Tech
Estonia is the rare EU country opposing bans on children’s social media use
In short: Estonia and Belgium are the only two EU member states to have declined the Jutland Declaration, an October 2025 pan-European commitment to restrict children’s access to social media. Estonia’s ministers argue that age-based bans are unenforceable, that children will find ways around them, and that the correct approach is to enforce the GDPR against the platforms themselves and invest in digital literacy rather than restricting young people’s participation in the information society.
The declaration most EU countries signed
On 10 October 2025, digital ministers from 25 of the European Union’s 27 member states signed the Jutland Declaration at an informal gathering in Horsens, Denmark. Norway and Iceland also signed. The declaration is a non-binding political commitment to introduce privacy-preserving age verification on social media platforms, protect minors from addictive design features and dark patterns, and work toward what the document describes as a “digital legal age” for access to online services. Estonia and Belgium were the two EU members that declined. Belgium’s refusal came from a veto by Flemish Media Minister Cieltje Van Achter, who described the declaration’s age verification requirements as disproportionate and objected to requiring children to use national identity systems such as Itsme to access services like YouTube or Instagram. Estonia’s refusal was substantively different: principled rather than procedural, and rooted in a broader argument about where Europe’s regulatory effort should be directed. The political momentum the declaration reflects is considerable. Europe’s social media age shift accelerated through 2025 and into 2026, with Australia implementing the world’s first ban on under-16s from December 2025, France passing legislation in January 2026 to prohibit under-15s, Spain enacting restrictions for under-16s in February 2026, and Austria moving to restrict children under 14. Greece announced it would ban under-15s from social media from 2027, part of a six-country EU grouping that also includes Denmark, France, Austria, Portugal, and Spain. On 20 November 2025, the European Parliament backed a non-binding resolution calling for an EU-wide digital minimum age of 16 by 483 votes to 92, with 86 abstentions, and called on the European Commission to incorporate the measure into the forthcoming Digital Fairness Act.
Why Estonia said no
Estonia’s dissent is articulated by two ministers who have approached the question from different but complementary angles. Kristina Kallas, Minister of Education and Research, has been the more outspoken critic of the ban consensus. At a Politico forum in Barcelona, Kallas argued that age restrictions place responsibility on the wrong party. “The way to approach this, to me, is not to make kids responsible for that harm and start self-regulating,” she said. Her corresponding argument is that the responsibility should fall on the platforms. “Europe pretends to be weak when it comes to big American and international corporations,” she told the forum, challenging the EU to “actually take this power and start regulating the big American corporations.” She was also direct about the practical limits of ban-based approaches: “kids will find very quickly the ways to go around and to still use social media.” That argument connects to Europe’s broader effort to assert its regulatory power over American technology companies, a project that has gathered considerable momentum since 2025 but has not yet been applied with comparable force to social media content governance. Liisa-Ly Pakosta, Minister of Justice and Digital Affairs, has framed the positive case for Estonia’s preferred approach. “Estonia believes in an information society and including young people in the information society,” she has said, emphasising digital participation rather than exclusion. Pakosta has pointed to the General Data Protection Regulation as the enforcement mechanism already available: the GDPR prohibits platforms from processing children’s personal data without appropriate consent and carries fines of up to 4% of global annual turnover for violations. Estonia’s argument, in essence, is that Europe has not exhausted its existing tools before reaching for a new and unproven one.
The enforcement problem Estonia is pointing to
Estonia’s critique of the ban model has a concrete reference point. Australia became the first country in the world to enforce a social media ban for minors on 10 December 2025, prohibiting anyone under 16 from holding accounts on platforms including Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, X, and Facebook. Platforms face fines of up to approximately A$50 million for failing to take reasonable steps to prevent underage access. In the months after the ban came into force, the eSafety Commissioner found Meta, TikTok, and YouTube were not complying with the ban, with the regulator proceeding to court action against the platforms. The compliance picture was bleak: seven in ten children who had held social media accounts before the ban still had active accounts after it took effect. Workarounds including VPNs, false birth dates, and the transfer of accounts to adult relatives proved straightforward and were widely adopted. Whether the Australian experience represents the definitive verdict on the ban model, or merely an early implementation struggle that stricter enforcement will eventually resolve, remains contested. What is not contested is that the world’s first and most closely watched age ban produced a high rate of non-compliance within months of introduction, and that this outcome was predicted in advance by critics who argued the compliance burden would be met by creative circumvention rather than by genuine restriction.
