BladeCine introduces itself as a newcomer and sister company of the well-known AWOL Vision, taking its first steps into the highly competitive projector market.
From the very beginning, BladeCine had one clear ambition: to create the best single-panel LCD LED projector on the market at the most affordable price.
To bring this vision to life, BladeCine challenged its development team to engineer a projector that would redefine its category by incorporating the latest advancements in technology. Rising to the task, the BladeCine engineers delivered the Cube600, a compact yet powerful single-panel LCD projector.
As you may already know the budget LED LCD projector market is overflowing with countless models from various brands, flooding platforms like Amazon and AliExpress. This chaotic market often leads to confusion among buyers, resulting in poor purchasing decisions, especially for those setting up their first home cinema. Many end up with what I call “trap” projectors, cheap devices that make huge promises but deliver nothing but a nice disappointing and frustrating experience.
That’s why I have decided to test and present to you only selected models from this category (<500$), models that after thorough testing, I believe are worth your attention.
BladeCine Cube600: Specs & Features
The Cube600 is a single-panel LCD projector boasting 600 ISO lumens and a 2000:1 contrast ratio. While its native resolution is 1080p at 60Hz, it can also accept 4K signals via its HDMI ports (HDR10 supported).
With a fixed lens throw ratio of 1.39:1, the Cube600 needs to be placed approximately 3 meters from the projection surface to achieve a 100-inch diagonal image.
The projector also comes equipped with a Dolby-certified sound system, featuring 2 x 10-watt speakers and an additional bass driver for enhanced audio performance. In terms of connectivity, the Cube600 is one of the most well-rounded projectors in its class:
Wired Connections:
- 2x HDMI 2.0 (ARC)
- 2x USB 2.0
- 1x RJ45 Ethernet LAN (100Mbps)
- 1x Analog Audio Out
Wireless Connectivity:
- Dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4GHz & 5GHz, Wi-Fi 5)
- Bluetooth 5.0
BladeCine Cube600: A Closer Look
Before diving into its performance, let’s examine more carefully the points that set the Cube600 apart from its competitors:
LCD Panel
The Cube600 using a next-generation 4.5-inch LCD panel made of highly transparent glass, a significant upgrade over the plastic or hybrid plastix-glass panels commonly found in this category. This design allows 30% more light to pass through, enhancing brightness and improving ANSI contrast, a common weak point for budget projectors. This high-tech glass LCD panel also boosts durability, ensuring a longer lifespan by 8X, according to BladeCine.
Optical Engine
The Cube600 features a fully sealed optical block, preventing dust from entering and compromising image quality. While many projectors claim to have sealed units, they often only seal the area between the LCD panel and the diffuser. The Cube600, however, seals the entire optical path—from the LED light source to the lens—ensuring consistent performance over time.
Sound System
Audio is another area where the Cube600 truly shines. Its Dolby-certified stereo system features two full-range front speakers and a passive subwoofer, delivering a rich, immersive audio experience that rivals many standalone sound systems. This level of sound hardware is something rarely found in projectors within this category.
ToF Sensor
The Cube600’s ToF sensor is arguably the best in its class, offering seamless autofocus, keystone correction, obstacle avoidance, and digital zoom adjustment. These features work flawlessly, setting a new standard for user convenience in this price range.
Gimbal Stand
The Cube600 features an integrated 360° gimbal stand, allowing users to set it up and project in any possible way, no matter how challenging the space may be. Additionally, the Cube600 can be mounted on the ceiling, as the gimbal includes a screw at its bottom, enabling compatibility with a ceiling mount.
Smart Interface
The Cube600 runs on a custom, lightweight Linux-based interface designed for speed and simplicity. Free of bloatware, it ensures smooth navigation and quick access to popular streaming platforms like Netflix, Prime Video, and YouTube.
Now that you have an idea of what the Cube600 is, let’s move on..
Meeting the BladeCine Cube600
The Cube600 adopts the latest cube-style design seen in Valerion, Hisense, and XGIMI models. It is constructed from high-quality plastic with a sleek matte black finish.
