Leica Cine Play 1 Review: Expensive But Worth Every Penny

VIDAA offers access to a wide range of advertising services, while Fandango Kunyuba is completely different. (Leica reps said they may add this feature in the future.)

Benchmark Results and Initial Appearance

Aside from some minor brightness issues when using the Cine Play 1 in well-lit environments, the projector passed my benchmark tests. Colors were vibrant, skin tones didn’t look washed out, and the butterfly texture showed a great contrast between shades of yellow and orange in my tests. In comparison, colors on TCL NXTVISION they were very calm. Cine Play 1 also excels as a gaming display, with excellent color and stutter-free performance when tested with Crimson Desert bundled with Acer’s Nitro 60 gaming laptop.

I found that the Cine Play 1 works well during the day, but the performance is better in a dark room. This projector is rated at 3,000 lumens and comes with a 1500:1 contrast ratio, on par with its mid-range competitors.

Cine Play 1 supports Dolby Vision, HDR10+, IMAX Enhanced, and Dolby Atmos Audio. The built-in speakers are great as a backup if you’re not connecting via eARC to an AV receiver or soundbar. As for connections, there are only two HDMI ports and, if you use the eARC port, you only have one HDMI device to connect to a console or a connector. There’s also a 3.5-mm audio jack, an external jack, two USB ports, and an Ethernet port if you want to skip the Wi-Fi 6 connection. For those who want to use a terrestrial HD antennano coaxial connection. You can watch movies and TV shows for free with an app like Pluto TV.

Photo: John Brandon

Leica Optics Offers

Cine Play 1 is very good at color reproduction, surpassing the standard BT.2020 by 107 percent, and you can tell. To play Avatar: Fire and Ashes on the Google TV TV streamer using the Fandango at Home app, I saw a lot of red and bright colors. The display with the whale-like creatures looked amazing and detailed.

To see everything Monster: Badlands For the video, I did notice a lot of visible moisture on the creature’s skin, though the Epson ProCinema LS9000 (which costs about $1,000 more) is still my top choice for clarity and overall image sharpness. The Cine Play 1 is beautiful and stylish, however.