Ultraportable projector group test
Roger Kirkwood
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Feb 7, 2007 10:31 AM
We test and rate 9 of the best portable presentation devices around.
A good projector will make a world of difference to your presentations. A bright, high-quality, quiet projector that’s easy to use will keep your audience focused on your message, not the projector. And if you make presentations in a variety of locations, you’ll want an ultraportable.
As expected, the majority use DLP technology, since it allows for smaller projectors than LCD technology. With DLP, light from the lamp passes through a spinning colour wheel and is reflected off a DMD (digital micro-mirror device) chip covered in thousands of microscopic pivoting mirrors, one for each pixel. Depending on which way each mirror is pivoted, light is directed towards the lens for a lit pixel, or away to create a black pixel. The colour wheel (traditionally with red, green, blue and white segments) creates alternate colours to send to the screen, giving the impression of a full-colour image. Not only is DLP more compact, but it also boasts better contrast ratios and lower prices than LCD.
However, some of the projectors use LCD technology, where light is split into three beams by a prism (red, green and blue) and directed through three tiny LCD panels. Since there’s no white element, colour saturation is often better, but contrast ratios aren’t as good. While not as compact as DLP, efficient LCD projectors give a brighter image for a given lamp power and don’t suffer from the “rainbow effect”, which some people notice from DLP’s alternating colours.
Running costs are another consideration. Lamps last between 1500 to 4000 hours and often cost more than $400 to replace. This equates to a price per hour of 11c to 33c. The range of interfaces is potentially important too. BenQ’s projector adds Wi-Fi, and the Hitachi can make presentations from flash memory devices, eliminating the need for a notebook altogether.
Finally, don’t miss our tips and tricks for creating a better presentation and avoiding the classic pitfalls.Ultraportable projectors are aimed primarily at business users who need something compact for regular travel, and as such they’ll mostly be used for Microsoft PowerPoint presentations. For this reason, we focus on assessing each unit’s ability to show PowerPoint files. However, since presentations can also include photos and videos, we assess the quality of these too, not to mention putting these projectors through our technical, image quality tests.
At the end of each review, we give four star ratings: Image quality, Quietness, Features & Design and an Overall rating. We don’t just pluck these figures out of the air: they’re calculated using a complex array of benchmark results, objective scores and subjective quality ratings.
Image quality
We allow each projector to warm up for 10 minutes and set it to factory defaults. We switch to the presentation mode, as this gives the highest brightness for maximum impact, and we switch off eco mode.
We place each projector on a table two metres from the screen, ensuring it’s square-on. This is because keystone correction distorts the image and makes text blocky. All zooms are set to their widest position. We test in a standard business meeting room, lit with fluorescent lights and with no direct sunlight on the screen.
Our PowerPoint slideshow represents a typical presentation, with large fonts, bar charts and images. We also include an audio track to test the quality and volume of the integrated speakers.
One slide is a montage of photos covering skin tones, and coloured and reflective objects to test colour accuracy. We assess this in presentation and either natural, theatre or sRGB modes to see whether the projector can produce realistic, lifelike colours.
We also use DisplayMate to reveal each projector’s basic technical capabilities. A fine grid image allows us to check focus across the entire screen. Two further images (horizontal and vertical) alternate one-pixel-wide black and white lines to test how well the projector locks to an analogue signal. The penultimate test is a checkerboard of black-and-white 10-pixel squares to check contrast. Lastly, we look at a completely black screen to see how much light is projected. A colour and greyscale gradient test shows colour accuracy and whether shading is smooth or uneven, plus it’s easy to see if projectors can handle subtle colours as they approach pure white.
For video clips, we set the projectors to their movie modes, since these trade brightness for better colour reproduction. We watch a clip from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: a mix of dark scenes, bright desert scenes and fast action. Our second test includes a car chase scene from Ronin, and various other clips. We look for several things: realistic skin tones, well-saturated colours, smooth horizontal and vertical movement, artefacts in solid colours such as skies, and dynamic range. The latter checks that detail is retained in very dark and very light areas of scenes.
