Savvy Buyer -- Size Matters

Those incredible shrinking projectors get even smaller.



Just a few years ago, it was big news when portable projectors weighed in at 20 pounds. But try lugging one of those, a laptop and your carry-on bag through the airport, and "portable" becomes a cruel irony. Today, however, projectors aren't just portable; they're "ultraportable," which means they weigh six pounds or less. Combine that with a sleek, inch-thick laptop, and taking your show on the road becomes child's play.



But the show itself is changing, too. With a laptop and one of the newer ultrawired projectors, you can display video, DVD or Webcasts in addition to traditional PowerPoint slides. And let's face it, multimedia can make the difference between a classroom filled with trainees who are yawning or listening.



The big picture show

The projector market is rather daunting by virtue of the sheer number of offerings. Boxlight, Canon, Epson, InFocus, Proxima and Sony are a few of the manufacturers that make ultraportable devices. Each offers seemingly identical products, which cost between $2,000 and $6,000.



How do you know which of these featherweight projectors is right for you? It depends on your needs. Will you be delivering presentations in a small conference room or a vast auditorium? What kind of light conditions will you be working with? To what kind of computer do you plan to connect the projector? Will you use video? And how much money are you willing to spend?



Once you've answered those questions, you can start matching your needs with a projector's features. But beware: When you begin shopping, you'll be confronted with more jargon than you've heard since your last Star Trek convention. ANSI, VGA, DLP, XVGA , salespeople will bandy these terms about as though they've been reciting them daily since grade school. So what do they mean? And why are they important to your buying decision?



LCD vs. DLP

If you're familiar with projection technology, you've no doubt heard the term LCD. It's short for liquid crystal display, which refers to the way a projector forms images. LCD projectors transmit light through three LCD panels and then onto a screen. DLP technology, or digital light processing, uses a digital computer chip to produce images and has been the catalyst for the shrinking of projectors. Tiny chip, tiny projector.



LCD manufacturers say, sure, small is cool, but a single-chip DLP projector can't hold a candle to the image quality produced by an LCD, especially if you're using video.

True? Not necessarily. "The LCD-DLP gap in image quality is closed now," says Cyrise Sanders, senior product manager for InFocus Corp., a projector manufacturer in Wilsonville, Ore. "You'd have to be an expert to tell the difference between LCD and DLP images."



William Bohannon, projector reviewer and chief scientist at Escondido, Calif.-based Manx Research, agrees and offers another explanation for why you don't have to sacrifice size for quality: "Just a few years ago, you couldn't find an LCD projector that was six pounds or under. In the past two years, the manufacturers have begun making them smaller."



Bright lights

Another feature that differentiates projectors is brightness. Brightness is measured in the number of lumens the machine produces, as determined by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).



Nearly every projector on the market will do an adequate job of displaying images in a conference room with the lights turned off. But the brighter the image, the better it will perform in variable light conditions. "If you're working in a small- to mid-sized conference room, you can get by with 1,000 lumens or less if you're planning to dim the lights," says Sanders.



But if price is the issue, an ultrabright projector with more than 1,000 lumens may be out of the question. "There's a big price break at the 1,000-lumen mark, and you don't need that much brightness if you're not presenting on a large screen in a big room," says Bohannon, who adds that he wouldn't pay for more than 600 lumens if the money was coming out of his wallet.



Crystal clear

A projector's resolution determines the crispness and clarity of images. This is where the terms VGA, SVGA, XGA and SXGA come in.



These terms correspond to the number of pixels the projector can display. VGA, or video graphics array, has 640 x 480 pixels; SVGA, or super video graphics array, has 800 x 600; XGA, extended graphics array, offers 1,024 x 768; and SXGA, you guessed it, super extended graphics array, offers 1,280 x 1,024.



Generally, the more pixels, the better. And the more pixels, the more expensive the projector. Most projectors have what's called a native resolution , the number of pixels it's built to display , but also support other resolution levels. That's fine and dandy, but you should keep in mind that the higher the native resolution, the better.



Other considerations

Sanders advises buyers to keep in mind the computer they'll use with their projector. Most modern laptops come with the proper connections for projectors; many desktop monitors don?t. Screen resolution doesn't have to be the same, either. Bohannon says an XGA laptop will work with a significantly less expensive SVGA projector , with one exception. "If you're working with intricate images like maps or engineering drawings or other things that need to be crystal clear, you'll need a projector with the same resolution level as your laptop," he says.