What comes next in Brussels
The practical arena for the contest between Estonia’s platform-enforcement approach and the ban-majority’s position is the Digital Fairness Act, the European Commission’s forthcoming legislation targeting addictive design, dark patterns, and manipulative commercial practices in digital services. The European Parliament’s November 2025 vote made explicit that it wants a 16-plus digital minimum age incorporated into the DFA text, along with bans on engagement-based recommender algorithms for users who are minors, restrictions on loot boxes, and a default-off requirement for infinite scroll, autoplay, and pull-to-refresh mechanisms on services used by young people. The Commission is expected to table the DFA proposal in the fourth quarter of 2026. That timeline gives Estonia a legislative window in which to argue for a platform-accountability framework to sit alongside, or in place of, an age-based access restriction. The two approaches are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but they reflect genuinely different theories of where regulatory leverage is most effectively applied: against the commercial platforms that build and profit from the systems in question, or against the young people who have grown up treating social media as ordinary infrastructure. 2025 established AI as the defining technology of the decade, and as AI-powered recommendation systems become the primary mechanism by which young people encounter content online, the question of who bears legal and regulatory responsibility for what those systems serve to a 14-year-old is one that Europe will have to answer in law, not just in declarations.
SiFive, a company founded in 2015 by the UC Berkeley engineers who created an open source chip design, has landed a $400 million oversubscribed round that values the company at $3.65 billion.
This deal is interesting for a bunch of reasons. For one, SiFive’s RISC-V open chip design is based on the RISC processor, not Intel’s x86 or ARM, the two major types of CPUs that currently feed Nvidia’s GPU computer system AI empire.
Also, Nvidia was investor in this round, alongside a long list of VCs, private equity, and hedge funds. The round was led by Atreides Management, founded by former Fidelity investor bigwig Gavin Baker. (Atreides was also an investor in Cerebras Systems $1 billion round). Other investors in the round include Apollo Global Management, D1 Capital Partners, Point72 Turion, T. Rowe Price Sutter Hill Ventures, and others.
SiFive’s business model is like Arm’s was in years gone by — it licenses its chip designs to those who modify them for their own needs and does not sell the chips themselves. (In March, Arm changed its model when it launched the first-ever chip it manufactured, an AI chip, developed with Meta with customers including OpenAI, Cerebras, and Cloudflare.)
SiFive stands in rarified air with chip designs that are open, not proprietary, as well as neutral, not reliant on specific customers. In fact, SiFive hasn’t raised since March 2022, Pitchbook estimates, when it brought in $175 million led by Coatue Management at a pre-money valuation of $2.33 billion. Intel Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, Aramco Ventures, were part of that round.
RISC-V has been, until recently, better known as a chip for smaller uses, like embedded systems. But with this cash and Nvidia’s attention, SiFive is moving into CPUs for AI data centers. SiFive’s designs will work with Nvidia’s CUDA software and its NVLink Fusion, a rack server system that lets different CPUs plug into Nvidia’s “AI factory.”
In other words, as rivals Intel and AMD seek to compete with Nvidia’s GPU, Nvidia is backing an 11-year-old startup that can design CPUs on an open and completely alternate technology.
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NASA’s Artemis II crew safely splashed down off the California coast after completing a 10-day trip around the moon and back. “This is not just an accomplishment for NASA,” sad NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “This is an accomplishment for humanity, again, a historic mission to the moon and back.” From a report: Isaacman is aboard the USS John. P Murtha Navy recovery vessel, where the astronauts will be brought once they’ve been retrieved from the Orion capsule, and he shared “there is a lot to celebrate right now on on a mission well accomplished for Artemis II.”
Isaacman also complimented the crew as “absolutely professional astronauts, wonderful communicators and almost poets” “” as well as “ambassadors from humanity to the stars.” “I can’t imagine a better crew than the Artemis II crew that just completed a perfect mission right now. We are back in the business of sending astronauts to the moon and bringing them back safely.
This is just the beginning. We are going to get back into doing this with frequency, sending missions to the moon until we land on it in 2028 and start building our base.” Isaacman also said it’s time to start preparing for Artemis III, expected to launch in 2027. You can watch the moment of the splashdown here.
Looking for a new pair of Sony earbuds but aren’t sure whether to splurge on the latest model, or save on the older WF-1000XM5? We’re here to help.
We’ve reviewed both the Sony WF-1000XM6 and the WF-1000XM5 to help you decide which earbuds are a better fit for you.
If you’re not convinced by either Sony pair, then visit our best headphones and best wireless earbuds guides instead.
Price and Availability
The Sony WF-1000XM6 earbuds are the newer of the two and, unsurprisingly, naturally have a higher price tag at £249/$249.
Although the WF-1000XM5s are the older pair, they’re still readily available to buy. Not only that but, although the earbuds’ official RRP is £199/$199, it’s not impossible to find a hefty price cut for them. For example, at the time of writing, the XM5 buds were just £169 on Sony’s official site.
