ELEPHAS put a Roku TV projector on Amazon’s best-seller list on August 20 at 199.99 dollars. Five days later the same listing is 99.99 dollars. Fifty dollars above it sits the Aurzen Roku TV D1R air, which has not moved off 149.99 dollars since the end of July. Both are officially licensed Roku TV projectors, both use a single-panel LCD engine, and the gap between them is bigger than fifty dollars makes it sound.
Neither of the ELEPHAS marketing bullets that shoppers actually read mentions resolution or brightness. The specification table further down the same page does: native 1280 x 720, 150 ANSI lumens, 1000:1 contrast, an image from 40 to 150 inches at a throw distance of 3.35 to 12.53 feet. That is a 720p projector.
The Aurzen is rated at native 1920 x 1080 and 300 ANSI lumens, and Aurzen states the brightness figure was measured to ISO 21118 with SGS certification, which is a meaningfully stronger claim than an unqualified number in a bullet point. Contrast is also 1000:1.
So the fifty dollars buys 2.25 times the pixel count and twice the rated light, from a measurement standard you can look up rather than one you have to take on trust. On a 100-inch image at night that is the difference between text that resolves and text that smears, and in a room with a lamp on it is the difference between a watchable picture and a grey one. Buyers looking at the sub-200-dollar shelf are used to inflated lumen claims, and we have written before about what happens when one brand certifies its number and the one beside it does not. This is a milder version of the same split: ELEPHAS is not overstating anything, it simply keeps the number out of the sales pitch.
The ELEPHAS focuses manually, with manual keystone correction. The Aurzen uses time-of-flight autofocus that runs continuously, plus automatic keystone. On a projector that is going to live on a coffee table and get carried into the garden, that is not a luxury feature, it is the difference between five seconds of setup and two minutes of it, every single time.
The Aurzen also mounts its head on a damped gimbal with the power connector underneath, so the cable stays out of the beam when you tilt it, and it takes 65W-and-above USB-C power delivery from a wall charger, a laptop charger or a power bank. Neither machine has an internal battery. The ELEPHAS is a plain 50W plug-in box with a tabletop or ceiling mount and no gimbal.
Where the ELEPHAS pulls level is connectivity and the Roku software layer around it. It has dual-band Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2, and it carries official Apple AirPlay, so an iPhone or a Mac can throw a picture at it without an app. Both run the full Roku TV interface with the 500-plus free channels, both work with Alexa and Google Assistant, both take HDMI and USB, and both do Dolby Audio.
Buyers of the ELEPHAS keep returning to the same three things: it is very light, it sets up fast enough that children and grandparents manage it unaided, and the built-in speakers are better than expected for the money, though several reviewers still ran a soundbar alongside. One owner reported the unit being knocked over without damage or misalignment. Another kept it permanently in a garden tent. The word that comes up over and over is portable, and nobody is claiming the picture beats a television.
Aurzen owners talk about the picture holding up with some ambient light in the room, about controlling the whole thing from the Roku phone app, and about how quickly it recovers when the image goes soft. Portability comes up there too, with the qualifier that it is larger than a pocket projector without being awkward. One recurring note is that the fan is audible in a quiet room, which is normal for the class but worth knowing if you watch dialogue-heavy material at low volume.
Ratings sit close together and neither sample is large. The Aurzen is at 4.6 across 243 reviews. The ELEPHAS is at 4.5 across 82, having been at 4.8 across 78 five days ago, which is what a handful of new reviews does to a small denominator rather than a signal about the hardware.
If the projector is going to be used in the dark, on a wall of 80 inches or less, mainly for streaming with the lights off, the ELEPHAS at 99.99 dollars does that job and the 720p panel will not be the thing you notice first. It is a second-room and holiday-rental machine, and at a hundred dollars it is priced like one.
If it is going to be the main way the household watches anything, or if it will get moved between rooms and taken outside, the Aurzen is the one that survives contact with real use. Native 1080p, a certified 300 lumens, autofocus that runs on its own and a power input that a battery bank can drive are all things you feel weekly rather than once.
The ELEPHAS also sits in awkward company at its new price. The Miroir Roku TV Smart Projector is 84.98 dollars with the same 720p panel and the same 150 ANSI rating, and it adds a 270-degree rotating stand and automatic keystone that the ELEPHAS does not have. We put that machine up against the HAPPRUN H1 last week. Against the Miroir, the extra fifteen dollars on the ELEPHAS buys Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 and AirPlay, and gives up the rotating stand.
One caution about the number this whole comparison hangs on. Our own daily price log has the Aurzen at 149.99 dollars on every reading since July 28, with a single one-cent dip on August 16. The ELEPHAS has existed on that list for five days and has already halved. A fifty-dollar gap that has held for a month is a real gap; a fifty-dollar gap where one side moved a hundred dollars last week is a snapshot, and anyone deciding between these two should check both listings on the day rather than trust a figure written down on August 25. Fuller specifications for both are on our ELEPHAS and Aurzen D1R air pages, the side-by-side numbers are on our comparison page, and the wider sub-200-dollar field is covered in our 2026 guide.