Thinking about buying a portable LCD projector but not sure which features are most important? I was too, and then did some research, talked to some people smarter than me, and read through countless review sites. In the end, my employer bought one for me to use without asking for my input! Which I don’t like as well. In any case, I decided to offer the results of my research here to help you get make a better buy than my employer!
Every portable LCD projector has a million technical features, and when you try to compare them across projectors, well, it just gets really confusing. Like comparing apples to oranges. I decided to just rank the features according to my needs.
1. Ease of set up. When I go into a client’s site, I do NOT want to come across as a buffoon in setting up my projector and laptop. My goal was either (a) for them to leave me alone for no more than 10 minutes to set up or (b) for me to set it up as I was doing small talk with someone. In either case it should be no more than plugging in the power to my laptop and projector (I don’t trust batteries during a presentation), turning everything on, connecting the cord from my laptop to the project, and sending the image.
2. Quality of image. The product I sell requires me to explain some pretty detailed graphics (CAD drawings) so I need (a) good brightness (measured in ANSI lumens), even in rooms that can’t block out all outside light, and (b) good resolution, which for me means the ability to get to UXGA (1600 x 1200), which is different from most people who don’t need such high resolution. SVGA (800 x 600) is okay for most “bullet point” presentations.
3. Connectivity. I have a Mac, and not all portable LCD projectors support Mac, so I had to check on that.
4. Size/Weight. Size wasn’t so important to me, because they’re all about the same. Weight IS important to me. I’m in pretty good shape, but when you’re hauling product info, laptop, AND a projector – not to mention other stuff for flights – every pound matters. I do NOT need to be hunched over at age 60 because of all this stuff I haul around. I decided that I wouldn’t consider any device that weighed more than 5 pounds.
5. Price. Price was a factor, but not really. The difference between the cheapest and most expensive of the 3 I had shortlisted was only $800, which I can make up with a good sale or two. Plus it’s only $500 when you think about the tax deduction. Now, if the difference was a few thousand dollars, that might matter from a cash flow point of view. But for me, I wanted a portable LCD projector that impressed clients, kind of regardless of price.
6. Reliability. This was a tough one. I read Consumer Reports, talked with people. Everyone seems to have a different opinion about whether one manufacturer is more or less reliable. One guy even told me that most parts of projectors are made by the same contract manufacturer in China. So, I just looked at how easy it would be to get the thing fixed if it broke. And I still put it low because I just couldn’t get good info about this one.
Okay, so those the criteria I wanted. Other features that you’ll see that may matter to you, but didn’t so much to me, are:
- lamp life (most are 2000 hours)
- the minimum distance from the wall that the projector needs to project a decent image (most are about 4 feet, which most rooms can handle)
- projection surface (most office walls are white, I’ve projected on a dark wall and it was okay, but not as good)
- throw ratio. I’d only care if about this if the wall you’re trying to project on is too small, or you can only get a short distance from the wall. The throw ratio of 2.0 says that if you’re 10 feet from the wall, the size of the image will be 5 feet wide. Obviously, if you’re only 4 feet from the wall, you CAN show an image, but it will be 2 feet wide which means only you and maybe 1-2 others can see it. And that won’t work for detailed graphics.
