Youāre paying for version 1.
I agree its bad value and I expect bad performance, but youāre comparing to TVs of a mature product produced and sold in much more quantity.
Around here you can get a LCD screen for free they are on the street with a āfreeā sticker on them to avoid recycling costs and if you add a Chromecast (old one on ebay or craigslist $10) or Raspberry Pi you can do just as well as these current projectors for a fraction of the cost. What these projectors can do though is be āoff-gridā but then⦠(version 1 problem) they are not using the other Anker off-grid products like USB-PD to keep them going they are still designed in an on-grid mindset.
Version 3 will be better.
What Iām waiting for is better headset projectors into the eye, up close to the eye you need a lot less energy (light loss is to square of distance so 1/100th the distance to your eye needs 1/10000th the energy) therefore passive cooling and a high pixel density is possible. Google Glasses concept just much better. Then BT stream off your mobile. There is no reason these cannot be got down in cost to a few $ and built into glasses for $ and then if you all want to share then its multicast. Youād then have off-grid equivalent which lasts days on batteries.