Design
- Sony WF-1000XM6s are chunkier though slimmer in profile
- Both are comfortable to wear, although the XM6 buds can be more fiddly to wear
- Both are IPX4
Although both the WF-1000XM6 and the XM5 are relatively slim and definitely pocketable, there are a few notable differences between the two.
Firstly, due to the additional microphone, the XM6 model is slightly chunkier than its predecessor, and subsequently can make the earbuds fiddly to wear and fit correctly. While we never noted an issue with comfort, we did struggle to get a perfectly airtight seal for ANC. Using the Sony Sound Connect app, we found the earbuds struggled to pass Sony’s strict test for a suitable seal. It’s frustrating, but fortunately doesn’t seem to impede the ANC too much – but more on that later.
Otherwise, both earbuds are fitted with responsive touch controls that cover playback, switching between ANC modes, volume control and more, all of which can be customised via the companion app.
In addition, both earbuds are fitted with the same stiffer ear-tips that aim to plug your ears more effectively than silicon alternatives, and both have an IPX4 rating too. This means both buds can withstand sweat and rain drops.
Winner: Sony WF-1000XM5
Sony WF-1000XM6
Sony WF-1000XM5
Features
- Both earbuds are packed with features, including Speak to Chat, Adaptive Sound Control and voice assistants
- Both also support 360 Reality Audio and can be connected to two devices at once
With both, you’ll benefit from the likes of Quick Attention Mode, Speak to Chat and Adaptive Sound Control. There’s also head gesture control, your choice of voice assistant and a clever Find Your Equalizer that allows you to adjust the sound more intuitively than playing around with bands and frequencies.
Controlling both Sony earbuds is done via the Sound Connect smartphone app, and allows you to customise touch controls, noise-cancellation modes and the Bluetooth connection too. While we wish the app was a bit more streamlined, overall it’s a solid companion piece to the buds.
One especially interesting feature on the app is the Discover section that has features like your listening history across all music services, plus logs how long you use the headphones and includes badges to help game-mify the experience too. How useful this is will depend really on your personal preference, but it shows just how feature-packed the buds are.
Winner: Tie
Sound Quality
- WF-1000XM6 has a larger 8.4mm driver
- Both offer a clear, balanced approach across the frequency range, however the XM6 have improved highs
- Overall, the XM6 is more vibrant and energetic compared to the XM5
Although there are differences between the two, it’s worth noting that both the XM6 and XM5 are brilliant sounding earbuds. However, thanks to the larger 8.4mm driver at play here, the XM6 offers a wider soundstage compared to the XM5. In fact, we found that not only were highs improved, with more clarity and detail, but bass felt weightier too. This is especially noteworthy, as we concluded that bass lovers might be a bit disappointed by the XM5’s more balanced approach.
In addition, we noted that at its default volume, the XM6 picks up more vibrancy, dynamism and energy than the XM5.
All of this, however, is not to say the XM5s don’t sound good – quite the opposite – but it’s just the XM6 has tweaked the overall quality.
Winner: Sony WF-1000XM6
Noise Cancellation
- WF-1000XM6 has one additional microphone for noise cancelling
- Although the XM5s are easier to wear, the XM6s offer overall stronger noise-cancellation
- Call quality is also stronger with the XM6s
Sony claims the WF-1000XM6 offers the “best true wireless for noise-cancellation” and we’re confident to say that they are, in fact, among the quietest pair of earbuds we’ve reviewed. While getting the right fit can be fiddly, which we’ve mentioned earlier, over the weeks we’ve found the earbuds manage to curb outside noises like traffic, voices and even planes brilliantly.
Overall, although the XM6 is a solid improvement over the XM5 pair, we should note that the XM5s are easier to wear than the XM6.
Call quality also sees an improvement, as we found the XM5 had a tendency to let in noise when we spoke. Fortunately, the XM6 sounds completely silent during phone calls.
Winner: Sony WF-1000XM6
Battery Life
- No improvements with the XM6
- Both offer eight hours per charge with an additional 16 hours in the case
Sony hasn’t made any improvements with the battery life of the XM6 buds, and promises the same 24 hours total (eight plus sixteen in the case) as the XM5. Having said that, we actually found the XM6 seemed likely to offer even more hours than Sony claims, with an hour of listening still resulting in 100% charge.
The XM5 actually benefits from a slightly faster charging speed, with a three minute charge resulting in an extra hour of playback, whereas the XM6 needs five minutes. The difference is negligible, but if you find yourself in a pinch then you’ll definitely be thankful.
