Review: iii tiny projectors light upward the large screen

They're small and low-cal, just do ultraportable microprojectors measure up for business organisation presentations?

Contributing Author, Computerworld |

Whether it's to clinch a sale, testify off a new product or discuss a potential conquering, the digital projector is major function of everyday corporate work. As a result, mobile workers who need to make presentations on the road have become beasts of burden, oftentimes hauling 20 to 25 pounds of gear, including notebook, projector, and a seemingly endless array of accessories, cables and adapters.

There's got to be an easier -- and lighter -- way.

Welcome to the era of the microprojector. Rather than squeezing a v-pound projector into an already overburdened purse, imagine slipping something the size of a cell phone into one of the bag's pouches. Meliorate even so, how about your jacket pocket? Weighing less than a pound -- often much less -- these pocket projectors can rewrite the rules of business organisation travel.

three microprojectors
Microprojectors from Dell, Optoma and 3M

"These projectors volition be a relief to anyone who's lugged a projector on a business trip," says Matthew Brennesholtz, senior analyst at Insight Media. "It takes one of the heaviest and largest items that businesspeople use and makes it one of the smallest and lightest."

Brennesholtz forecasts sales of at least thirty million tiny projectors by 2012, upwards from essentially zero this year. "This market place is just getting started," he adds.

Unlike typical business projectors, pocket projectors are also aimed at consumers -- for showing a moving picture at a kid's birthday political party, watching the Super Bowl or having a video game showdown, for example. All that's needed is a white wall or an old bed canvass tacked to the wall.

Nonetheless, projectors -- even tiny ones -- remain primarily a business organisation production, and that's how I tested them for this review. To see whether these projectors have what information technology takes to fit into the typical road warrior'south day, I gathered 3 of the newest and smallest projectors -- the 3M MPro110, the Dell M109S, and the Optoma Pico Projector PK-101-- for a shoot-out. (The Pico is then new it hasn't yet been released in the U.S.; it will be available on Dec. xv, according to an Optoma spokesperson.)

I put the iii microprojectors through their paces past mimicking what road warriors exercise every day. I also measured how much light they create, and I tested the battery life of the two models with built-in batteries. (See "How I tested" for details.)

How microprojectors piece of work

Microprojectors slim downward past doing without the typical projector's high-intensity quartz bulb. By dissimilarity, they use tiny LEDs to create the projector's axle of calorie-free. Every bit a result, a pocket projector non but runs cooler but is more than rugged. Rather than beingness delicate and prone to bug, its LED light source can run for as much as 20,000 hours, 10 times longer than a conventional projector bulb. That's virtually 25 years of use, iv hours a day.

The LEDs also simplify a projector'south pattern considering they create individual red, bluish and green beams of light. This eliminates the need for the unmarried hardest role of a standard projector to design and build properly -- the spinning color wheel that separates the bulb's white calorie-free into its master colors earlier reflecting it off of the imaging flake.

Instead of light running through a tiny LCD panel, think mirrors, lots of them. The Optoma Pico PK-101 and the Dell M109S utilise a Digital Light Processing (DLP) chip from Texas Instruments. The chip's surface has hundreds of thousands of microscopic mirrors that swing into and out of the beam of light to selectively reflect a design. Each micro-mirror corresponds to an individual pixel onscreen.

By contrast, 3M'due south MPro110 uses Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCOS) engineering science, which has no moving parts. Rather than tiny mirrors moving back and forth, LCOS uses a special cogitating LCD console where the pixels either reflect or absorb the LED's lite. Information technology's similar a magical mirror that can command what'southward reflected off its surface.

Limitations

The downside is that these devices run the hazard of looking more like flashlights than projectors. While conventional projectors put out between 2,000 and 3,000 lumens of illumination -- about what a motorcar headlight produces -- the best pocket projectors produce less than 100 lumens.

They require darkened rooms and will neglect to satisfy for a big meeting with dozens of participants. On the other hand, they should be fine for presenting to a small group and are perfect for impromptu gatherings. "It's just enough light now," says Insight Media'due south Brennesholtz, "just I look that the engineering science will evolve and effulgence will increase rapidly."

What these pocket projectors lack is as important equally what they have, and many presenters will be disappointed by their minimalist designs. None of the iii has a lens comprehend, a remote control or adjustable feet for aiming the projector'south beam. Plus, only the Dell M109S has keystone correction to square the image when it's projected at an angle.

Still, their miniscule size and weight brand them very attractive in certain circumstances. Read on to see how they performed in my tests.