Samsung has just announced its plans to release a new version of The Freestyle portable projector, this time with a major emphasis on game streaming via Samsung’s Gaming Hub that it hopes will rival the best gaming TVs.
The new version, simply dubbed the Samsung Freestyle Gen 2 with Gaming Hub, is capable of playing nearly 3,000 games from services like Xbox Game Pass, Nvidia’s GeForce NOW and Amazon Luna when you pair it with a Bluetooth controller.
In terms of specs, The Freestyle Gen 2 will still only offer a 1080x1920 resolution like its predecessor, but it's lightweight and can fill up to a 100-inch screen. Even better, if you’ve never set up a projector before, The Freestyle is actually a good one to start with because it offers both Auto Keystone and Auto Focus that will make it easy to beam on nearly any surface.
That said, Samsung has yet to divulge the projector’s peak brightness — low brightness was a major issue we saw with the first Freestyle — and its price is on the higher side at $799, almost twice what a PS5 or Xbox Series X cost.
Coming shortly to a home theater near you
Starting today (August 17), the Freestyle Gen 2 with Game Hub will be available to pre-order on Samsung's website. If you snag a pre-order before August 30, Samsung will even toss in free delivery and an IP55-rated, water and dust-resistant case that usually costs $59.99.
That said, because it's due out in the next few weeks, it might not hurt to hold off on pre-ordering until the first reviews come out — the first generation model was an OK projector, but nothing really write home about and nearly just as expensive.
Thankfully, Samsung seems to have learned from that and cut the launch price from $999 to $799. That's still pretty expensive, especially for a 1080p portable projector, but its smart TV integration could warrant the extra expense.
We'll know more once we get it into our labs — and, presumably, our backyards — for testing in September. Until then, however, there's always the $249 HP CC200 that stopped one of our editors from buying a new TV.
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