Projectors

There are many great projectors out there, but not all of them come with great remotes. Yours may be plagued with a lack of laser pointer, a short range, or run out of juice without warning. Enter the Logitech Wireless Presenter R400. This stylish presentation remote has a great feel, a plug-and-play USB dongle, and a range of at least 120 feet. You can even start a slideshow or blank the screen at a distance. The only drawback is that the R400 isn’t completely Mac-compatible.

Check out our roundup to find other remotes that will work on both PC and Mac and include more features you won’t find on most standard presentation remotes.

Today, Casio unveiled the XJ-S43W, the newest member of its Super Slim projector line. Designed as a combo of high-brightness and portability, the XJ-S43W features 2,500 ANSI lumens and weighs just 3.96 pounds. Some of the other features  of this 10.6 x 7.8 x 1.2-inch projector include:

• Native 1,280 x 800-pixel resolution (widescreen)
• An estimated lamp life of 2,000 hours
• 1,800:1 contrast ratio
• 18-inch to 300-inch projection size
• A 30-foor projection range
• 16.77 million colors
• 2X power zoom
• “Direct power On/Off” functions for reducing set-up and take down times
• HDMI, mini D-Sub connections, 3.5mm mini-jack connections
• Monoaural sound

The $999 projector will be available for purchase in September.

If you’re looking to add the third dimension to your multimedia projections, ViewSonic just may have the device for you. Its 3D-ready PJD6220-3D works in conjunction with Nvidia’s 3D Vision technology to bring blur-free 3D to gaming sessions, movies, and other applications. Here are some of the vital specs:

• Native 1,024 x 768-pixel resolution
• 2,200 lumens
• 2,000:1 contrast ratio

The ViewSonic PJD6220-3D will be available in February for $1,499.

If you’ve seen one pico projector you’ve seen them all, right? That’s what we thought until we had a chance to go hands on with Samsung’s new MBP200, which weighs only 5.6 ounces but can pump out an image as large as 50 inches. What makes this pico unique is that it sports a 2.2-inch LCD, so it doubles as a portable audio/video player. Plus, not only can you connect your mobile phone or laptop to this mini marvel, it accepts microSD cards.

We had a chance to play with the MBP200, and the image quality when projecting the movie Madagascar was surprisingly good–although you’ll get the best results with an image size closer to 20 inches. We also found it simple to focus using the built-in control.

The only thing that could be better than a pocket size projector is one that is integrated directly into a phone, and Samsung had one on display called the Anycall Show. The device uses Samsung’s TouchWiz interface, and the lens for the projector is on the top side of the handset. This phone, which should be available in South Korea soon, wasn’t much bulkier than an iPhone, and it displayed MPEG-4 videos with barely a hiccup. All we had to do was fire up the media player app and aim the Show at a small screen.

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Business travelers know the pain of toting both a notebook and projector from city to city, but it looks like relief is on its way in the form of the NEC NP62. The 3.7-pound projector features a USB port for easy connectivity to a PC that may be awaiting you at your destination. Highlights of this model include:

• 3000 lumens
• 1600:1 contrast ratio
• 1024 x 768-pixel native resolution
• 15-pin RGB, RCA, and S-Video connections
• Eco Mode technology to increase lamp life by 40 percent (for up to 3,500 hours of operation)
• Quick start and instant shutdown
• AutoSense (one-touch optimization that intuitively syncs the projector with most computer signals)

The $1,399 projector will begin shipping later this month.

We’ve seen pico projectors from 3M, Microvision, and Optoma, and now Samsung joins the growing mini-projector category with the MBP200. Designed to connect to mobile phones and laptops, the Samsung MBP200 can project an image up to 50 inches in size onto a sheet of paper, wall, or canvas from its 2.2-inch QVGA LCD.

The pico also has a microSD Card slot for swiftly loading content, 3.5mm jack (for adding headphone or speakers), and a small screen holder (with a telescoping pole hidden inside) that can turn a standard sheet of paper into a screen for viewing movies, documents, or photos.

We’re still wrangling up pricing, availability, and specs, so check back for more details.

Projectors are cool. Their cords? No so much. If you’re sick of dealing with cables when hooking up a projector, Imation has come to the rescue with the Wireless Projection Link.  It allows one or multiple users to connect a PC to a digital projector wirelessly, thus eliminating the hassle of dealing with cables.

You simply connect the Wireless USB dongle to a PC (and the base to the projector) to conduct wireless presentations at a range of up to 30 feet. It also features advanced scaling options for maximum screen usage.

The Imation Wireless Projection Link will be available tomorrow for $249.

A week ago, we got some significant playtime with Microvision’s very cool Pico P projector, but today we got hands on with  competitors that are jockeying to become the big dogs in the mini-projector space: the 3M Micro Professional Projector MPro110 and Dell M109S ($349.00). See the full specs of the projectors after the jump.

In our hands-on test, in which we played video clips and read news headlines, the Dell M109S proved the superior projector. It displayed a crisp image and robust colors that totally outclassed the 3M MPro110’s rather bland video.  It may have a power brick that’s the size of a, well, power brick, but in these preliminary tests, we think toting the extra may be worth it if high-quality video is an essential.

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It seems like it was just yesterday that the LAPTOP crew glimpsed a very early build of Microvision’s pico projector (”The Show”) at CES 2008. The prototype was raw, but held promise, and we were eager to see how the product would turn out once it was closer to completion. Today, we had a chance to follow up, and we’re happy to report that Microvision’s product (now known as “Pico P”) is coming along quite nicely.

Unlike “pocket projectors,” the Pico P is a truly mobile video device that slides easily into a pocket. We had time to play with a prototype (in the video below) and it was incredibly light in  hand; it weighed about as much as a cell phone. In fact, the final production model is going to match the iPhone’s dimensions almost dead-on.

Video quality was quite good even in the prototype stage, and as it’s powered by lasers it always remains in focus; no adjustments are required. It looks to be a great accessory for notebooks, cell phones, and other mobile devices that contain content that you’d like to project onto a wall, floor, ceiling, or the back of an airplane seat (you can expect approximately 2 hours of battery life). Microvision has partnered with Motorola, so hopefully we’ll see the Pico P engine integrated into phones (no ETA was given).  Check the video below for availability, pricing, and hands-on sweetness. Read the rest of this entry »

Comfortable shoes and a light breakfast go a long way. We were able to bob and weave through the crowd at Texas Instruments‘ Infocomm booth to slither up to what has to be the coolest item of the show: The Optoma Pico Projector.

About the size of a mini-remote, this small wonder connects to your gear (in this case, an iPod) via an “A/V IN” port for sharing photos, video, and presentations. It serves up a 20-inch display, but can go as high as 90 inches in a super-dark environment (although, we’re not certain anyone wants video living on an iPod blown up that much). The prototype that we saw had a USB port for charging the device-no batteries required. Hard specs and pricing are still up in the air, but the Optoma Pico Projector should be under $400 when it gets U.S. shores in early 2009.

Check out the video below to see the Pico in action:

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