Ratings: 3/5
Price: $705
BenQ Joybee GP2
Joybee 2 is a tiny LED projector with an installed iPod
dock, which is designed to be with you for displaying videos. It has 1280x800
resolution and 200-lumen brightness, and will receive from many outputs, except
for iPod. There are VGA, composite and video USB to connect to a PC, component
and HDMI for game console and DVD players and a Blu-ray, and a microSD slot and
a USB port for external storage. There is a useful 1.3 GB internal memory and
you can copy file to the projector from PC through USB.
GP2 is equipped with a bag containing power supply and
cables, and it weighs only 560g, so it is ideal for travelling businessmen.
Thanks to the internal memory, USB and SD support, and installed iPod Dock, you
even do not need a laptop with you. An external battery (product code is 5J.J3C01.001,
$125 VAT included) will be available at the end of April, which BenQ will offer
you 3 hours of displaying.
There is an exclusive port for supplied adaptor
VGA/component cable, and iPod dock is above. GP2 has impressive file format
support. Officially, it can play MJPEG, H.263 and XviD video in AVI, MOV and
MP4 wrapper, as well as Flash video. You can also see JPG, BMP and PNG pictures
and the Ogg and FLAC formats are also supported. MP3, AAC and WMA are, also.
iPod Dock is more limited. It only allows you to play videos
through the projectors, and no image formats are supported. GP2 has
touch-sensitive control, which is lighted on the upper surface, with the remote
control which has the credit-card size with blister buttons. Player’s controls
are not very quick-responsive and remote control prefers you use it on the left
because this is where the receiver is located.
Lively color
This is LED DLP, which means it uses the red, green and blue
to create colors instead of one single while and a whirling color wheel. This
reduces the rainbow-effect – where you can see the primary colors in black and
white or quick movement, and it reduces the energy consuming dramatically. The only
weakness is that the light just creates 200-lumen brightness, and it is not
enough to view images under clear light.
Based on the high resolution, you can use Windows background
without having to resize it to the lower resolution. However, GP2 still has
problems in focusing thorough screen. There is an auto-keystone control, but we
do not see any differences, so we turned it off because the the keystone
adjustment degrades the image quality. You can adjust the wall color as well;
choose the color for the wall from a list and the projector will balance the
color to compensate, thus improving image quality.
Despite this, the color is not precise, but their boldness
compensates for this at certain level. We can see some problems with the skin
tones controlling the color temperature of GP2 cannot fix, and of course you
will not use GP2 to judge images. However, it is good for watching movies – we have
no problems with dark scenes in Royal Casino for example.
Task performance
The presentations are nice, but if you are using images, you
will be advised to turn lights off, because the limited brightness of the
projector means your audience will not see many details. However, the graphs
are beautiful, and texts are clear – you will be fine with high contrast
content, even under office light.
GP2 is the mobile multi-function projector with fair image
quality and multi-connection. If you do not need a iPod dock, there will be
cheaper choice - PocketProjector MP180 of 3M and Showwx+ HDMI of MicroVision should
be in you shortlist, depending on where you save your files and the format you
want to present. And if you mainly use the VGA port of laptop, P1 Pico Projector
of Asus has better image quality with $155-cheaper price.
Conclusion
Verdict: This mobile projector has high
resolution, many connections and stable file format support, but it is
expensive to competitors.
Mini projector: 1,280x800 resolution, 2400:1
contrast proportion, 20-ANSI-lumen brightness, 53x140x130mm, 560g, 2-year RTB
warranty (1 year for the light).
Energy consuming: 1W for stand-by, 36W for
performing
