Pico projectors?

[blessingx]

Anyone have any experience here? Kinda tempted by the 3M MPro 100 (which appears to be running $300). With VGA and composite could be good for laptop/iPhone/Touch use.

[Knuckledragger]

Dude, HeadAmp products are well built, but I'm not sure they'd stand up to being launched. There aren't many options for pre-built ones, but you can try try this DIY guide if you're really set on projecting your Pico.

[Dusty Chalk]

Projector, not projectile.

I just read about Toshiba coming out with one, I'll find the magazine when I get home, I don't think it's out yet.

Wait, here's a link to a story in Wired: shiny.

[blessingx]

Who's going to prove Knuckledragger doubt wrong?

Thanks the link Dusty. Seems competition is ramping up. Have a feeling I'll be picking one up over the next few months. Job has me on the go and would be fun to project flicks on wall from iPhone/MacBook. Can't say any video I've seen from any model has very black blacks yet though.

[Dusty Chalk]

They also appear to have an older, less-cool-looking pocket model, but I have no experience with any of them.

[Knuckledragger]

Is that a brick or a red Pico?

[Voltron]

David Pogue has reviewed two more entrants into the pico projector market.

[bhd812]

seems to be a new market just getting out and pushed by more and more companies. i have high hopes of owning a pocket projector one day for my iphone/ipod, but rite now i think its way to early in what i see as the life span for such a product to buy.

i can easily see these eventually being worked into cell phones and mp3 players of the future. i can easily see these becoming as main stream as the netbook is now to what is was just a few years back. problem with now is why would you want to carry another device around and what quality picture is to be expected from a projector now to what will come down the line in the future?

first question is mostly a person by person need and use, but eventually will be answered as i said before with being built into cellphones and mp3 players.

second question can be answered by how fast the quality is moving up every time a company releases a new projector to the market, like how fast netbooks went from small sshd's to 160gb hard drives or how small battery life turned into longer 5+ hour spans or how the main os was just linex to full windows xp. i see the same thing happening to the pocket projector market in a few years time.

i am looking into pocket projectors but holding off now till the competition and quality picture come more as time goes.

[Dusty Chalk]

Also...alright, so you have a pocket projector. I'm thinking it'll be a fraction as bright as a regular projector. What are you going to project it on? Screens have certain ratings, one of which is essentially their albedo -- how much of the light they reflect back.

Walls? Not so much.

Might work well for a corporate environment where you will actually have access to screens, but otherwise, you're going to either need a screen at your destination, or a portable screen of some sort. Excuse me, "totable".