Optoma PK320
The $374 Optoma PK320 may be small, but it’s no light-weight
when it comes to features for business and leisure. It’s the only projector in
our review group to come with an analog VGA cable (to support older laptops), a
remote control, and a built-in viewer for Microsoft Office documents.
In addition to the VGA cable, Optoma gives you an AV cable
and a short USB cable; but an HDMI cable is an extra-cost option. The USB
serves only to transfer data from a computer to the PK320’s 2GB of onboard
storage. For more storage, you can slip a card into the projector’s MicroSD
card slot. Among the four pico projectors reviewed here, the PK320 has the most
complete connectivity and storage lineup, which helps to justify the unit’s
high price.
Though expensive,
the Optoma PK320 is flexible and full-featured
Weighing 8.3 ounces and measuring 4.7 by 2.7 by 1.2 inches,
the PK320 is one of the more petite models we examined; it’s also one of the
most pleasingly designed, with curved corners and a shiny black case. Its
navigation keypad buttons light up in blue for several seconds when you press
any of them.
The DLP-based PK320 has a native resolution of 854 by 480
pixels and supports a maximum input of 1280 by 800. Optoma rates the unit’s
brightness at 100 lumens when it’s connected to a wall outlet, and at 25 lumens
when it’s on battery power. In my tests, images projected on battery power
looked good at sizes no larger than a couple of feet (diagonal) in a brightly
lit room. When connected to the AC adapter, the PK320 projected bright and
large images.
Powering on the PK320 brings up an attractive menu that
provides icons to help you choose a media viewer (music, video, photo, or
Office), a video source, or settings. This Optoma model also provides more
image-adjustment choices, including a gamma-control option, than most pico
projectors do.
The PK 320 can decode many file formats, including ASF, AVI,
CMB, FLV, MOV, MP4, 3GP, and WMV video; BMP and JPEG still images; AAC, ASF,
FLAC, MP3, OGG, RA, WAV, and WMA audio; Excel, Power-Point, and Word Office
files (both legacy and XML); and PDF documents. As on other projectors with
1-watt speakers, the audio is weak, but plugging speakers into the headphone
jack is a breeze.
3M MP220
Weighing nearly 15 ounces, the brick-shaped 3M MP220 is
bulky for a pico projector – in fact, it’s more than twice as heavy as many
competitors. And at $446, it’s pricey, too.
But it also boasts the highest native resolution of the four
projectors we tested for this roundup 1024 by 600 pixels – and it can accept
video sources with resolution of up to 1440 by 900. This means you’ll be less
likely to have to reduce the screen display of a laptop to use it.
3M’s MP220 is
bulky and pricey, but have a high native resolution
I fact, you might not need to connect it to a laptop at all:
This projector’s built-in Android software and 1GB of on-board memory
(expandable via a MicroSD card slot) allow it to store and render documents and
media files on its own. It’s a self-contained presentation system.
Fully charging the MP220’s lithium-polymer battery takes
several hours; 3M says that the projector will run for 2 hours on a single
charge. When you turn it on (using a button on the right edge), the
Android-based interface fires up after a few moments; you then navigate using a
tiny touchpad flanked by the standard Android hardware buttons (home, menu, and
return) and a search button on the top of the projector.
The company rates the unit’s brightness on battery power as
65 lumens, which is pretty much the new (and improved) normal for Pico
projectors on battery power. Unlike many competitors, however, that tout higher
brightness ratings when their projectors are running on a wall outlet, 3M
doesn’t provide a rating for when the MP220 is connected to its included AC
power adapter.
In my tests in a well-lit room, the MP220 cast sharp,
bright, 36-inch-diagonal images on a wall from 5 to 6 feet away; 3M says the
device can throw images up to 75 inches diagonal, but I wasn’t able to test
this. Audio from the two 0.75-watt stereo speakers was underwhelming, but
that’s typical for this class of projector. The unit has an audio output if
you’d like to connect more powerful speakers (or headphones).
The MP220 can handle VGA, RCA, and Apple devices as video
sources via an AV input on its right edge. Unfortunately, you’ll need to pay
extra for the cables to take advantage of it. In fact, the only cable that
comes with the MP220 is a USB cable that connects to its Mini-USB port, and you
use it only to transfer files from a computer, not to display them. In
addition, 3M charges extra for a number of accessories that some of its
competitors bundle with their products – for example, a remote control and a
tripod.
The MP220 supports MPEG-4, H.264 and MOV video; GIF, PNG,
BMP, and JPG still-image files; AAC and MP3 audio; and via the included
Documents to Go app, DOC, PDF, PPT, TXT, and XLS files. It comes with a couple
of other apps, including games, though the small touchpad doesn’t invite usage
of the MP220 with gaming devices. Given the high-resolution specs, we were
somewhat surprised that this projector doesn’t support HDMI.