Winner: Tie
Verdict
Although they’re slightly chunkier and can be quite fiddly to wear initially, the Sony WF-1000XM6 buds are a brilliant upgrade from the WF-1000XM5 pair. Not only is the ANC among the best we’ve ever tested, but the sound is more vibrant and dynamic than its predecessor.
Having said that, the XM6 buds do come with a hefty price tag. So, if you’re on a tighter budget, the XM5 is a brilliant compromise.
Google says Gmail end-to-end encryption (E2EE) is now available on all Android and iOS devices, allowing enterprise users to read and compose emails without additional tools.
Starting this week, encrypted messages will be delivered as regular emails to Gmail recipients’ inboxes if they use the Gmail app.
Recipients who don’t have the Gmail mobile app and use other email services can read them in a web browser, regardless of the device and service they’re using.
“For the first time, users can compose and read these E2EE messages natively within the Gmail app on Android and iOS. No need to download extra apps or use mail portals. Users with a Gmail E2EE license can send an encrypted message to any recipient, regardless of what email address the recipient has,” Google announced on Thursday.
“This launch combines the highest level of privacy and data encryption with a user-friendly experience for all users, enabling simple encrypted email for all customers from small businesses to enterprises and public sector.”
This feature is now available for all client-side encryption (CSE) users with Enterprise Plus licenses and the Assured Controls or Assured Controls Plus add-on after admins enable the Android and iOS clients in the CSE admin interface via the Admin Console.
To send an end-to-end encrypted message, Gmail users have to turn on the “Additional encryption” option by clicking the Lock icon when writing the message.
In October, Google also announced that Gmail enterprise users can now send end-to-end encrypted emails to recipients on any email service or platform.
Gmail’s end-to-end encryption (E2EE) feature is powered by the client-side encryption (CSE) technical control, which allows Google Workspace organizations to use encryption keys they control and are stored outside Google’s servers to protect sensitive documents and emails.
This way, the messages and attachments are encrypted on the client before being sent to Google’s servers, which helps meet regulatory requirements such as data sovereignty, HIPAA, and export controls by ensuring that Google and third parties can’t read any of the data.
Gmail CSE was introduced in Gmail on the web in December 2022 as a beta test, following an initial beta rollout to Google Drive, Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Google Meet, and Google Calendar, and it reached general availability for Google Workspace Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and Education Standard customers in February 2023.
The company began rolling out its new end-to-end encryption (E2EE) model in beta for Gmail enterprise users in April 2025.
Automated pentesting proves the path exists. BAS proves whether your controls stop it. Most teams run one without the other.
This whitepaper maps six validation surfaces, shows where coverage ends, and provides practitioners with three diagnostic questions for any tool evaluation.
The current wave of generative AI animation often feels like a magic trick that only works once. You type in a prompt, a video appears, and if you don’t like the result — maybe the feet are all wonky, which is a regular issue with AI generations — your only real option is to try a different prompt. This “black box” approach is exactly what Cartwheel, a new 3D animation startup, is trying to dismantle.
Andrew Carr and Jonathan Jarvis, two veterans with roots at OpenAI and Google, respectively, founded the company, which is working to build a future where AI handles the technical drudgery of animation while leaving the creative soul to the artist.
I spoke with Carr and Jarvis about launching their company, defining “taste” with AI, and the technical and creative difficulties of animation in 2026.
What sets Cartwheel apart
According to the founders, one of the biggest hurdles in this space is that 3D motion data is remarkably scarce compared to the endless oceans of text and images available online that AI models are trained on.
“If you look at all the big tech companies, they’ve built their models on written language, audio, image, [and] video because there’s just so much of it, so finding those patterns is much easier,” Jarvis said. “We knew it was going to be hard, but it turns out to be harder than we thought by probably a factor of 10 or 100 to get that data.”
Read more: Generative AI in Gaming Is Here, but Facing Pushback From Gamers — and Developers
While other tech giants focus on generating final pixels, Cartwheel has spent years mapping how humans actually move. Their models are built to understand the nuances of a performance so that a simple 2D video of someone dancing in their backyard can be translated into a precise, realistic 3D skeleton.
This shift from flat images to 3D assets is what gives animators the control they have been missing in the AI era.
Cartwheel has spent years tackling the difficult task of mapping how humans actually move.
Preventing AI “sameness”
Cartwheel’s executives said they view AI’s “sameness” as a byproduct of a lack of control. If everyone uses the same generator to produce a video, the results may eventually start to look all too similar.
“The output of our system is designed for people to edit. It’s designed for people to touch and manipulate, and we don’t want someone to type something in and then have it shuffle through to a finished animation. That’s not the point of it. That’s boring, who’s going to watch that?” Carr said.
“The fact that it’s very easy for people to get into it and edit it actually totally removes the sameness problem,” he said. “You put it on different characters, you put it in different environments, you change how it looks, you push the performance, you pull the performance, and in that sense [sameness] turns into a nonissue.”
