Review: AWOL LTV-3500 Pro

Projectors can be a niche option for your living room, if only because they often require a lot of special care that typical TVs don’t—like a separate reflective screen, dark curtains or rooms with no windows, and complicated ceiling mount systems. The AWOL LTV-3500 Pro doesn’t eliminate those problems entirely, but it substantially shifts the balance of those trade-offs. That comes at a price, though.

The AWOL LTV 3500 Pro is a small upgrade over the LTV-3500 (7/10, WIRED Review), which I liked when I reviewed it in 2022. The newer version adds support for Dolby Vision and Control4 smart home integration, but is otherwise largely the same as the older model. (If you shop used, you might be able to find the original LTV-3500, but the Pro is what most retailers are selling now.)

Like its predecessor, the LTV-3500 Pro attempts to justify its price point by being the best it can be at absolutely everything. Since it's a short-throw projector, it's easy to set up by just putting it on an entertainment unit (although it can be mounted to a ceiling). It provides excellent, high contrast HDR picture quality, and it can project up to a 150-inch screen in full 4K clarity. If you're going to spend this much on a projector, you may as well get your money's worth.

Clarity in Broad Daylight

The most notable aspect of the LTV-3500 Pro is how impressively bright it is. The projector is rated at 3,500 ANSI lumens—for comparison, our high-end pick in our projector guide clocks in at only 2,700 lumens. In practical terms, that means I was able to see the image clearly even on the lowest brightness setting, and with ambient lights turned on.

In my testing, I would watch movies and play games in my living room, which has a large, sliding glass door that faces the sunrise. With the blinds fully open, the picture would be a little washed out, which is to be expected. However, with the blinds closed, even with significant light bleed from the windows spilling in around the sides of the blinds, I could comfortably watch shows or play games and almost forget that I wasn’t watching on a typical panel TV.

If anything, the brightness was almost too overwhelming. Once, while having a guest over, we sat talking on the couch in the evening. We paused the show we'd started watching on Netflix to chat and let it sit for a while. Then Netflix started to cycle through a slideshow of promos for its other shows, and when one with a predominantly white background appeared, it felt like an angel from heaven showed up, blasting our eyes with blinding light and telling us to be not afraid. Eventually, my guest asked me to simply turn the projector off.

I should note that I doubt this will be much of a problem for most people. I was using the projector in a rather small living room, and as such was likely sitting way too close to the screen for its size. Imagine sitting in the front row of a movie theater, for example. If you plan to put this in a small space, you might want to use the lowest brightness setting or position the projector to make the screen as small as possible. That leads us to the second most notable aspect of this projector.

Massive Screen, Minimal Space

Every time I had guests over, they would immediately ask the same question upon seeing the screen: “Where’s the projector?” Most projectors require mounting behind the couch or on the ceiling, but the LTV-3500 Pro sits directly on a typical TV stand—a feat that only one other projector in our Best Projectors guide can pull off—and projects an image straight up onto the wall.

How large the screen will be depends heavily on how far you can put the projector away from the wall—which, in my testing, was harder than it sounds. To get a 120-inch screen (the maximum is 150 inches), I had to put my entertainment unit about a foot away from the wall and then position the projector as far to the very edge of my entertainment unit as I could while still balancing it safely.

Photograph: AWOL

Eventually I decided to reclaim space in my living room and “settled” for a “mere” 90-inch projected display. That was still gargantuan, and occasionally overwhelming. Yet I couldn’t get enough of playing Spider-Man 2 on the screen. Swinging through the streets of New York City felt incredible when my entire peripheral vision was taken up by all the buildings I was gliding past.

The LTV-3500 Pro is generally great for gaming, though there’s a bit of a trade-off in the frames-per-second department. At full 4K resolution, the projector can output only 60 fps. That's still plenty for most games! I barely noticed a problem while playing Spider-Man 2, for example. However, you’ll need to drop the resolution down to 1080p if you want to get up to 120 fps, which might matter more for fast-paced online shooters.

This latest model of AWOL projector also adds support for Dolby Vision, arguably the best version of HDR that makes 4K TVs (and projectors) worth having. Previously, the existing LTV-3500 model featured support for HDR10—and the colors looked great, don’t get me wrong—but there’s something extra special about seeing the lavish colors of Across the Spider-Verse in just as much vibrant detail as in the movie theater, on a screen that feels just as large.

Higher Than High-End

There are a lot of other little details I love about the LTV-3500 Pro. On the rear, it has two HDMI ports, an Ethernet connection, a USB-A port, and an optical audio input. However, there's a secret third HDMI port tucked in a compartment in the back that can hold streaming sticks without protruding from the back. There's a USB port in this compartment to supply power, so you can add (or upgrade) a streaming stick and keep it hidden away.

The projector comes with a free Fire TV Stick, but you can swap it out with any streaming stick you want. I prefer this approach to bundling smart TV software into the device itself, like most smart TVs do. The projector has its own interface for adjusting settings and focusing the lens and whatnot, but once you set up your projector, you're unlikely to interact with it much.

On that note, setup is remarkably easy. There are guides to help you position the projector so that the frame isn't askew, and a handy tool to focus the lens so the picture is crystal clear. Conveniently, the bulb automatically turns off if you get too close, so you don’t risk blinding yourself. This came in handy, especially when I was on my knees in front of my entertainment unit adjusting it during my initial setup.

It took me a few days before I remembered to connect the projector to my soundbar because the built-in speakers on this thing are surprisingly good. It filled the room with deep, robust bass tones, while dialog was still perfectly clear. (Or, at least as clear as modern movies will let dialog be.) Meanwhile, the fan that keeps the bulb cool was so quiet that I couldn't hear it at all whenever there was something playing.

Of course, while it has a lot of nice features and capabilities that most projectors don't have, it also has a cost far above them. At a list price of $6,000, it's easily one of the most expensive projectors we've ever reviewed, though we frequently see it on sale for at least several hundred dollars less. AWOL also sells bundles that include the company's excellent ALR screen, but that screen is $1,400 by itself. To put it simply, this is not a projector for the faint of budget.

This point is perhaps best exemplified by how AWOL pitches “smart home integration.” Most TVs and projectors we test will add cursory support for things like Alexa or Google Assistant (or I guess it’s Gemini now), whereas the LTV-3500 Pro works with the Control4 system.

Control4 is more of a custom-tailored automation service rather than a smart speaker that connects to your TV. To set up a Control4 system, you'll need to contact a dealer and set up a consultation for your home's specific needs. Based on that criteria, you can build a system that includes video doorbells, lighting and dimmer switches, smart locks, and speakers, all controlled through dedicated touchscreen panels and tablets. Then, professionals will come install the system based on your requests. It's a lot, and it's expensive. In other words, it's the kind of high-end home automation solution you look for when you want to spend thousands of dollars to get things exactly how you want them.

That’s the space the LTV-3500 Pro occupies, and frankly, it excels there. I’d be hard-pressed to argue that you need to spend up to $6,000 on a projector when many of our picks are less than half the cost. At the same time, it’s hard to beat the convenience of a short-throw projector that can be seen in near-full clarity even with the lights on. We still recommend waiting for a sale—and there almost always is one—but this is probably the most powerful projector we could recommend.