I bought this as a gift for someone, who loves to go to cinema to watch movies in large screen. Cinema is fine, but the cost of watching one movie and the travel to the nearest cinema to us was a hassle. So I decided to buy a projector as a gift. But the idea of projector lamps dying so often made me research for an alternative: LED projectors. Despite having lower lumen brightness rating than traditional projectors, the idea of not having to worry about replacing lamps is a big plus.
So I came across this Brookestone HDMI Pocket Projector. After reading several reviews, I ordered it hoping that this purchase will be well worth it.
Here are the specs:
85 lumens
854 X 480 native resolution, also accepts 1080p inputs
Built-in battery lets the projector runs up to 2 hours, and also as power bank for your mobile devices
Full HDMI sized input port
Small sized projector (your average external 2.5" HDD size)
2 built in speakers
It arrived from Amazon yesterday, well packed inside a larger box. Upon taking the projector out of its packing, I was really amazed at how small it is ( around the size of an 2.5" external HDD ). Although you cant fit it into your pocket and carry it around, it is still very small compared to traditional projectors that have their lamps burnt out so often. To be honest, I was sort of worried about its performance, given its small-ish size but then again its arrived (Cant turn back now, can I?). So I plugged it in to let it charge till fully charged before testing it (around an hour or so to full charge).
Plugged it into the HDMI port on my lappy and switched it on in my brightly lit room and I am getting ~30" screen size on the wall quite near in front of me. Despite being only 85 lumens and in a brightly lit room, the image is still very visible although a bit washed out. I was really really impressed by the picture it produced and was starting to feel confident that this little thing can deliver.
Next was to try its rated 60" size screen at long throw distance. Positioned the projector on the other end of my room, projecting it to the wall on the other end of my room ( I have a small room ). FYI this projector does not have keystone and zoom adjustments, so taking a moment or two to find the right position is needed. With the lights on, the image is very washed out so I switched off the lights and was blown away by the ~60" screen movie on my wall. It was vivid, color was quite accurate and of course very very bright.
After fine tuning the focus on this little projector, I settled down on my movie for about two hours. The fan noise on this projector was almost silent while watching movie and it stayed cool through out the operation time, it was no where near "hot" in terms of temperature. I think you can well go with 100" size with this little thing, but my room is too small and I do not have a larger wall to project to. 60" is good enough and I would prefer this over a smaller tv set. Heck, buying a 60" tv is out of the consideration because of the cost associated with it. And you cant possibly carry that 60" tv with you but with this tiny projector, all you need is a dimly lit room and a surface to project on ^_^
All in all, this is a worthwhile projector to have, at times I really do not believe that the image was projected from such a tiny device and that the brightness rating was just 85 lumens (it feels brighter than that). It does have a built-in speakers but I did not use it, I plugged in my own speaker for a fuller sound.
To sum it up, here are the pros:
Very very portable
Easy to set up and use
Bright 60" image
Runs cool and fan noise is minimal
Built in battery, lets it run for two hours and as a backup battery for your mobile devices
Almost instant on and off (No fan cooling period as in traditional projectors)
Long, long rated lamp life
Standard tripod mount hole at the bottom of the projector
Price, at $299.99 it is well within many people's budget
Of course, there are also cons:
Focus wheel, a bit too sensitive to the touch
Included HDMI cable is too short (You can purchase a longer ones though, not expensive anyway)
No Keystone and zoom adjustments
No remote
One side note though, this projector does not have built in media player which you could plug in a thumb drive and play movies off of it. Other products have this feature at a higher cost of the projector itself. I always leave my laptop switched on, and I do not have the habit of storing movies in a thumb drive so this feature is not important to me. But to some, this might be a deciding factor.
This is all for my review, thanks for taking the time to read and yes, I would definitely recommend this product to anyone who is looking at purchasing a highly portable tiny projector. This is really a package of portability and quality... might be looking at purchasing a second set.
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