Optoma's upcoming pico-projectors, the PK201 and the PK301 are now up for pre-order over at Amazon.com. Both use TI's new WVGA (854x480) DLP chip, has USB/VGA/HDMI/A/V ports and  internal memory and microSD slots, and can play back several movie and photo formats. Both are expected to ship within a few weeks.

The PK201 sports 20 lumens (or 12 lumens at eco-mode) and has one 0.5w speaker and an audio-out jack. The PK201 costs $299.

Optoma PK201

The PK301 is very bright at 50 lumens (it also has a 20-lumens eco-mode). It also has a 0.5w speaker and audio-out jack. Optoma will also offer an external battery pack because the high-brightness mode needs a lot of power. The PK301 costs $399.

Optoma PK301

TI has announced their second-generation DLP chip for pico-projectors back in February 2009, and now it's finally ready. The new chip is smaller than before, and supports WVGA resolution (854x480).

DLP chips, Gen1 and Gen2

TI has issued a press releasing listing a lot of new devices that use the new chip. There's an upcoming Samsung projector (called SP-H03) and one from ForYou, too. Hopefully we'll get more details on these two soon. Here's the complete list of DLP Gen-2 products listed in TI's release:

• NTT DoCoMo pico-projector phone dock F-04B
• Samsung W9600 projector phone
• Asia Optical digital camera protoype
• Optoma PK201 and PK301
• Samsung SP-H03 projector
• Foryou Media projector

The Time has chosen their 25 best travel gadgets of 2009. The Optoma PK-101 is one of them. Interestingly they didn't chooser one of Optoma's newer models (PK-100 and PK-102. All of them use the same DLP module - 480x320 resolution and up to 66" images).

The PK-101 is on sale now from Amazon, for 219$.

Optoma is showing a new pico-projector bag: which is basically a portfolio-style case with a special slot for a pico projector, and a projector screen inside.

Via Engadget

I had an interesting discussion with Karl Guttag from Syndiant, about the difference types pico-projectors, I thought it was a good idea to turn it into a post (thanks Karl!).

There are three main types of pico-projectors:

• Stand-alone: These are devices that are essentially just a projector. They receive the input via a cable (A/V, USB, etc) and cannot display anything unless you use another device to stream the video signal. Sometimes these include speakers, too. Examples include the 3M MPro-120, Optoma's PK-100 and PK-101 and Microvision's upcoming laser-based Show WX.
• Media-player: These projectors also include on-board memory (or a memory-card slot) and can play files directly from the memory. Obviously the projector needs to support the file type you want to view, whether it is photos, videos or audio files. Examples include the AAXA P2 and the Optoma PK-102. Some of these projectors actually include a mini PC. The Allcam CP1 actually runs Win-CE, and thus can show Office documents, includes a touchpad controller and can be hooked to external mouse and keyboard. It's a bit bigger and heavier than the average pico-projector, though.
• Embedded projector: in this case the light-engine is added to an existing product (projector-phone, camera, laptop, PDA, etc.) as an accessory. Examples include the Samsung Show phone and Nikon's Coolpix s1000pj camera.

PC Magazine has posted a review of the Optoma PK-102 pico projector.

Optoma PK-102

They say it's a bit less bright than the 3M MPRo-120, it has a tendency to 'lose details' in dark areas, and it's got a 'rainbow effect' which is annoying. And the speakers are very poor. But overall they are happy with the quality of the image (for around 25" images in a totally dark room, or a 15" image in typical ambient light).

The PK-102 is selling now for 249$ in the US.

Jon Grodem, Optoma’s director of product and marketing was kind enough to answer a few questions we had about pico projectors. Optoma makes projectors (both pico and larger ones), all based on TI's DLP technology.

Q: Jon, thanks for agreeing to do this interview. Optoma currently makes DLP pico projectors. Will you stick with DLP? Are you considering using different technologies, too?

A:I think it’s safe to say that all companies make themselves aware of all new technologies. But Optoma sees DLP as providing the best technology and value available, and will continue to focus our efforts on DLP.