3M

3M has just reduced the price of their flagship 3M MPro-150 pico-projector to $285 (down from $346). The MPro-150 uses an LCoS light engine that offers 15 lumens and 640x480 resolution. It has 1Gb of internal memory and a removable micro SD card (it comes with a 2Gb SD card). The MPro-150 supports Office documents, PDFs and Audio/Video files. We reviewed the MPro-150 a few months ago, and we think it's great. We wonder whether this price drop signals a new pico-projector from 3M...

3M Mpro-150

Buy the 3M MPro-150 now for $285.

Researchers from the Japanese National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) have created a new 3D hologram table that can be viewed from 120-degrees (although the researchers say that they can take this to 360-degrees). They have used convex mirrors and an impressive range of 96 (!) pico-projectors (they are using 3M's old MPro-110 projectors) in order to create this.

The images themselves are low resolution, and only 5 centimeters high.

A few weeks ago, Foryou announced a new optical engine (the PE-620) that will be released in July. It will feature low power (3W), 20 lumens and a WSVGA (1024x600) resolution (it uses Syndiant's SYL2061 LCoS panel, driven by a RGB LEDs). The size will be 17cc (54x39x12mm). Foryou has sent us several photos comparing the new module to 3M's MPro-120 pico projector. The MPro-120 features 640x480 resolution, 12 lumens and costs $244 (Here's our in-depth review).

So obviously the PE-620 offers a brighter and sharper image, as you can see in the photos (here's the PDF with all the photos). Keep in mind that Foryou themselves sent those in - so this isn't an objective test of course. It's a shame that they didn't compare it to 3M's latest MPRo-150, which has a brighter image at 15 lumens. The Mpro-150 is available for $346. Read our full review, we really like this projector.

Syndiant's SID exhibition booth will be interesting - they will compare 6 pico-projector technologies, side by side. This is an interesting comparison. Obviously the Syndiant projector seems best. You can see the photos for yourself below, and obviously visitors to SID will be able to check this personally to make sure that all projectors are used in full brightness and haven't been messed-up with...

The six projectors are: An LBS projector (which is actually the Microvision Show-WX), Syndiant's own LCoS projector, Ferroelectric LCoS (these are made by Micron, and the projector looks like a 3M MPro, not sure which one), a 848x480 WVGA DLP, a color-filter LCoS and a 480x320 DLP projector.Click here and here to see the two photos in full resolution.

Sean Cabezas, a student designer from the Parsons school for design, designed hand bags that have pico-projectors inside them. The projectors illuminate the sides of the bags and also provides a visual experience for anyone lucky enough to cross the path of the bag's fashionable user. Sean used 3M's MPro-150 pico-projectors. He designed two bags, with one of them projecting downwards so that users can "express themselves by illuminating their steps with a changing, customized walkway".

The MPro-150 features 640x480 resolution at 15 lumens, built-in memory (1Gb) and removable micro SD card (it comes with a 2Gb SD card). It supports Office documents, PDFs and Audio/Video files. The Mpro-150 costs $346. Read our full review here.

3M has won a couple of Edison Awards, one of them for their mobile projection technology as used in the MPro-150 pico projector. The MPro-150 features 640x480 resolution at 15 lumens and contains built-in memory (and microSD slot) from which it can play back movies, photos and office documents.

3M Mpro-150

The Mpro-150 is available for $346. Read our full review, we're also very impressed with this pico projector...

The MPro-150 vs the MPro-120

The MPro-150 looks very much like the MPro-120, and the projector is quite similar. The only difference is that the MPro-150 is brighter (15 lumens vs 12 lumens). I have to say that putting them one against the other, it's hard to notice which one is the brighter one (by the way, the way we perceive lumens of brightness is logarithmic, and the difference between 15 and 12 is small indeed!). In the following photos, the 150 is on top:

You can see that the image of the MPro-120 is more "square", but that's only because I placed them both side by side, and the the MPro-150 is projecting upwards (i.e. not straight).

The MPro-150 vs the AAXA L1 laser projector

Here's a more interesting comparison: how the MPro-150 fares against the AAXA L1 laser projector. Beside being smaller as we've seen before, the L1 is brighter (20 lumens), has a better resolution (800x600). It's a laser projector which means that it's always in focus. It also means that it suffers from Speckle. The L1 costs $599, and here's our review.

Obviously being focus-free is terrific, there's no doubt about that. When we compare images the L1 seems more 'colorful', but it actually it has too much Green color in all images. This is annoying. Personally I prefer the MPro-150 image, especially as I really dislike Speckle. Both projectors has roughly the same image size from the same distance. In the following photo, the L1 is on top (again, please disregard the fact that the image is not square, it's just the way I positioned it):

Next I tested both with the same powerpoint file. The MPro-150 colors are again more true-to-life (the white is white, while on the L1 it's a bit greenish). The fonts are more smooth on the MPro-150 but are a bit more fuzzy, too, which I think has more to do with the viewing software. In fact, the L1 has some serious formatting issues, the spacing between the letters is not even. On the other hand, the MPro-150, for some reason, did not show the photo that is part of the presentation on the top-right. In the following photos, again, the MPro-150 is the bottom image, and please disregard the trapezoid shape of the L1 image:

Here's a movie comparing those two projectors:

Conclusions

To summarize this review:

• The MPro-150 is a great pico-projector, the best of all those we tested so far. Very high build-quality, good image quality and a nice set of features. The internal-memory (and micro-SD) card is a great step forward.
• The menu system is easy to use (even though there's no manual), but playback options are very limited in movies and documents.
• Viewing documents or spreadsheets with small fonts is a problem, and the 640x480 resolution is simply not enough, you just have to zoom-in.

For most people, I really recommend this projector, at least from all those we reviewed (The MPro-120, Ray projector and the AAXA L1). If you do not need the internal memory, then the Ray Projector is smaller and much cheaper. If you have the money, and need to display small fonts and want a really small projector, then go for the L1. You'll get a sharp laser focus-free image but you'll alos get Speckle and over-green images.

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