LCoS

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.

A few hours ago we reported about Philips' upcoming PicoPix projectors, and now we have some more info. The projectors all have a 800x600 resolution and a 300:1 contrast ratio, with 20-30 lumens (depends on the model). The PPX-1020 does not have a battery and needs to draw power from a computer (via USB). The PPX-1230 adds a battery, and the PPX-1430 has an internal media player via a SD card slot.

PPX-1020

The projectors will be available in October 2010. The PPX-1020 will cost 199 euroes, the 1230 269 euroes and the 1430 299 euroes.

Toshiba introduced two pico-projectors today, the P100 and M200. These are Toshiba's first ever pico-projectors. The M200 is a LED based pico-projector offering 640x480 resolution at 14 lumens. It's got 2Gb of internal memory and a micro SD slot (and supports office documents, movies and photos). It has VGA, TV and composite inputs. The P100 is pretty much the same just without the internal media player (no memory or micro-SD slot) and no composite input, either.

Toshiba says that the both projectors will be available towards the end of 2010 in Europe, no pricing info yet.

Nikon has released a nice video ad advertisement for their upcoming Coolpix S1100pj projector camera. The S1100pj's LCoS pico-projector supports 640x480 resolution at 14 lumens and can be connected to an external computer (via USB) to act as a normal projector. The S1100pj costs $350, and will be released in September. You can pre-order it now from Amazon.com.

Beside the projector, the S110pj has 5x optical zoom, a 14.1mp sensor and a 3" touch LCD.

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.

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.

Young Optics say that global shipments of pico-projectors reached 437,791 in the first half of 2010. 46% of these were LCoS based mobile phones offered by Chinese white-box vendors (this is somewhat surprising, isn't it?), and 10% were DLP-based handset models. Total 2010 stand-alone pico-projector shipments are estimated at 900,000. In 2011, these will grow to over 2 million units.

Prices for pico projector modules are expected to drop to US$50 by the end of 2010, which is still higher than clients' expectations, Young Optics said, adding that module prices are expected to drop below US$30 in 2012.

The company says that the market for projector cameras will grow significantly in 2011, judging from orders from clients. The market of pico projectors for handsets will pick up in 2012.