If you’ve been following my handiwork for a while, you may have realized that I tend to work on weird projects from time to time. So, when Yaber approached me to sample their K3 projector, my lizard brain immediately decided that instead of testing it in a home theater setup like a normal human, I’d use it as a replacement for my monitors.

And I don’t mean just for gaming or watching movies. Since my daily routine includes writing articles, managing my home lab, and tinkering with SBCs, I tried to perform all the tasks on the projector for a couple of days. If this wacky idea sounds like something you'd want for your computing setup, here’s a log of everything I learned after using the Yaber K3 as my display for a couple of days.

About this article: Yaber sent me a sample of their newest K3 projector. But the company had no input in this article, and nor did it know that I’d use it to write this unorthodox article.

The overall setup

And some initial challenges

Before I get into all the fun (and annoying) aspects of running a projector as my primary monitor, I want to go over the setup for this wacky project. Just to keep things as authentic and unbiased as possible, I used this 1080p60Hz projector with a proper screen rather than projecting everything onto my ceiling or (god forbid) my walls with the bird tiles.

Since the distance to the screen plays a huge role in the text legibility and other finer aspects, I used some hooks to mount it at different distances from my computing devices. But for the most part, I kept it fairly close to the screen to reduce the text clarity issues.

Lighting was the next on my bucket list of things I had to sort out. Sure, the 1,600 lumens on the Yaber K3 made it somewhat usable under ambient lighting, but I brought out some blackout curtains to make my nerd cave as projector friendly as possible.

Of course, I couldn’t lug my bulky PC with me everywhere. While I could use my Aiffro K100 as a mini-PC, the Radxa X4 was the better option. That's because the x86 SBC supports Windows 11, and has enough horsepower for lighter everyday workloads. Plus, I could use Parsec to stream the games from my PC – all while keeping the SBC and all its cables hidden from plain sight using the fine art of shoving everything under the desk.

You’re in for a treat if you love playing single-player games

Or even causal multiplayer games, for that matter

Going with the pros first, gaming on a projector isn’t as bad as it sounds. While you won’t get the same 1ms experience on something designed for home systems, the Yaber K3 projector was more than capable of providing a solid experience when I ran some games, even though the projector's resolution is capped at 1080p. Turn-based titles and RPGs with active-pause systems looked great even at a distance, mostly because I didn’t have to worry about latency.

Even in fast-paced titles like Code Vein, Devil May Cry 5, Elden Ring, and Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, I had a decent experience with the Yaber K3. There was a slight delay when I switched to streaming over Parsec, though it wasn’t very noticeable after a while. Despite the low latency, FPS and competitive games weren't all that great at 60FPS, and I suggest staying away from a projector-only setup if you’re an esports fan. But overall, I was quite satisfied with using the K3 for gaming.

Connecting the Radxa X4 to my media server allowed me to access all my movies and TV shows on the projector. Since the Yaber K3 is designed for media consumption, the projector delivered amazing image quality. Thanks to the dual 15W JBL speakers, the audio playback was just as stellar - to the point where it made a headphone fanatic such as myself gasp at the crisp sound quality.

Using it for professional workloads was a mixed bag

Be sure to tweak the image scaling, distance from the screen, and digital correction settings for the best experience

Switching to my daily tasks, things started to get somewhat patchy. Credit where it’s due, the Yaber K3 feels pretty responsive to use as a desktop screen. Initially, I was worried I might get dizzy from the mouse latency, but I got accustomed to the projector after just a few hours. Besides a surprising lack of edge blurring, I also experienced far less eye-fatigue on the K3 than I did with my monitor setup.

However, I had to dial the image scaling up a whole notch to make the text readable at a distance. Unlike monitors, projectors don’t have the best text clarity, and at longer distances, it was hard to make out the text on the screen. Reducing the zoom level on the Yaber K3 and bringing the screen closer to the monitor made things a little better.

After using it for a while, I had no issues editing, annotating, and resizing images for my articles. But typing this article on a projector is far more difficult than it would be on an average monitor, and the same holds for navigating the menu-heavy user interfaces of Proxmox, TrueNAS Scale, and XCP-ng. And I would never subject myself to the pure suffering that's setting up a CLI-based Linux distro on a projector under daytime lighting conditions!