a review by Tom Piper
Have you ever found yourself wanting to be able to project the screen of your iPhone, iPad or MacBook for a small group of people. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to carry that projector around in your pocket, purse or bag? Shouldn’t such a device just be plug-and-play? There is a neat solution that fits all of this criteria.
The SHOWWX+ HDMI Laser Pico Projector from MicroVision allows you to break free from the masses and get a bigger screen experience from your HDMI-equipped smartphone, tablet or laptop. It will create a bigger display to share ideas, collaborate and present business analytics, videos, and other work-related content with plug-and-play simplicity, as well as enjoy movies, photos, streaming videos, and games on a big, bright screen.
This unit connects to iPhone, iPad and iPod products with a single cable, as well as composite adapter to other TV-Out devices via a dedicated adapter cable, VGA dock to most laptops, netbooks and MacBook via the VGA DOCK (sold separately), and 3.5mm stereo jack for audio pass-through. In addition to HDMI-equipped smartphones and iOS devices, it will also plug into BlackBerry Playbook and Windows 7 tablets, and HDMI-equipped laptops, notebooks netbooks, digital cameras and camcorders.
I’ve used it extensively with both my iPhone 4 and iPad 2 with excellent results. It is nice to have full screen mirroring when an HTML cable is used, but frustrating that its only movies, slideshows and YouTube projections when using the iOS cable. I also found that the resolution was not very good when reading small text, like the icon titles on the iPad screen. Yet, the portability and vivid colors are really enchanting for audiences. As mentioned when I reviewed an earlier version of this unit, finding a good white screen in public environments is sometimes a challenge, so I wish they also sold a 2’ x 3’ retractable tabletop screen.
SHOWWX+™ laser pico projector has many great features and benefits including an rich and vivid image which is always in focus, small and light weight, widescreen resolution (WVGA 848x480) with 16:9 aspect ratio, and HDCP compliant. The package it comes in includes the SHOWWX+ HDMI Laser Pico Projector, a Micro-to-Micro HDMI cable, proprietary cable for iPhone/iPad/iPod, micro-USB cable, rechargeable battery, wall charger, a wrist strap and a cloth storage pouch. Other specs include 15 Lumens of brightness, refresh rate of 60 Hz (nominal), color gamut above 200% NTSC, contrast ratio over 5,000:1, throw ratio of 1:1 (projection distance/image diagonal), image size of 6” to 100” diagonal, and measures approximately 0.5” x 2.4” x 4.6” (weight with battery 4.3 oz).
To learn more, visit http://www.microvision.com/ where this cool laser pico projector can be purchased for $369. It comes with a 14-day money-back guarantee. This third-generation unit is one of the best of the micro projectors with its intense colors and always-in-focus laser projected images.
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