How to buy a portable projector--and why

AnchorDesk

How to buy a portable projector--and why

Patrick Houston
Editorial Director, AnchorDesk
Wednesday, September 10, 2003

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Remember transparencies and foils? Both were business-meeting staples back in the heyday of the overhead projector.

Business presentations have come a long way since then, baby. Nowadays, if you have to make a public pitch, a higher standard applies. Sure, some schools and universities still use overheads, but heaven help you if you do: You'd be as much a relic as the three-martini lunch--and, for all the good such old-school presentation tools would do your business, you might as well be off drinking.

And the winner is...

Our reviewers chose the Dell 2100 MP as the best overall budget projector. It's cheap, quiet, and produces bright images.

Dell 2100MP

THE FACT IS, if you're presenting to more than three people, a handout, laptop display, or desktop monitor won't do: You need a projector. And if you're doing that presenting on the road, you need a projector you can carry with you. Today, I want to offer a bit of advice about finding the right one for you. (In his accompanying column, David Coursey explains how to take advantage of--without abusing--that other crucial presentation tool, PowerPoint.)

Relatively speaking, projectors are still expensive. They'll generally cost more than the computer you connect them to. But they're cheaper--as well as lighter and more powerful--than they used to be.

Just this week, for example, over at ZDNet Reviews, we've posted a roundup of six recently introduced, budget-conscious portable projectors--all of which sell for less than $1,500 or so.

But will these projectors really help you get your message across? To find out, I asked some colleagues who make their living making presentations.

One is Greg Mason, our company's sales chief. As you can imagine, he's made his fair share of pitches on the road. Greg's biggest beef: projectors that aren't "plug-and-play." When you connect, the projector is still set for the last PC that hooked up to it. It doesn't automatically change its settings, and you have to reboot.

But the newest projectors are smarter than that. The Dell 2100MP, for example, automatically detects the source signal and adjusts itself accordingly.

Greg also complains about distorted images--when, because the projector isn't absolutely square with the screen, the image appears trapezoidal, rather than rectangular. Take heart, Greg: Our reviewers cited the Toshiba TLP-S30U for its outstanding keystone-correcting features.

ANOTHER ONE of our sales guys, Mike Kisseberth, has pitched to some of the biggest and most powerful companies in the technology business. Kiss (as he's known around here) puts weight at the top of his list of considerations. You can't check a projector with your baggage, he notes, so you've got to schlep it onto the plane, stow it overhead, and cart it from gate to gate.

That's one of the main reasons our reviewers liked the Gateway Projector 205, which weighs in at only 3.8 pounds, the lightest in the class.

Finally, Laura Froelich, who's in charge of helping our sales force be as effective as possible with their clients, contends that size matters in another respect. Because you don't always know what kind of room you'll be presenting in--a small conference room or something more akin to an auditorium--you want a projector capable of casting a viewable image whether you're 2.5 or 25 feet from the screen.

That's where our reviewers dinged the Dell. Because it has no zoom lens, the projector has to be physically moved to fit a particular screen size; to project adequately onto a standard one-meter diagonal screen, our reviewers had to set the thing almost eight feet from the wall--about a foot farther away than the group average.

PLUG-AND-PLAY, image control, weight, and zoom--all are important. But there are several other factors to consider, says Art Feierman. He's co-founder of Alliant Solutions in San Clemente, Calif., which specializes in selling presentation equipment. In a guide that appears on the Alliant Web site, the company says brightness--typically measured in lumens--should be first among those considerations.

The amount of lumen power you need depends on room lighting, screen size, and the kind of material you're presenting. If you're pitching under fluorescents before a big group that needs to see a 25-foot screen, and your presentation includes photos or video, you need a lot of lumens. And be wary: Our tests exposed a big gap between the brightness specs touted by vendors and actual performance.

Feierman says most projectors are plenty bright enough these days to present where they're used most--in small rooms to small groups. So brightness, while important, is no longer the differentiating factor it once was.

Resolution should also weigh significantly in your purchasing decision. All the entry-level projectors in our roundup are SVGA products, meaning they can natively spew an image 800 pixels wide and 600 high. The problem is that most laptops today are being sold with XGA-class--or 1024 by 768--displays.

Most SVGA projectors can handle higher resolutions through compression technology, but, Feierman says, there's a discernable degradation in image quality. So beware, he says: One of the things you trade off at the budget level (along with resolution) is forward compatibility. Maybe you have an SVGA laptop now. In a few years, you won't.

Feierman and our reviewers also took warranties into account. You should, too. A projector has a life span of some five years. Repairs are pricey. And if your presentation hardware suddenly breaks, you're hosed.

THAT'S WHY you need to consider replacement policies along with the length of the warranty. Of the projectors included in our roundup, our reviewers especially liked the warranty for the ViewSonic PJ501--three years on parts and labor plus one year of 24-hour "express replacement." It covers the bulb for a year, too

Our own considerations didn't stop there. Our reviewers also looked at other factors, such as noise levels and the amount of heat a projector throws off.

And the winner? After taking everything into account, our reviewers gave their highest rating--7.8 out of 10--to the Dell 2100MP, citing overall performance, the 4.1-pound weight, a small remote control, and its $1,299 price tag.

For more on what and how we tested, and for in-depth individual reviews on the six projectors, click over to our roundup.

What do you think? Have you recently purchased projectors? Have any advice to share? TalkBack to me.

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