AAXA

AAXA's P1 Jr. is a tiny (126 gram, less than 1" thick) pico projector that offers 576x432 resolution (SD) at 10 lumens with an internal media player. Check out this unboxing and short review video:

The P1 Jr. costs only $119, and is now shipping.

AAXA has lowered the price of their P2 pico-projector, and now it costs $299 over at Amazon.com (down from $319). The P2 offers 800x600 resolution at 33 lumens, 1GB of memory on board, microSD slot, VGA connector and stereo speakers.

Buy the P2 now for $299.

AAXA has announced a new micro projector: the M1 Limited Edition. It has the same features of the M1, but with a higher brightness (75 lumens, vs 66 in the original M1). They also say that the color quality and saturation have been enhanced. The M1 LE still has 800x600 resolution, 1Gb of internal memory, SD card slot and A/V and VGA connectors. It does not have a battery.

AAXA M1 Plus

The M1 is now shipping for $350, and the M1 LE will cost the same. AAXA has a special offer now: if you pre-order it now, it'll cost $299. It will ship within a week (July 28th).

4D Dynamics has released a new pico-projector based consumer 3D scanner called PicoScan. The scanner is a Canon 1000D DSLR bundled with a pico-projector and 3D scanning software (based on the Mephisto scan engine). The idea is that you can take photos around an object and the software turns it into a 3D model. The projector is used for radiometric calibration. We're not sure, but the projector seems to be either an AAXA P2 or an Adapt 305.

The PicoScan is available now for $1999.

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.

back to page 1 of this review

The nice guys over at 3M has sent us their latest pico projector for review, the MPro-150. This is 3M's third pico-projector and it features 640x480 resolution and 15 lumens (brightness). It has 1Gb of built-in memory and a micro-SD slot (it comes with a 2GB card) - from which it can display photos, videos and office documents. It can connect to a RCA, VGA or composite source, and it has two 0.5W speakers and an audio-out. The Mpro-150 is available for $346.

AAXA's M1-Plus micro-projector is now shipping for $380. The projector is an "almost-pico" - it weights 385 grams and is very small, but it does not include a battery (although there's an optional external battery accessory). It's rather bright at 66 lumens, and offers 800x600 resolution. Other features include 1Gb of internal memory, SD card slot, stereo speakers and A/V and VGA ports.

AAXA M1 Plus

The M1 plus costs $380 and is now shipping. The standard M1 (which is the same projector just without the VGA port) costs $299 and is also shipping.