Carr and Jarvis said the solution is to provide a “control layer” where the AI output is just the starting point. By generating 3D data instead of flat video, the creator can change the lighting, move the camera or adjust a character’s pose after the AI has done its initial work — making the technology a sophisticated power tool rather than a replacement for the artist.
Founder Andrew Carr said one of his core scientific hypotheses is that movement and motion is a fundamental data type.
The future of animation with AI
Beyond just making animation faster and lowering the barrier to entry, the company is looking toward a concept they call “open-ended storytelling” or “open-ended world-building.” In modern gaming and social media, the demand for content has reached a scale that manual animation cannot possibly match.
Cartwheel envisions characters that aren’t just programmed with a few set moves but are powered by motion models that allow them to react and perform in real time. It’s less about choreographing every single frame and more about “rehearsing” with a digital actor that understands the intent of the scene.
Ultimately, the goal is to bridge the gap between 2D vision and 3D execution, said the founders.
“One of the core hypotheses that we hope is true in the next three years for Cartwheel is everyone will work in 3D even if it’s authored in 2D, even if the final output is just 2D video,” Carr said.
By focusing on the “layer below the pixels,” Carr and Jarvis said they hope that as animation becomes more automated, it also becomes more personal. The machine handles the biomechanics and the file exports, but the human keeps the final say on the taste, the timing and the heart of the story.
As the tech conference circuit grows more crowded, one SaaS event is making the opposite pitch: fewer people, fewer sales decks, and a lot less noise.
SaaS on the Beach, a curated event for SaaS founders, will return to Barcelona between May 20 and 21 for its second edition, positioning itself as an alternative to the large-scale trade shows that have long dominated the tech events circuit.
The event is built on selectivity. Attendance is limited to 60 handpicked founders, with participants required to meet specific criteria before they can buy a ticket. That makes SaaS on the Beach feel less like an open industry conference and more like a tightly edited peer group.
It is also stripping out many of the rituals that now define mainstream tech events. There is no exhibition hall, no sponsored speaker circuit, and no sales-pitch-heavy programming. In their place are seated dinners, roundtable discussions, and social activities meant to create more direct, less performative exchanges between attendees.
That matters because many founders no longer need more stage content. They need rooms where people speak plainly, compare notes honestly, and talk about the less polished parts of building software companies, hiring, churn, growth, product decisions, and what is actually working.
SaaS on the Beach is also leaning into a no-solicitation format, an explicit break from the conference model where networking often blurs into prospecting. The promise here is that people come to learn from peers, not to be cornered into a demo.
Barcelona is part of that pitch too. The event is presenting its Mediterranean setting as an alternative to the usual northern European conference loop, betting that a more relaxed environment can lead to better conversations.
The bigger idea behind SaaS on the Beach is that senior operators may be growing less interested in scale for its own sake. The trade show still has its place, especially for visibility and lead generation, but smaller, curated gatherings are increasingly selling something else: relevance.
That does not make them more democratic. In some ways, it makes them more exclusive. But it does make the value proposition clearer. If the standard conference model is built on volume, events like SaaS on the Beach are built on density, fewer people, more overlap, and a better chance that the conversation is worth having.
That is the model returning to Barcelona this May.
Running out of storage is one of those problems that almost everybody understands, and almost nobody handles properly. Storage can almost never be enough, so some people keep paying for cloud space. Meanwhile, others keep promising that they will “sort it out later”. And a lot of people just end up deleting things when the warning gets too annoying.
But Google’s upcoming Android feature could finally offer a better answer, with an automatic local backup to a PC. This functions wirelessly like a cloud storage service, but it is also free of charge since you’re using your own device.
Android Authority’s recent teardown of Google Play Services beta v26.15.31 revealed that Google is working on an Automatic backup feature inside Quick Share that can copy selected files from your phone to your PC without using the cloud.
Why this might be the storage fix normal people actually use
Cloud backup is useful and all, but a lot of people still do not want to pay for it. Considering the tiny amount of free storage space that you do get, stuff like WhatsApp backups, and photos and videos from a year can easily eat into this free storage immediately.
But Google’s in-development feature appears to let users automatically back up camera photos, camera videos, and audio files directly to a household PC, thanks to a new auto sync option and a Back up now button for manual transfers.
The report also revealed that deleting a file from your phone will not remove its copy from the PC backup. So the feature isn’t just about syncing—it is about finally permitting people to clear space without feeling like they are throwing memories away.