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| The gradient test reveals each projector's colour accuracy. |
Quietness
Unlike any other Australian magazine, we send every projector to Intertek Research & Testing Centre to be measured for noise levels and power consumption. Testing is carried out in an acoustically treated listening room using a precision sound-level meter with an “A-weighted” audio filter. Each projector is measured in presentation mode, then economy mode. Noise levels are measured 0.5m from the fan vents — the point at which the noise is loudest. The results can be found in the graphs below.
Features & Design
The Features & Design score is calculated using a number of scores given to each machine based on its capabilities. We examine menus to find out what controls and adjustments are available. We also assess the hardware, such as the interfaces on offer, the cables supplied and the functions available from the remote control. The amount and type of warranty is an important consideration too.
Value for Money
The Value for Money score (not shown in each review) is based on a weighted average of the Image quality, Quietness, and Features & Design scores; we then factor in exactly how much each projector costs (including delivery), and running costs based on lamp life and cost, to give a bang-per-buck result.
Ratings explained
The star ratings you’ll find at the bottom of each review are relative only to the products on test in any particular Labs. A one out of six rating doesn’t mean the product is the worst of its type to be made, just the least impressive that month. Likewise, a six out of six score isn’t necessarily an indication of perfection.
Overall
The Overall rating is a straight average of the Image Quality, Quietness, Features & Design and Value for Money scores.
Improve your presentations by avoiding the most commonly made mistakes.
Death by PowerPoint is a phrase as widely used as it is feared. But with a bit of preparation and forethought, you can avoid sending your audience to sleep with over-complicated, boring slides, or alienating them before you start with panicky last-minute preparations. The key, as always, is to keep it simple and plan ahead.
Slides
Decide on a structure before you even start PowerPoint, and create a maximum of three key messages. If possible, use no more than 10 slides, and keep your presentation under 20 minutes. Show only one concept per slide, with a few salient points. If there are any more, your audience won’t know whether to listen to you or read the slides. Slides should only be a summary, not an entire speech.
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| Graphs make your presentations prettier, and information easier to grasp. |
Use images for impact, and convert data into charts that are easier to digest and remember. Fonts should be no smaller than 30 points. Apart from being easier to read, it encourages you to keep it brief. Always prepare slides in the same resolution as your projector, and play them on the projector before you leave. Things don’t always look the same as they do on your notebook’s LCD, especially colours.
Fonts
Never use serif or compressed fonts. Sans-serif fonts such as Arial are far easier to read than Garamond, and bold fonts are better still. Consider embedding fonts, in case you end up presenting from a notebook that doesn’t have them installed. In the Save As dialog box in PowerPoint, click Tools | Save Options... then tick Embed TrueType fonts.
Colours
At least 5% of men are colour blind, with red and green blindness being the most common. It means you should avoid these colours for text, and never use red text on a blue background (or vice versa), since these colours are at the opposite ends of the spectrum and make text very difficult to read. The best combinations are yellow text on blue, white on blue or black on white.
Notebook
Make sure you know how to set your notebook for an external display. There’s always a function key combination, but it varies between manufacturers. You can also change displays through your display driver (right-click the Desktop and select Properties, then the Advanced button on the Settings tab). Mirror your display rather than switching totally across to the projector, so you can refer to your slides while facing your audience.
Remember to disable your screensaver and set up a new power scheme with all timeouts disabled (screen, hard disk, sleep and hibernate). Charge your notebook battery before leaving, just in case there aren’t enough power sockets.
Prepare for the worst
Save a copy of your presentation to a USB flash drive or CD in case your notebook crashes and you have to resort to a backup. Also save a copy of Microsoft’s PowerPoint Viewer, in case the backup notebook doesn’t have PowerPoint installed. You can download this from Microsoft. Avoid presenting from a CD, though, as there will be a delay loading each slide; copy the file to the hard disk first.
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| Keep each slide to one concept, and just a few salient points. |