It is smaller and lighter than the Valerion, but stands on a 360° gimbal, allowing the user to tilt the projector in any direction and project at any desired angle, also has a surprisingly good build quality and does not resemble the typical cheap plastic projectors in this price category.
On the back we find HDMI ports, USB ports and an RJ45 LAN port, a rare feature in this price range!
This is the ToF sensor, which is responsible for all the magic behind the automatic adjustment of image size, shape and for the object detection & avoid function.
The remote control not only includes navigation buttons but also dedicated buttons for the most popular streaming services.
Most importantly, and a sign that BladeCine didn’t cut corners here either, is that the remote control is backlit. This is something I’ve never seen before in a projector of this category.
The cherry on the cake is this wonderful soft protective case it comes packaged in, following in the footsteps of Valerion. I personally love these bags..
BladeCine Cube600 Menu & Smart Interface
I think it was an absolutely wise decision by BladeCine to equip the Cube600 with a super lightweight Linux-based interface. Projectors in this category do not have powerful processors or enough RAM to run a classic Android TV system smoothly and efficiently.
Almost all projectors in this category that I have tested lag in navigation, something extremely annoying in my opinion.
The Cube600 starts in just 2 seconds from standby mode, while a full startup takes 22 seconds when plugged into power for the first time.
This custom interface contains only the most important apps, allowing the Cube600 to function autonomously without the need of an external source.
It features certified apps for Netflix, Prime Video and YouTube as well as a browser for surfing the internet.
This is the main menu tree, where we can find many useful adjustments. The philosophy here remains the same, simplicity and ease of use.
In the setup menu, we can find some basic options, such as changing the display language or setting a sleep timer. Additionally, there are two available methods for updating the projector’s firmware: via USB port or over the internet (OTA update).
The picture menu is quite limited, offering only the basic settings. The Cube600 follows a simple plug-and-play philosophy, designed to keep things simple as possible for its owner. It includes five picture modes, three gamma presets, and four color temperature options. Additionally, basic sliders for brightness, contrast, and sharpness are available, but they can only be adjusted when using the custom picture mode.
The audio menu includes several pre-configured sound profiles, but if we select the ‘User’ profile, we can also manually adjust bass and treble to our preference. A particularly useful feature is Dialogue Enhancement, which allows us to adjust the volume of the central dialogue channel in a multichannel audio format to better suit our space or personal preference.
In the Audio menu, there’s an option called TTS (Text-to-Speech). When enabled, a female voice named Anita reads aloud every menu selection. We can adjust her volume, pitch, and even her verbosity level to suit our preferences.
In the Bluetooth menu, we can pair any compatible device. I tested it with all the Bluetooth speakers I own, and they connected flawlessly.
The Cube600 offers both wired and wireless network connectivity, both of which work exceptionally well and stable. In the Network menu, we can choose between the two of them and adjust the settings for these connections as needed.
The Cube600 can be placed on a table, mounted on the ceiling, or used in a rear-projection setup. In the Projection menu, we can select the installation type, allowing the Cube600 to automatically adjust and reverse the image accordingly.
Perhaps the most important submenu is the Keystone tab. Here, you can access all the automatic frame correction functions powered by the ToF sensor and the Cube600 image processor. You can choose to apply digital frame correction every time the Cube600 starts and specify which correction functions should be enabled in auto mode.
In manual Keystone mode, named as “Four-Point Correction”, you can further fine-tune the image manually to achieve optimal correction based on the characteristics of your projection surface.
Next is the Digital Zoom function, which allows you to adjust the image size from 100% down to 50%.
The Focus function has a dedicated menu tab. You can set the Cube600 to auto-focus every time it starts, auto-focus whenever it detects movement or a change in angle on its gimbal, or manually adjust the focus.
All these advanced image correction functions found in the Cube600 are typically available only in much more expensive projectors.