Your Android, your computer, your storage
The part that really matters is the “free” tagline. Most homes already have a laptop, desktop, or even both. And oftentimes, hundreds of gigabytes of storage sitting there are mostly unused. Unless somebody in the house is gaming, editing high-resolution gaming, or hoarding massive files, there is usually plenty of room for old phone footage, family photos, and voice notes.
So Google’s feature appears to take advantage of that reality instead of pushing people into buying more cloud space. Because it lives in Quick Share, it will likely use the same local transfer system, which also suggests that you don’t need an internet connection for backup. You just need to be in close proximity. From the start to the finish, your data stays with you.
This is the boring feature Android needed
There is still one catch though. The details arrive from an APK teardown, so Google has not formally launched the feature yet, and it could change before release. But if it does arrive, it’s the quality-of-life upgrade that could matter more than a lot of flashy AI nonsense. It is practical, wireless, and free.
Verdict
Xgimi’s most complete projector for the home yet, the Horizon 20 Max produces a bright, colourful image and a feature set that’s good for watching TV, movies and playing games. It is pricey but serves as a good alternative to those who don’t want a more traditional projector.
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Bright with rich colours
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Plenty of entertainment options
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Well featured
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Good sound for a projector
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Two HDMI inputs
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Premium price may put some off
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Integration of settings can annoy
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Missing BBC iPlayer
Key Features
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Brightness
5700 ISO lumens of RGB laser brightness
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HDR
Full house for HDR support including Filmmaker Mode
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Sound
Built-in 24W Harmon Kardon speakers
Introduction
Xgimi has had a productive last 12 months, launching an array of projectors and even delving into smart glasses.
The Horizon 20 is one of its newest breed of home projectors, building on the Horizon series we reviewed a few years ago. This new series is Xgimi’s brightest and most capable yet, delivering 5700 lumens of brightness, the full roster of HDR support and a quick gaming experience.
The model in for review is the Horizon 20 Max, the flagship version that sits above the Horizon 20 and Horizon 20 Pro. While it’s strong on the specs front, can Xgimi deliver one of the best projector experiences?
Design
- Elephant Grey finish
- Swivel stand
The Horizon 20 Max is big and bulky. While it won’t need a dedicated space, it will need some space. It’s not a projector to perch on a windowsill – and at 4.9kg it’s not like Xgimi’s portable MoGo series.
It does feature an integrated stand that can tilt upwards or downwards, and there’s a swivel mechanism to shuffle it left or right. This is principally a projector for the indoors.
It only comes in one finish – Elephant Grey – which seems appropriate given its size and strong leather-like finish. It’s not necessarily a stunner, but it’s sturdy and well-built.
While you can lift and move it about, there’s also the option of a more dedicated installation with mounting screws in the stand.
Connectivity
- Two HDMI inputs
- No Ethernet
- Wi-Fi 6
The Horizon 20 Max features an array of connections. There are two HDMI inputs, and one that supports HDMI eARC if you’re considering adding a sound system.
There’s an audio input and a digital audio output for adding other sound systems/devices, USB 3.0 and USB 2.0, though no Ethernet for a hardwired connection to the Internet.
Instead it’s reliant on a Wi-Fi 6 connection, which hasn’t run into any issues that I’ve encountered so far. There’s also Bluetooth 5.2.
A word on the updates – they can be very large (in excess of 1GB), so one to watch out for if your Wi-Fi connection isn’t the strongest and fastest.
Features
- 300-inch max size
- 5700 ISO lumens
- HDR10+ and Dolby Vision
This is a projector stocked with features – so many that it’s a wonder where to start.
With a throw ratio of 1.2-1.5:1, Xgimi lists the screen size as no smaller than 40 inches and no bigger than 300. Read the very small print, though, and it recommends between 60 and 150 inches for the optimal performance.
The 40-inch size is recommended for brightly lit rooms, while the 300-inch option is intended for viewing in darker rooms. You can perform lens shift (physically moving the lens) and digital zoom.
Brightness is off the charts at 5700 ISO lumens, a big jump over the Horizon S Max’s 3100. It’s capable of 110% of the BT.2020 colour space for 4K video (covering a wide range of colours).
Its light source is an RGB triple laser for purer and brighter colours than a lamp-based alternative, projecting images via DLP (a 0.47-inch DMD).
It supports HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, Filmmaker Mode, and IMAX Enhanced, though there’s no mention of HLG support. It can play 3D content for anyone with a compatible player, though the Horizon 20 Max doesn’t come with 3D glasses.
Audio is an integrated 24W Harman Kardon system with support for DTS Virtual:X, DTS-HD, Dolby Audio, Dolby Digital, and Dolby Digital+, which implies no Dolby Atmos support (at least not through the speakers themselves).
