JMGO opened Japanese sales of its flagship Iris Ultra Max and Iris Ultra on November 4 through the crowdfunding platform Makuake, with early-backer prices starting at ¥453,700 and ¥311,870 including tax. Planned retail is ¥698,000 and ¥479,800. The campaign runs until January 21, and the importer’s release went out at 11:00 Tokyo time, one day before XGIMI puts the rival HORIZON 30 Pro on Japanese shelves.
The first tier is small. AV Watch reports 90 Max units and 30 Ultra units at 35 percent off, with delivery planned by the end of November. That delivery date has a condition attached: the Makuake page requires payment by 23:59 on November 25, and anyone who pays later waits until the project closes. The machines also carry a two-year warranty, and a demo unit is on show at Futako-Tamagawa Tsutaya Electrics in Tokyo.
Both models use a triple-laser MALC 6.0 engine behind a 0.47-inch DMD, shifted to a 3,840 x 2,160 image, and take 4K at up to 120Hz or 1080p at up to 240Hz. The Max is rated at 6,500 ISO lumens and 10,000:1 native contrast and adds a motorized gimbal with 360 degrees of rotation, 150 degrees of tilt and ten saved positions. The Ultra drops to 4,500 ISO lumens and 7,000:1 and swaps the motor for a manual gimbal. Google TV 5.0 with Gemini for TV, two HDMI 2.1 inputs that each accept 4K/120 (one with eARC), Dolby Vision, DTS:X and 12.5W x 2 speakers are shared. So is the 308 x 274 x 230mm body, which weighs 7.0kg on the Max and 6.7kg on the Ultra. Rated power is 300W and 240W, and noise is quoted at 26dB or less.
One detail is worth keeping next to the headline figure. In Phile Web’s launch-day review, critic Kazuya Orihara notes that 6,500 ISO lumens is the maker’s rating in dynamic mode. It is not a number to expect from a calibrated picture mode, and independent measurements of the Japanese units have yet to appear.
Makuake campaigns sell in shrinking discounts, and this one has five steps for the Max and three for the Ultra. The dollar column below removes Japan’s 10 percent consumption tax and converts at ¥158.4, the November 4 rate.
| Model and tier | Price with tax | Before tax, in dollars | Planned delivery |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iris Ultra Max, 35% off | ¥453,700 | about $2,604 | End of November |
| Iris Ultra Max, 32% off | ¥474,000 | about $2,720 | End of November |
| Iris Ultra Max, 30% off | ¥488,000 | about $2,801 | End of December |
| Iris Ultra Max, 20% off | ¥558,000 | about $3,203 | End of December |
| Iris Ultra Max, 15% off | ¥593,000 | about $3,403 | End of January |
| Iris Ultra, 35% off | ¥311,870 | about $1,790 | End of November |
| Iris Ultra, 20% off | ¥383,000 | about $2,198 | End of December |
| Iris Ultra, 15% off | ¥407,000 | about $2,336 | End of January |
The tiers are not the final bill. The campaign page adds a 2.2 percent “peace of mind” system fee, before tax, at checkout. On the unlimited ¥593,000 tier that works out to roughly ¥14,350 if the fee is charged on the tier price, which pushes the total to about ¥607,350. The campaign also says backers generally cannot cancel for a change of mind, and delivery-delay cancellations open only after a slip of more than three months. Bundles pair either model with a 120-inch Fresnel ALR screen at ¥629,000 for the Max and ¥487,000 for the Ultra, with delivery set for the end of December.
XGIMI got to Japan first. Phile Web reported on October 20 that the HORIZON 30 Pro arrives on November 5 at ¥419,800 and the HORIZON 30 Ultra Max on November 10 at ¥599,800, with XGIMI claiming, on its own survey, the first 4K/120 smart projectors sold in Japan. Those are ordinary retail prices, and the machines are days away. JMGO’s planned Max retail price sits ¥98,200 above the Ultra Max, and its Ultra sits ¥60,000 above the Pro.
So the campaign is doing the work a launch discount would. Every Max tier undercuts XGIMI’s sticker on paper, though the last one loses that edge once the fee is added: about ¥607,350 against ¥599,800, with a January delivery against a November one. The Ultra’s ¥407,000 tier stays narrowly ahead of the HORIZON 30 Pro even with the fee, at around ¥416,850 against ¥419,800. In practice, a Japanese buyer choosing today has a window of about eleven weeks in which JMGO can cost less, followed by a list price that costs noticeably more. Whether ¥698,000 holds after January is an open question. The campaign itself warns that retail could come in below the planned figure if volume improves.
On specification the two pairs line up closely. JMGO leads the top pairing on rated brightness, 6,500 lumens against 6,000, and XGIMI leads the cheaper one, 4,800 against 4,500. We would not read much into a few hundred lumens on rated figures from two different makers, and our spec comparison covers the rest.
The Japanese tiers make more sense read against the US stores, where both brands have been repricing. JMGO’s American listing on November 4 shows the Iris Ultra Max at $3,299 and the Iris Ultra at $2,199, each with a higher compare-at price of $3,499 and $2,399. Those are $200 below the in-stock prices we logged on November 1, and well above the $2,999 and $1,899 preorder prices from earlier this year. Against that, Japan’s opening tier is roughly $695 cheaper before tax on the Max and about $409 cheaper on the Ultra. The 20 percent Ultra tier lands within a dollar of the US price.
XGIMI went the other way. The HORIZON 30 Pro on its US store now reads $2,099, not the $1,899 it still showed on November 3, while the page still says pre-order through November 10 and now estimates mid-November shipping. Combined with the Max’s earlier move to $2,699, only the Ultra Max is unchanged at $2,999. The gap between JMGO’s Ultra and XGIMI’s Pro in America has narrowed from $500 to $100 in under a week.
Phile Web’s news report says the two Iris models launched first in China in May and sold more than 5,000 units in three months. We could not match that cleanly to the Chinese range. JMGO sells that line at home under the N5S name, and when we looked at it in September, only the top N5S Ultra Max ran 4K at 120Hz, so the Iris Ultra had no direct Chinese twin. The 5,000 figure is best taken as a JMGO claim about the N5S family until the company breaks it out.
Japan is also not the only market JMGO is working this month. Essential Install reports that Fidelity Imports UK has become its exclusive British distributor, which should put the brand in front of hi-fi and home cinema retailers there. That leaves the first batch of 90 as the number to watch. If it goes quickly, with the HORIZON 30 Pro on sale a day later, JMGO will have shown that Japanese buyers will wait on a crowdfunding page for a flagship rather than buy one off the shelf.