The last tab is the “About” tab, which contains various details about your Cube600. One particularly useful feature is the device temperature indicator, which provides valuable information about the unit’s operating conditions.
The Screen Share function has its own dedicated menu tab. The Cube600 supports almost any screen-sharing protocol, allowing seamless connectivity with Android and Apple phones, as well as PC and Mac.
I tested everything except Mac (since I don’t have one), and it worked flawlessly, fast and trouble-free.
Each Screen Share sub-tab includes detailed instructions on how to connect and mirror your device’s screen effortlessly.
Finally, we have the Input Selection tab. Here, you can choose between the HDMI ports or USB, allowing you to play content directly from a USB stick or external hard drive connected to the Cube600.
There is also a Home tab that takes you back to the main screen.
I almost forgot to mention this—the “App Store” for the Cube600 is Netrange, a Linux-based HTML5 portal. It includes a variety of streaming platforms and apps that…I’ve never heard of! Interesting…
BladeCine Cube600 Performance
Installation & ToF Sensor Performance
Installing the Cube600 is ridiculously easy and fast, thanks to its ToF (Time-of-Flight) sensor. The Cube600 scans the surface in front of it and immediately adjusts focus, keystone, and digital zoom with impressive speed and accuracy.
Of course, once the automatic adjustments are done, you still have the option to manually tweak the focus and keystone settings if the initial result doesn’t meet your expectations. All the auto image adjustments of the Cube600 performed flawlessly, they never failed me even once and worked perfectly.
Also, the obstacle avoidance system works flawlessly. If the Cube600 detects an object within the image frame, it dynamically adjusts the image size via digital zoom and shifts the image position to bypass the obstacle.
Brightness & Contrast
The first thing you’ll notice when you power on the Cube600 for the first time is just how bright the image is. It’s an unexpected surprise, especially if you’ve already formed expectations based on its specs. But once you see it in action, you’ll be pleasantly shocked. The Cube600 delivers a true brightness of 670 ANSI lumens and an on/off contrast ratio of 2,670:1, according to my light meter readings 30cm from the lens. I still can’t figure out why BladeCine lists lower brightness and contrast values in the official specs than what the projector actually achieves.
With 670 real ANSI lumens, the Cube600 can easily support screen sizes up to 120 inches in a well light-controlled room (or with a Fresnel screen), and its native 1080p resolution holds up just fine. For my tests, I used two screens: my Celexon ALR and the Valerion Fresnel screen, both at 100 inches. Here is two screenshots on a 100” Fresnel screen from the movie Yes Man, featuring the one and only Jim Carrey.
Sharpness & Focus
This is where most projectors in this category struggle, and for good reason: offset. The offset on these projectors is 50%, meaning the projector lens needs to be positioned at the center of the screen to project a properly aligned image. But, as you can imagine, placing the projector in the middle of the screen isn’t practical—that’s exactly where we sit to watch our movies!
So, unfortunately, we’re often forced to place the projector on a coffee table and tilt it upwards. This leads to uneven focus, as the top part of the image is much farther from the lens compared to the bottom, causing noticeable inconsistencies in sharpness across the screen.
On the Cube600, however, this focus inconsistency is almost imperceptible, and I’m genuinely amazed at how they managed to achieve that, i think that this has to do with the shape on the lens. The sharpness of the lens and the overall clarity of the image far exceed the standards of this category, reaching levels you’d expect from larger and more expensive projectors.
Performance in Real Viewing Conditions
The Cube600 pleasantly surprised me with its cinematic image and the immersive cinema feeling it delivers to the viewer. Apart from the slightly cool white balance, which a trained eye will notice right away, its 1080p image quality is more than respectable—even for an experienced viewer like myself. When combined with a Fresnel screen, its performance truly excels.
There are moments when you forget that this projector costs only $399. The skin tones, the level of detail it reveals, and its sharpness set new standards in this challenging category, making it stand out in a market flooded with hundreds of models.