Sanders and Bohannon agree that projectors are going to get smaller and brighter , and they'll become more and more capable of serving a variety of needs, from delivering PowerPoint presentations to doing Web-based multimedia training. Says Sanders: "These new projectors will change the dynamics of how we work together."



-Wendy Webb (wkwebb@chartermi.net) is a freelance technology writer in Duluth, Minn.



PRODUCT COMPARISON:

Projectors



Boxlight Corp.

www.boxlight.com

800-884-6464



1.) Product: SP-5t



Weight (in lbs.): 5.5



Projection technology: LCD



Brightness (in ANSI lumens): 700



Native resolution: SVGA



Price: $2,599



2.) Product: XD-10m



Weight (in lbs.): 3



Projection technology: DLP



Brightness (in ANSI lumens): 1,100



Native resolution: XGA



Price: $4,599



3.) Product: XD-9m



Weight (in lbs.): 4.8



Projection technology: DLP



Brightness (in ANSI lumens): 1,000



Native resolution: XGA



Price: $4,299



*****



Canon USA Inc.

www.usa.canon.com

800-652-2666



1.) Product: LV-7105



Weight (in lbs.): 6.17



Projection technology: LCD



Brightness (in ANSI lumens): 800



Native resolution: XGA



Price: $3,899



2.) Product: LV-5110



Weight (in lbs.): 6



Projection technology: LCD



Brightness (in ANSI lumens): 850



Native resolution: SVGA



Price: $2,599



3.) Product: LV-5100



Weight (in lbs.): 6



Projection technology: LCD



Brightness (in ANSI lumens): 700



Native resolution: SVGA



Price: $2,199



*****



Epson America Inc.

www.epson.com

800-463-7766



1.) Product: PowerLite 500c Multimedia Projector



Weight (in lbs.): 5.8



Projection technology: LCD



Brightness (in ANSI lumens): 800



Native resolution: SVGA



Price: $3,149



2.) Product: PowerLite 700c Multimedia Projector



Weight (in lbs.): 5.8



Projection technology: LCD



Brightness (in ANSI lumens): 800



Native resolution: XGA



Price: $4,229



3.) Product: PowerLite 703c Multimedia Projector



Weight (in lbs.): 5.8



Projection technology: LCD



Brightness (in ANSI lumens): 1,000



Native resolution: XGA



Price: $4,549



*****



Proxima Brand Group

InFocus Corp.

www.proxima.com

800-294-6400



1.) Product: UltraLight DX2



Weight (in lbs.): 5.2



Projection technology: DLP



Brightness (in ANSI lumens): 1,000



Native resolution: XGA



Price: $4,499



2. ) Product: UltraLight X350



Weight (in lbs.): 3.5



Projection technology: DLP



Brightness (in ANSI lumens): 1,100



Native resolution: XGA



Price: $6,500



3. ) Product: UltraLight DS2



Weight (in lbs.): 5.2



Projection technology: DLP



Brightness (in ANSI lumens): 800



Native resolution: SVGA



Price: $2,999



4. ) Product: UltraLight S520



Weight (in lbs.): 5



Projection technology: LCD



Brightness (in ANSI lumens): 800



Native resolution: SVGA



Price: $2,499



5. ) Product: LP 350



Weight (in lbs.): 6.7



Projection technology: DLP



Brightness (in ANSI lumens): 1,300



Native resolution: XGA



Price: $5,999



6. ) Product: LP 340



Weight (in lbs.): 6.7



Projection technology: DLP



Brightness (in ANSI lumens): 1,300



Native resolution: SVGA



Price: $3,999



7. ) Product: LP 260



Weight (in lbs.): 5.5



Projection technology: LCD



Brightness (in ANSI lumens): 700



Native resolution: SVGA



Price: $2,999



8. ) Product: LP 130



Weight (in lbs.): 3



Projection technology: DLP



Brightness (in ANSI lumens): 1,100



Native resolution: XGA



Price: $6,499



*****



Sony Electronics Inc.

www.sel.sony.com

800-686-7669



Product: VPL-CS2 SuperLite LCD Projector



Weight (in lbs.): 6.4



Projection technology: LCD



Brightness (in ANSI lumens): 600



Native resolution: SVGA



Price: $2,999



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