Xgimi’s ISA technology stands for Intelligent Screen Adaption. It covers the Eye Protection mode that dims the light from the projector whenever someone (or thing) walks past (this has to be enabled first). Auto Focus makes sure the image looks as sharp as it can be.
Auto Keystone Correction reformats the screen so it fits the space on your wall. I’ve seen it work and not work, as the Horizon 20 Max can sometimes create a much smaller image than was previously on the wall a few seconds earlier. Sometimes, to get the biggest image, you have to play with the position of the Xgimi.
Intelligent Obstacle Avoidance and Intelligent Screen Adaptation cover the other areas of Xgimi’s ISA tech. The former avoids obstacles such as a lamp or a stand so the image fits the space. The latter makes sure that the image fits a projector screen if you have one installed.
There’s also a Wall Adaptation feature that changes the colours to suit the wall colour. It does make a difference, though the settings don’t carry over with Dolby Vision content.
Xgimi quotes 28dB in terms of fan noise, but I registered 38.9dB. Boot-up time is about 35 seconds if Fast Boot is enabled. I should warn that the Horizon 20 Max comes with one of the biggest power adaptors I’ve seen. It’s a genuine brick and could act as a doorstop.
Gaming
- Fast input lag
- Several game modes
- VRR
The Horizon 20 Max makes a play for gaming in a way few projectors I’ve tested have done.
There’s ALLM and VRR support. Xgimi claims that response times are as low as 3ms for 60Hz, 2ms for 1080p/120Hz and 1ms for 1080p/240Hz refresh rates.
Plug a game console and it’ll instantly go into its game mode. There’s also a Boost mode, but is there much of a difference between Standard and Boost? If there is, it’s not one I could feel with a PS5 controller.
There are also gaming-specific features, such as a Black Equaliser that enhances detail in black levels, so you’re not surprised by anyone lurking in the shadows. You can also engage virtual crosshairs to keep locked onto your target.
There are several game modes to choose from as well: An Assassin’s Creed mode, RTS, FPS, RPG and Sports mode which add specific customisations depending on the genre you’re playing. Where exactly these game modes are, I’m not sure, as I couldn’t locate them.
The performance is smooth, with inputs that are responsive and a picture quality that genuinely offers contrast. It’s a bright and colourful image – a phrase you’ll be hearing a lot.
User Experience
- Google TV
- No iPlayer
- Battery-powered remote
Xgimi has shifted to Google TV (the Horizon S Max ran on Android TV). All the big apps are present with Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube (naturally), Netflix, and new to the UK, HBO Max.
BBC iPlayer, just like it was with the Horizon S Max, is not supported but the rest of the UK catch-up apps are. You can bypass that problem by casting directly from the iPlayer app.
I’ve found Google TV to be swift and responsive. You’ve got a huge number of apps, and content curated based on what you watched. Some find it overwhelming but I disagree. I think in terms of information meted out, it provides what you need to know. However, I don’t think Google TV’s curation is the best, as it often recommends titles I’ve already seen.
Accessing the settings is a bugbear for me, though it’s the case with many Google TV projectors.
Enter into the settings, and when you press back, it doesn’t go back to (or open) the main menu but exits completely. It’s annoying if you want to change another setting. To do so, you have to go back into settings again.
Another unintuitive example is with gaming. The console recognises a game signal and switches to Game mode, but its picture mode remains Standard. What follows is a back-and-forth to make sure all settings are aligned. The settings are also not well explained, but this is also an issue with other Google TV projectors such as the Epson EF-72.
Leave the Xgimi running and the Ambient Screensaver comes on with the option to see either your own photos in Google Photos, Art Gallery or Custom AI art. You can also have it set to display the weather, time, etc.
Control is via a remote, and it’s easy enough to use. It has a motion-detected backlight that makes it easier to use in a dark room, which I like. It does require batteries to use rather than charging via USB-C, which I don’t like.
Picture Quality
- Bright for a projector
- Rich colours
- Smooth motion
The Xgimi Horizon 20 Max is incredibly bright for a home cinema projector, and it does hold up well in a bright room. Black tones look good (but are affected by ambient light), colours do change, but detail remains decent.
In its darkened environment, the Horizon 20 Max looks very good. Black levels are strong – black tones actually look black – with a colour performance that’s warm and rich, with highlights that appear stronger than they do on the Epson EF-72 with Thunderbolts* on Disney+.
There’s a vibrancy to colours, especially the explosions in the film, that offer an impressive sense of punch.
However, with white tones, like Valentina Allegra de Fontaine’s suit near the film’s opening, it comes across more creamy yellow-ish. While the colours are attractive, they’re not always the most accurate, even in Dolby Vision.
