Outwell Movie Screen Review
The Outwell Movie Screen provides another option for entertaining the family in your tent, either at night or when the weather isn't too good.
Review Score
The Outwell Movie screen is a great addition to your camping set-up and gives you another option for entertaining the family at night or if the weather is bad. <br/>Of course, you'll need to buy a project too, and be pitched with an electric hook-up.
Our Score: 8.7/10
We've given the Outwell Movie Screen the Thumbs Up award.
The good
- Simple.
- Lightweight.
- Works well as a projector.
The not so good
- The top sleeve on the projector could be slightly larger to help with the assembly and complete disassembly. However, there's a way around this.
- Can be quite pricey, but shop around and you can find it cheaper than the official RRP on the Outwell website.
This was a hands-on product review. The product was supplied to us to test and conduct the review.
Price Guide
Outwell Movie Screen has a recommended retail price of £88.99.
The best price we've found so far is £34.97. That's £54.02 off the RRP of £88.99.
Outwell Movie Screen Videos
Outwell Movie Screen Photos
Image with the lights on
The Outwell Movie Screen Review
Setting up the projector
The Outwell Movie Screen material
Dark on the reverse
Folded and Rolled
Hanging in the tent
Image was a lot clearer in the dark
Image with the lights on
Not sure about pulling through sleeve
All packed away
Our Review
Camping has changed. It's modernised.
We still like traditional camping with campfire entertainment. Unfortunately, that's not possible at many campsites.
Then there's the modern family camping where you can make your tent a home from home. For example, you can sleep in raised beds with mattresses (ours are more comfortable than our bed at home!), furniture, carpet, and even an electric kettle and induction hob!
Now, there's another addition: an in-tent movie night!
The Outwell Movie Screen
Outwell sent us over their movie screen to review.
The Outwell Movie Screen
We already had a projector that we could stream downloaded movies (we have this projector from Amazon, though there are plenty of similar mini projectors available). We'd used it before projecting it onto the side of the tent. So would the Outwell Movie screen improve on that?
Unpacking and Assembling
First off, the Outwell Movie Screen comes in its little bag. And yes, it is tiny at about 50 cm long and so easy to pack and take without taking up much space.
When first unpacking, you will find the main projector cloth, a bag with a cord to attach to your tent, and a smaller bag with metal poles.
The screen uses Outwell's technical cotton tent fabric but two fabrics to make it thick.
The front of the fabric is a light grey colour. On the reverse side is a thick black material. I understand this is to help get a better-projected image.
The Outwell Movie Screen has a light grey/off-white colour.
The Outwell Movie Screen is dark on the reverse side.
The two metal poles go together like regular tent poles.
The poles with the movie screen
One pole has closed end caps. This pole slides into the sleeve at the bottom of the projector to help keep the screen weighted down.
The second pole has a cord running through it, which goes into the top sleeve of the projector.
I found this a little tight to push through. The top sleeve could do with being a bit larger to make sliding the pole plus cord through.
Once through, you can tie off the plastic cord length adjustment mechanism and attach the hook.
Although the movie screen works with Outwell's HookTrack system, we found we didn't need it and could attach the screen to loops on both sides of our tent. The attachments should make it easy to use the Outwell Movie Screen on many tents, not just those from Outwell.
Here's the Outwell Movie Screen hanging in our tent.
Review: Is the Outwell Movie Screen Any Good?
Once attached, it looked like the business.
Thankfully, as the movie is widescreen, the Outwell logo doesn't appear in it.
Setting up the projector.
The projected image was good. But as with all projectors, a lot better in the dark with the lights off.
In this photo, you can see the image on the screen while the tent's lights are on.
The image was a lot clearer in the dark.
The screen still had creases, which distorted the image slightly in those places. These creases should disappear in time.
Overall, very impressed with it.
We couldn't have a campfire where we stayed, so we used this twice during our week-long camp.
Packing Away
With the cord length adjustors tied, there was no way to easily pull the top pole back through the sleeve, without having to untie them and re-tie them next time. If I had left the attached and pulled them through, it would have been challenging to push them back through the narrow sleeve the next time.
These are the cable length adjusters that you fit. I wasn't sure about pulling these through the sleeve or pushing them back in the next time without untying them.
Given that Outwell supplies a separate bag for the poles, I guess that is how you are supposed to put it away: disassemble everything.
So, I tried a different approach ;-)
Use this at your own risk, as it might not be the correct way of putting it away!
With the poles still inside the movie screen, I pulled them apart.
At the point when the poles came apart, I folded the screen.
Once folded over, I rolled up the screen with the poles still inside, which fitted perfectly inside the screen's bag.
I've folded and rolled the screen with the poles still in the sleeves in this photo.
And here's the Outwell Movie Screen packed away back in its bag.
Job done.
When I use it next time, I unroll, click the poles back into place, and hang it up.
Details
| Attribute | Outwell Movie Screen |
|---|---|
| RRP | £88.99 |
| Best Price | £34.97 |
| Product Info | Brand Web Page |
| Height (cm) | 100 |
| Width (cm) | 120 |
| Weight (kg) | 0.85 |
| Pack Size (cm) | 50 x 9 |