In the past few years projectors have come ahead by leaps and bounds. Previously a cinema staple, great for an immersive movie-watching experience, if not a particularly crisp one, they haven't been great for gaming. But with modern projectors often spitting out high-resolution images with decent frame rates and relatively low latencies, they're becoming a much more viable option for gaming.
Samsung has clearly noticed this, with the refreshed version of The Freestyle projector making some changes with games in mind. The Freestyle 2023 adds Samsung's Gaming Hub, an inbuilt app that gives you native access to game-streaming services. Xbox Cloud gaming is the big one, but the hub also supports Nvidia GeForce Now among other services.
This is perfect for a portable little guy like The Freestyle, which boasts a 1920 x 1080 resolution for up to about 100-inch displays. Assuming the specs are largely the same as the original, you're also only looking at HDR as opposed to HDR 10. It's also probably not the brightest beamer on the market.
The Freestyle has never really been the best choice for a living room dedicated screen. Instead, it's more at home in a role as a portable playmate you can move from room to room, or for gaming on the go. The addition of built-in streaming services really solidifies this idea, though we can only hope the response time is better than something like the otherwise excellent XGIMI Horizon Pro's when streaming games.
Best gaming monitor: Pixel-perfect panels for your PC
Best high refresh rate monitor: Screaming quick screens
Best 4K monitor for gaming: When only high-res will do
Best 4K TV for gaming: Big-screen 4K PC gaming
The other big change coming to The Freestyle 2023 is one of the cooler things I've seen a projector do. Get two of these bad bois together and they can auto-keystone into a screen that's twice the size. I can only hope next year we just get a full-blown Voltron version of the Freestyle coming together to defend the universe with the largest possible projection.
Conceptually, it's really cool. If you're living in a shared house you could have one of these in your room, and then bring it out into the main area for larger entertainment situations. If your housemate happens to have one too, now you're ready to party. These seem like a great portable screen setup with a few more options for fun.
Of course if you're more interested in gaming monitors, Samsung had you covered at CES this year too. The new microLED TVs have a wild two-nanosecond response time, which is ridiculous, or check out the new G9 mega-monitor range and prepare to be confused about which is which.
