Leica has started selling the Cine Play 1 Plus, the follow-up to its 2024 compact laser projector, in Germany and the UK. The price in Germany is €2,995 including VAT, and Leica’s UK store lists it at £2,550. It’s also on sale in Singapore at S$4,400. Leica’s US store still sells only the original Cine Play 1, at $3,500, and the company hasn’t announced American pricing or a date.
German outlets Prad and hifi.de reported the European launch on November 11. Leica’s online store quotes five to seven working days for delivery, and selected Leica Stores and authorized hi-fi and home cinema dealers will also stock it. The original launched at €3,500 in Europe. The Plus is €505 cheaper and, according to Leica, a lot brighter.
Brightness is the headline change. Leica rates the Plus at 4,200 ANSI lumens, compared with 3,000 for the Cine Play 1, an increase of 40 percent. Leica says the gain comes from newly developed red, green, and blue laser diodes. Native contrast goes from 1,500:1 to 2,000:1, and Leica lists dynamic contrast at up to 2,000,000:1. Both are manufacturer figures. No independent measurements have been published yet.
The imaging hardware is standard for this price range. A 0.47-inch DLP chip uses XPR pixel shifting to reach 3840 x 2160. Leica claims full BT.2020 coverage and rates the laser at more than 25,000 hours. It supports Dolby Vision, HDR10+, and HLG, and it can play 3D with DLP-Link glasses. hifi.de and 4kfilme both say the native resolution is probably 1080p, which is true of nearly every 4K projector under about $5,000.
The lens is a Summicron zoom with an optical throw ratio of 0.9 to 1.5:1, and digital zoom extends that to 3.0:1. Leica says it can project images from 65 to 300 inches. HardwareZone calculated that a 100-inch image needs roughly 2 to 3.3 meters, or about 6.5 to 11 feet. It isn’t a short-throw projector. The 0.9:1 end is shorter than most compact 4K projectors can manage, though, so it should fit in a typical living room without ceiling mounting. Autofocus and automatic image alignment handle the setup.
Leica’s 4K output tops out at 60Hz. The game mode lowers resolution to 1080p to run at 120Hz, and Leica’s sub-12ms input lag figure applies only to that mode. Prad also reports a 240Hz mode at 2K resolution, which other outlets didn’t mention. MEMC frame interpolation is built in. For sources, there are two HDMI 2.1 inputs, one with eARC, plus two USB 3.0 ports, Ethernet, optical out, and a headphone jack. Wireless support includes Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.4, and AirPlay, and Leica lists compatibility with Apple Home and Control4.
For comparison, the XGIMI HORIZON 30 Pro, which went on sale in the US this week at $2,499, runs 4K at 120Hz and lists 1.9ms of lag in that mode. Gamers who want high frame rates at full resolution will find more of that at lower prices elsewhere. The Leica is primarily for movies.
The smart platform is VIDAA 9.6, the operating system Hisense uses on its TVs and its own laser projectors. Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, and YouTube have dedicated buttons on the aluminum remote, and the Xbox Cloud Gaming app streams Game Pass titles without a console. Leica’s figures for the size of the app library don’t match. Prad noticed that the press release says more than 400 apps, while Leica’s online store says more than 600.
The two 10-watt speakers support Dolby Digital and DTS Virtual:X. As SmartHouse in Australia noted, there’s no Dolby Atmos. There’s also no battery, even though the design looks portable. Leica rates power draw at 247.8 watts in standard mode and 0.5 watts in standby, with noise at no more than 32 dB(A). The housing is a single piece of aluminum with a glass front panel. It measures 242 x 261 x 229 mm and weighs about 6.7 kg (14.8 lb) without a stand. An expanded polypropylene carry case is included.
The optional Floor Stand 1 is €425, up from €395 for the original model’s stand, according to our Cine Play 1 review. It feeds power through hidden pin contacts, so there are no visible cables when the projector sits on it.
European and UK prices include VAT, so they can’t be compared directly with US pre-tax prices. Subtracting 19 percent German VAT leaves about €2,517, or roughly $2,790 at November 12 exchange rates. Subtracting 20 percent UK VAT from £2,550 gives about £2,125, or about $2,815. Singapore’s S$4,400, which includes GST, works out to about $3,140 before tax, making it the highest of the three. Australian pricing hasn’t been announced.
If the Plus comes to the US at around $2,800, Leica will have made the same kind of cut it made in Europe, from $3,500 to under $3,000. It would also be competing directly with the HORIZON 30 Pro, which is rated at 4,800 ISO lumens and has optical zoom and lens shift for $2,499. XGIMI says the Pro will drop to $1,899 for Black Friday from November 19. On the lower end, Dangbei’s MP1 Max has a triple-laser-and-LED engine rated at 3,100 ISO lumens, Google TV with officially licensed Netflix, and a built-in rotating gimbal. It sells for $1,599 on Amazon, and Dangbei’s own store will offer it for $1,119 during the Black Friday window that starts the same day. The two Chinese projectors offer more specs for the money.
The Leica’s advantage is its design and build, and no other projector in this price range offers something comparable. The rest is built from parts available to anyone: a 0.47-inch DMD, a triple-laser engine, and Hisense’s VIDAA software. Whether the Summicron lens and Leica’s image processing make a visible difference won’t be known until reviewers can measure it against the XGIMI on the same screen. For buyers in the US, the more immediate question is when Leica will list the Plus on its American store and replace the $3,500 original.