But in general, the Horizon 20 Max gets colours right. K’s jacket in Blade Runner 2049 is green, not black; the orange tones of the radioactive Las Vegas section are captured with greater subtlety and a wider tonal range than I’ve seen on other projectors.
A stream of Sentimental Value on Mubi in 4K SDR doesn’t feature the deepest blacks, but for the most part, I’ve found black levels to be fine. Titles in HD look good, though both 4K and HD content aren’t the sharpest looking but that’s a minor issue given the scale of the image.
With Superman in Dolby Vision (4K Blu-ray), it’s bright to the point where there seems to be some slight clipping (loss of detail) in the brightest parts of the image. But the Xgimi’s clear strength is its brightness, with highlights that are genuine ‘high-lights’.
Casting the Strike series from the iPlayer app, I found skintones to be warm but colours with high levels of fine detail in clothing and characters’ faces. Black levels can look shallow, and again, it’s not the sharpest image, but it does look lovely for a streamed image.
Comparing how the Xgimi works with both HDR10+ and Dolby Vision with a 4K Blu-ray of Doctor Sleep, and the latter is brighter with colours that look richer and warmer, with genuine contrast and depth for a projector. There’s a slight cool look to the colours in HDR10+, not to mention more black crush (loss of detail in black tones). Based on this, I’d vote for Dolby Vision over HDR10+.
Watching football on Prime Video and it’s debatable if the colours are truly correct, regardless of whether the mode used is Movie or Sports. At times, it looks a little too bright, but in a dark room, the added brightness helps.
With the MEMC processing, I can’t tell if it makes a difference with it off or set to High. The image is already so smooth that it doesn’t feel as if any additional processing has been added. I say this as a positive, not a negative.
Avoid High Power mode, as on the MoGo series, it casts the image in a green tint. It’s such a degraded image that I can’t understand why it’s even there. Vivid mode though, offers more brightness than Movie, and colours still look good rather than artificially amped up.
One piece of advice is to avoid the Adaptive Mode. It’s meant to adjust brightness depending on a room’s ambient light levels, but it produces a distracting, flickering brightness to the image and does so even when the room’s brightness hasn’t changed.
Sound Quality
- Broad soundstage
- Clear dialogue
- Decent bass for a projector
The Xgimi Horizon 20 Max features two 12W speakers from Harman Kardon. Xgimi’s MoGo series have pretty capable audio for their size, the Horizon 20 Max is among the best I’ve heard for a projector.
The soundstage feels big, and I didn’t feel the need to raise it above level 40 as it was loud enough and filled the room with sound. Bass is good with some weight and warmth added to the overall presentation. It’s not the most detailed or defined, but it offers decent levels of dynamism and energy. Dialogue is delivered with clarity and sounds natural, though raising the volume can lead to slightly sharper voices.
With sports, it’s not one congealed blob of sound. The commentary is one part and crowd noise is distinct from it, creating a better sense of size and scale. This is a good effort if you’re not considering adding a sound system.
If you are thinking about connecting a sound system, I’d go down the route of connecting the Horizon 20 Max to a home cinema amplifier.
Should you buy it?
You want to use it during the day and night
The brightness levels of the Horizon 20 Max make it a good choice to watch in a brighter room or a blaced out environment.
You want an affordable projector
At £2599, it’s the most expensive of the Horizon 20 series, but if you’re willing to save, the Horizon 20 cuts down on features and is £1000 less.
Final Thoughts
The Xgimi Horizon 20 Max is no doubt expensive at £2599, but it delivers a consistently enjoyable picture and sound that makes it a good alternative to more traditional and similarly priced efforts from BenQ and Epson.
It’s very bright, so you can use this beamer in daylight, and despite its bulk and weight, it’s more portable than traditional projectors that require a dedicated installation.
It improves on the Horizon S with more connections, higher brightness, a stronger gaming performance and a more welcoming user experience for a stronger all-round performance.
For those after a high-spec, high-performing projector that fits into the lifestyle wheel of the market, the Xgimi Horizon 20 Max is an impressive all-round effort.
How We Test
The Xgimi Horizon 20 Max was tested over the course of a month with 4K HDR, SDR, and HD content from 4K Blu-ray and streaming sources.
Fan noise was measured with the Sound Meter app on Android.
- Tested for a month
- Tested with real world use
FAQs
There is VRR support with this projector, and it supports up to 120Hz in 1080p resolution.
Full Specs
| Xgimi Horizon 20 Max Review |
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Tech
Amazon Leo satellite internet is nearing launch, and it already has big customers to rival Starlink
Amazon’s long-delayed satellite internet service is finally getting close to actually launching. In his latest letter to shareholders, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the company is “on the verge” of launching Leo, Amazon’s low Earth orbit satellite internet service, and expects it to go live in mid-2026.
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