Formovie, the firm behind the well-respected Formovie Theater 4K UST laser TV projector, has announced pending availability of its replacement model, the Formovie Theater Premium.

The original Formovie Theater, reviewed by ProjectorCentral in 2022 and named an Editor's Choice, remains an exceptionally high-performing and high value RGB laser UST projector that took top honors two years running in the 2022 and 2023 ProjectorCentral/ProjectorScreen.com Laser TV Showdown events. The new model, also a single-chip DLP, carries over many of the features and performance parameters of its predecessor, while promising a slight boost in brightness, a more complete web streaming platform, improved gaming performance, and a tighter throw ratio that will allow it to sit closer to the screen or wall surface.

On the matter of brightness, the Theater Premium brings the ISO 21118 lumen spec from 1,800 lumens (as restated by Formovie last summer) to 2,200, a potentially noticeable 500-lumen jump. Its lens features a 0.21:1 throw ratio, so it resides closer to the screen than the original Theater with its 0.23:1 lens. It's maximum image size of 150 inches requires 16.5 inches of clearance from the back of the projector to the screen.

As with the original Formovie Theater, the Premium features an advanced ALPD 4.0 triple laser RGB + laser phosphor light engine capable of delivering up to 107% BT.2020 gamut, but Formovie says a number of enhancements will improve what was already excellent image quality. To begin, the company has tightened up the tolerances on its most color-accurate image mode to minimize errors and ensure a better picture out of the box. Speckle suppression has been further enhanced, and Formovie is claiming a 1.25x improvement in clarity. Contrast is rated at an impressive 3,000:1 native. Dolby Vision HDR support has been carried over as well, along with HDR10+.

Critically for gamers, input lag, which we measured as high as 43 milliseconds for the original Theater, is said to be as low as 18 ms in the Premium, which is fast enough to allow competitive gaming. Another significant enhancement is inclusion of the latest Google TV 12 operating system and streaming platform, which includes a native Netflix app and therefore will eliminate the need to add a separate media player for most users. The prior model used the Android TV platform and did not offer Netflix, a failing shared by many of the early Android projectors prior to the release of Google TV.

Like the original Theater model, the Theater Premium features a stereo sound system designed by high end audio company Bowers & Wilkins. This "Gen 2" system uses four drivers total, with 15 watts of power driving a woofer and tweeter for each side. It is Dolby Atmos compatible. The sound system in the original Theater wasn't the loudest and didn't offer the deepest bass among those tested for our Showdown events, but was certainly the most refined from an audiophile perspective.

The Formovie Theater Premium can be preorderd now at ProjectorScreen.com and at Amazon.com with expected shipping from ProjectorScreen around end of the month. List price is $3,499, with a $2,999 promotional deal running initially at ProjectorScreen. Formovie will officially launch the product at its own web store on October 28 at $3,499.

For more detailed specifications and connections, check out our Formovie Theater Premium projector page.