Where it truly leaves you astonished is in its performance during dark scenes. Its blacks are black, neither bluish nor reddish, but a clearly neutral black. Its high contrast allows it to render dark movie scenes without crushing the lower brightness levels, maintaining proper gamma correction. The result is that all details in shadowy areas are revealed, as seen in scenes like the ones below, ensuring the viewer doesn’t miss a single detail, unlike most models in this category that I’ve tested.
As for 24p reproduction, the Cube600 does not perform any 3:2 pulldown when fed with 24p content, but it also doesn’t play it natively! After testing, I concluded that there must be some built-in frame interpolation that converts the 24 frames to 48. The result, however, is completely natural motion in every 1080p24Hz movie I tested. Of course, this is just my own assumption, as I do not have the official technical specifications from BladeCine.
Sound Performance
With a compact audio system consisting of two 10W drivers and an additional bass driver (subwoofer), the Cube600’s sound performance is on a completely different level compared to the competition. The difference is truly massive.
But that’s not all—the Cube600 offers one of the most comprehensive sound adjustment menus available, allowing fine-tuning of every aspect of audio, including mid-channel voice enhancement for multichannel content. While it doesn’t have DTS:X or Dolby Atmos certification, Bladecine has equipped it with a proprietary algorithm called “3D Audio Stereo,” which essentially creates a simulated surround effect.
Personally, I found its audio performance far better than I expected and beyond what I’m used to hearing from projectors in this category. Even in this aspect, the Cube600 is miles ahead of its competition.
Power Consumption and Noise
I measured an average power consumption of 133 watts for the Cube600. This number is typical for an LED projector. However, when compared to the mere 69 watts consumed by the significantly brighter Valerion Pro 2 (with laser power set to 0, of course) during side-by-side testing, it highlights just how far laser projector technology has come. It also showcases how much more power-efficient laser projectors have become compared to LED models in general.
The operating noise of the Cube600 is quite low for its category, and most importantly, it does not increase even after 5-6 hours of continuous operation, as the temperature on its LED heatsink remains stable at 61-62°C. This stability in operating temperature is, of course, due to the massive LED heatsink, which covers almost the entire air outlet of the cooling system.
The measurements were taken from approximately one meter away from the projectors.
Gaming
Yes, you can game on the Cube600. There’s no noticeable lag at all, and if there is, it’s almost certainly under 20ms or even under 10ms! I’ve played Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on my Xbox Series X with the Cube600, and I can safely say that the native 1080p resolution holds up exceptionally well, even on screens larger than 100″, like mine.
One of the most impressive aspects of the Cube600 is its ability to maintain accurate gamma levels at very low IRE values (I’d say in the critical 1-5 IRE range). I know I may be repeating myself, but I must emphasize that I have not seen this level of accuracy in any other projector in this category. Almost all projectors I have tried in this category in the past tend to “crush” the darkest details in the image, no matter how much you change the settings. Also, the colors and overall image sharpness are surprisingly good.
The way a projector handles these low brightness levels of grayscale is critical for playing dark themed games like Silent Hill 2 or other games with heavy shadow detail. The reproduction of black detail is so impressive that I am wondering if I need to recalibrate my Dell 32-inch gaming monitor, because I’ve noticed it’s losing detail!
I suggest these settings for gaming if you already own or are considering getting the Cube600.
What I forgot to mention (better late than never) is that the Cube600 supports any external hard drive or USB stick plugged into the two USB ports, so you can play your movies seamlessly with the built-in media player. I mention this because it might be useful for some, although I personally stream everything and would hardly ever use this feature.
As always here is a small video i prepared so you can see the Cube600 in action. Enjoy!
What I Didn’t Like About the Cube600
I will highlight some negative aspects of the Cube600 as I experienced them during these three months of testing.
First negative point: The remote control. I have clearly grown accustomed to Bluetooth remotes, and using an IR remote is something that personally bothers me. Even though the IR on the Cube600 works flawlessly, I would have preferred a wireless connection so that I wouldn’t have to aim directly at the projector every time I wanted to make a selection.
