: in the image settings there are two color gamut options, and in the "Native" mode, which offers maximum coverage, it completely covers the Adobe RGB and DCI-P3 spaces (official specifications indicate coverage at 154% of DCI-P3). The "Custom" mode narrows it down a bit, but it still remains very expanded compared to the standard sRGB space. Such characteristics allow the projector to create a spectacular image with very saturated pure colors.
For video signals received via HDMI, there are two modes: "Graphics" and "Entertainment". The first is better suited for watching movies and generally using the projector in a dark room: it has a noticeably warmer image and balanced settings for movie screenings.
The "Entertain" mode is a little brighter and colder, with increased contrast — so it is better to use it in a well-lit room, for example, for working at a computer in situations where a properly adjusted picture is not required.
In turn, "Graphics" offers high color accuracy — at the level of desktop monitors, with an average ΔE value of less than 1.5 (recall, it is believed that the average user is unable to notice the difference between the reference color and how the projector displays it if this parameter is less than 3).
The projector has Samsung 's traditional color temperature settings by selecting one of four templates — we would recommend choosing between "Temp. 1" and "Temp. 2", which are closest to the standard value (6500 K ).
For content that is played "on its own" (in online services or from a USB drive), the projector offers other modes: "Dynamic", "Standard" and "Movie". Here the first two are very similar to the computer mode "Entertain", while "Movie" has a lot in common with "Graphics".
