Aurzen’s tri-fold ZIP Pro went on sale in China on October 3 at 2,999 yuan. It’s sold there under the company’s Chinese brand name, Jizhe (极哲), and the main channel is JD.com. That puts finished units in Chinese buyers’ hands almost four weeks before the first American orders leave the warehouse. On Aurzen’s US store, the same projector is still a preorder at $579.99, and the page gives October 30 as the first dispatch date.
The Chinese launch didn’t come out of nowhere. IT Home reported a domestic preorder on September 5, with an effective price of 2,899 yuan. That was a few days after Aurzen put up its US preorder page and right around the projector’s IFA debut in Berlin. IT Home’s launch-day listing gives the open-sale price as 2,999 yuan after a store coupon. So the 100 yuan gap was what early commitment saved in China. In the US, the early-bird discount is worth $50 and runs until October 15.
Same hardware on both spec sheets
Nothing in the Chinese listing suggests a different machine. Both markets list a 586 g body that is 44 mm thick when folded, a native 1080p DLP image at 60Hz, 200 lumens, 85% NTSC color, two 2W speakers, and 10,000mAh of battery (Aurzen’s US page writes it as two 5,000mAh cells) with 65W USB-C PD charging. Both also list wired video from a Switch, phone, tablet or laptop over USB-C, audio output to two Bluetooth headphones at once, and the small touch display on top that shows battery and connection status. The Chinese copy adds one feature the US page leaves out: owners can put custom emoji and animated screensavers on that display.
The two sheets differ in how they describe performance, not in the hardware. The Chinese listing quotes 120 minutes of runtime in standard mode and a 60 to 120-inch image. The US page quotes 150 minutes in Eco mode and recommends 60 to 80 inches in a dark room. Those claims don’t conflict. They use different power modes and different marketing goals. Read together, though, they tell you what neither says alone. A dimmer Eco mode adds about half an hour. At normal output you get two hours, which is enough for most films but not with much to spare. And 120 inches is a number the hardware can technically reach, not a size Aurzen wants anyone in America judging it by.
What 2,999 yuan is in dollars
Chinese retail prices include 13% VAT, and US list prices don’t include sales tax. So the fair comparison removes the VAT first. 2,999 yuan less VAT is about 2,654 yuan. At the October 3 rate of roughly 6.71 yuan to the dollar, that is about $395.
- Against the $579.99 US early-bird price, an American buyer pays about $185 more, or roughly 47% above the pre-tax Chinese price.
- Against the $629.99 regular US price that applies after October 15, the gap is about $235, or close to 60%.
- Even with China’s VAT left in, 2,999 yuan is about $447, which is still $133 below the US early-bird price.
Some of the gap has ordinary explanations. Freight, US tariffs on Chinese-made electronics and retail margins all cost money, and the US price includes the free shipping and launch-gift bundle the store advertises. Gaps this size aren’t unusual either. Anker’s Nebula X1 Pro showed the same pattern in reverse last month, and Samsung’s Freestyle+ costs €200 more in Germany than in France on Samsung’s own stores. Usually the hardware is the same and the higher price pays for the cost of selling there. When we covered the ZIP Pro’s US preorder, the Chinese price didn’t exist yet.
The timing is more unusual. Chinese brands often launch at home first, but they usually say so. The ZIP Pro’s international marketing has been global from the start: IFA in Berlin, Times Square billboards and a Basquiat-themed edition this week. Even so, the first retail units are going to Chinese buyers first, and Aurzen’s English-language channels haven’t said that.
Where it sits in China
The bigger question for Aurzen in China is what else 2,999 yuan buys. Chinese brands sell full-size 1080p home projectors for much less. OBE’s C5 Pro, a 600 CVIA-lumen 1LCD model, launched last month at 1,099 yuan, and Xiaomi’s Redmi Projector 4 Pro carries the same 600 CVIA rating at 1,499 yuan. CVIA and ANSI aren’t measured the same way, but either machine is rated at roughly three times the ZIP Pro’s light for a third to a half of its price.
The ZIP Pro doesn’t compete with them on brightness. It’s sold on size. It folds to 115 x 97 x 44 mm, it opens into its own stand, and it can run on battery from a single USB-C cable connected to a handheld console. The first-generation ZIP won design awards on that idea at 720p and 100 lumens. The Pro doubles the light, moves to full HD, and roughly doubles the size and weight. Aurzen’s US store currently sells the original ZIP for $259.99, so the Pro costs more than twice as much in America. In China, a cheaper 1080p projector is easy to find. The ZIP Pro asks buyers to pay extra for the folding design and portability.
Chinese reviewers have already started questioning the price. One SMZDM post asked in its headline whether the projector is worth it or just priced on its design. That kind of question usually comes before US reviews do, and Chinese owners will have measured the ZIP Pro’s brightness, battery life and fan noise before most US preorder customers have tracking numbers.
That makes the early Chinese launch useful for American buyers too. The October 15 early-bird deadline comes before October 30 shipping, so anyone in the US who wants the $579.99 price has to commit without an independent review. The first independent brightness and battery measurements will likely come from Chinese buyers, and they may be published before the early-bird discount ends. If you’re comparing it with other small projectors, our pico projector guide covers models that have already been tested.