Second negative point: This is something we see with all single-panel low- budget projectors in this category — the 50% lens offset. I would have liked to see BladeCine stand out from the competition and provide the Cube600 with a standard 100% offset (where the lens is positioned at the bottom of the image), which is the norm for almost all projectors in the higher price range.
With this, in my opinion, incorrect lens offset, you almost always have to use keystone correction. And keystone correction means loss of resolution.
Third negative point: The lack of some essential image adjustments, such as the ability to fine-tune the three primary colors—red, blue, and green—of the grayscale (white balance). This omission prevents users from correcting the rather cool and greenish tone of the grayscale. I understand that such adjustments can be confusing for many users who are not familiar with these technical image parameters. However, there are also users who do have the knowledge and want the ability to fine-tune this aspect of the image. Therefore, I personally consider the lack of detailed grayscale temperature adjustment a clearly downside.
My opinion about the BladeCine Cube600
For me, the Cube600 is the new king of this challenging and often confusing category, I am talking about the affordable single-panel LCD LED projector market. Over the years, I’ve tested many similar projectors, too many, to be honest. In fact, for most of them, I didn’t even bother publishing a review because their performance was so poor that I couldn’t even present them to you. The BladeCine Cube600 is in a completely different league.
With the Cube600 now available, there’s no excuse—not even a tight budget—to delay setting up your first home theater. Especially on that deal…
It’s remarkably bright, offers impressive contrast and black levels, and operates relatively quietly. The detail in dark scenes and the overall contrast, both on/off and ANSI, are the best I’ve experienced in this category by far.
The built-in ToF (Time-of-Flight) sensor does an excellent job of instantly adjusting the image, no matter how you position the projector. It even outperforms sensors found in much more expensive models. The smart user interface is fast, responsive, and allows you to operate the projector without an external source, a valuable feature for this category.
Of course, its image quality can’t match that of an RGB laser DLP projector like the Valerion for example, but unlike most projectors in this range, it doesn’t disappoint at all.
The Cube600 delivers a truly cinematic picture, reminiscent of the warmth you would expect from an old analog film projector.
Watching 1080p classics like Mr. Destiny with Jim Belushi or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade by Steven Spielberg, starring the legendary Harrison Ford, is an absolute pleasure. The Cube600 projects a beautiful, film-like analog image onto the screen, turning your living room into a real personal cinema.
In the three months I’ve owned the Cube600, believe it or not, I’ve watched more movies than I ever did on my main home cinema setup with the Valerion Pro 2 and the AWOL Vision LTV-3500 Pro, and I’ve enjoyed every single second. The Cube600 gave me the opportunity to remember and relive the “good years” of the movie industry, and it did so effortlessly. Yes Man, 50 First Dates, Dumb and Dumber, 13 Going on 30, and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days were just some of the films I found myself enjoying again while testing the Cube600.
These are the moments when you truly appreciate the magic of the big cinematic screen, and the Cube600 brings that magic home at an incredibly affordable price.
You know, with all the rapid advances in projector technology, we sometimes lose the beauty of the simple things, like sitting on the couch with the family and enjoying an old classic movie, together.
Thank you, BladeCine. I needed this break to remind myself why I love this hobby so much and how much I truly enjoy it. Also, thank you again for the great lesson I needed, that you don’t need any expensive equipment to fully enjoy your hobby. Quite the opposite, I would say.
(A general piece of advice for all you home theater fans. If you haven’t done it already, get a Fresnel screen for your setup. Consider it a gift to yourself, you can thank me later!)
Nikos Tsolas
1 Comment
Another Big Negative: Is it really so hard for projector manufacturers to include 3D mode in modern units. I”m realistic about this not really being a Valerion competitor. But it can still be an inexpensive, High Quality unit to break in Projector Beginners who dont want to break the bank. But how can you sell a person to overlook missing features that have been available for over a decade. I was sold on it for outdoors usage until I saw that it had NO 3D support. That is pathetic in 2025. I call this the almost-1080p-Valerion. Thanks for the review(and warning)