Projectors

A full-size 2,600 ANSI lumens projector for $399? We saw this in an Officeworks catalogue and just had to get it in. Given the number of average LED pico projectors we’ve seen at around this price of late, we thought this couldn’t be any worse. But by comparison, it’s absolutely brilliant. The EB-S110 isn’t high-end by any means, being built around an SVGA (800 x 600-pixel) resolution three-LCD panel. There’s no HDMI input, but you do get composite video, S-Video and a VGA input.

Acer’s new ultra-tiny C110 LED projector only has one USB port. The unit takes both its power and video signal through that single input. This might be problematic, as it’s rated at 5V/1500mA, which is beyond the normal standard USB 2.0 port. That’s why Acer includes a Y-cable, allowing you to grab power from two USB ports. We tested it with an Acer Aspire 5830TG, which features higher-powered Charging Downstream Port (CDP) USB 2.0 sockets. Basically, to get the C110 to full 50 lumens brightness, you need either a CDP USB port or to use two standard ports.

3M’s MP180 pocket projector isn’t the usual size you’d expect from such a device, where units the size of a pack of playing cards (or two) tend to be the norm. Instead, it’s the size of a small torch, but that allows it to incorporate a small resistive touchscreen, inbuilt Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and even 4GB of onboard storage. It’ll natively read and project a range of document formats from the internal memory or microSD. A rudimentary web browser also allows you to surf the net using Wi-Fi.

Bright, high-contrast XGA projectors are pretty much a dime a dozen these days and it’s possible to get a competent unit for under A$1,500. This near-A$2,500 DLP model, aimed at educators, has to do some rather unique things to justify its price then. In particular, its design allows it to work as a digital whiteboard alternative: you can project onto any surface and use the included digital pointer pen to both control your PC or digitally ‘write’ directly on top of the projected image. 

Big-screen TVs might have grown in size and popularity over the last few years, but if you want a wall-filling image – for work or for home – then projectors are still tough to beat. As with TVs, they've also improved a lot in the last couple of years, and you're getting more for your money. Here we've reviewed two new projectors: the budget InFocus IN2114 and the higher-end ViewSonic PJD7383i targeted at educators.

Weighing in at 3.2kg, this isn’t the smallest or most portable projector we’ve tested recently, but it offers fair value, producing nice pictures for just under A$1,000 on the street. It’s a DLP model with almost identical specs to the ViewSonic unit (left), with a six-segment colour wheel (we only saw the tiniest amount of rainbow flicker), 1,024 x 768-pixel native resolution, 3,000 ANSI lumens brightness, 3,000:1 contrast ratio and analogue-only inputs. That last spec is bit more excusable at this price point.

Pico LED-powered projectors have so far mostly left us pretty cold. While the idea is cute, all of the units we’ve seen just haven’t had sufficient brightness to create a decent, viewable 21in video image. The new Acer C20 pico projector isn’t perfect, but it’s about the best we’ve seen so far. In a darkened room, you can get this to produce a passable 24in image via its 20 ANSI lumens LED lamp. Unfortunately, while there’s a tripod mount underneath, our test unit didn’t include one, which would be helpful for stabilisation.

Data projectors seem to be getting more compact with every passing month, but the tiny new Epson EB-1775W packs a surprising number of features into its small chassis. About the size of a 12in notebook, it sits at the top of Epson’s new EB-1700 series and for its $1,999 price tag, you get a bright 3,000 ANSI lumens lamp combined with 1,280 x 800-pixel native resolution.