This could be our favorite gadget of 2017: A portable projector Every now and again in the world of gadgets there is a confluence of technologies that make something new possible. A better take on a familiar task. Think Walkmans, or camcorders. Or portable storage devices. Tablets. Drones. Games consoles. GPS navigation. XGIMI's CC Aurora portable projector feels a lot like that. This is …
Almost sounds interesting,.... but there's the Yoga Tab with a projector at that price point, and many, many other portable projectors at all price points, it's a pretty crowded market.
Do millennials want to watch movies when they go camping? Isn't the point of camping to rough it a little?
"Isn't the point of camping to rough it a little?"
Depends on whom you ask. I think of camping more as "getting away from people and all the noise of a city". If I could, I'd live on an acreage surrounded by trees all the time. I'm too poor. So I go camping.
Camping with a projector to watch a movie while I poke the campfire? Sign me up.
Now, if we could just extinct mosquitoes...
Camping is split - people who want to carry their stuff and people who don't. As such, comfort is subjective depending on whether you mean "can bring a small jacuzzi along to relax in" versus "don't have to carry said jacuzzi up the side of a mountain".
I class "proper" camping as that you could hike with all your equipment and then set up camp using only that. As such, a box projector and a sheet would be the qualifying criteria for that, whereas a car / stereo system / fridge / etc. would not. Proper camping also means you can set up a camp at any time, anywhere, should the weather turn on you.
Anything else is a "camping holiday" which means not being able to afford a proper hotel so staying in a caravan/tent but bringing a car load of stuff.
Both have their place and their own comforts (hint: If you're uncomfortable when camping, you're doing something wrong... whether that's temperature, location, water penetration, food, sleeping arrangements, etc. it means you're in the wrong place, brought the wrong equipment or shouldn't be trying to camp in the first place because of some medical condition).
But a plain white sheet and a small box, or a smartphone, hell even a laptop, and even a solar panel are quite within the definition of proper camping too. Smartphones especially. If nothing else they are an ideal backup compass/GPS even if not perfect, emergency communication tool, maybe even a reference tool (put that book about first aid and skinning rabbits on there, or try to ID that mushroom), as well as entertainment. If there's more than one of you, a smartphone and a projector to truly enjoy the evenings (darkness is quite limiting) is fine - hell, aim it at the floor of the tent and it'll do an okay job and is a damn sight less fragile than some LCD panel. Hell, I've lugged telescopes around, and model rockets, and all kinds. A decent rucksack can easily hold a tent, appropriate bedding (including a double sleeping bag), pots, pans, food, clothes, gadgets, radios, books, etc. plus certain backups of those and still have room to spare for completely luxury items like this and even room for batteries and panels enough to keep things charged.
My friends did that trick once & they thought it was awesome... Right up until the camp fire embers set the sheet on fire & they had to throw it (the sheet) in the lake. If you're going to use a sheet in that way, make sure it's NOT near the camp fire unless you also keep a fire extinguisher close at hand.
After they put up the second screen & sat down to restart the movie, they were so drunk they started making shadow puppet theater instead. I'm not sure which was funnier: a movie about fire & the screen actually catching fire, or the re-enactment of various barnyard animals doing naughty things for every other camp site to see.
*Cough*
I'll get my coat, it's the one with the matches, Zippo, & bottles of lighter fluid in the poc- OW! OW! OW! Putmeout!Putmeout!Putmeout!
I live 'oop north and the countryside's alot cheaper. But the missus is a city girl and living in a suburb is the best I can manage from her at the moment.
That said there's a lovely park but I think watching a film out there might constitute public performance and result in piracy types getting arsey.
Looks promising though just not for me right now.
If we made mosquitoes extinct numerous species of fresh and brackish water fish would go extinct along with lots of frogs and other amphibians whose tadpoles rely on mosquito larvae as food. Also birds and bats who feast on the adults.
Back in Auckland, NZ as a teenager I kept and bred tropical fish and goldfish. I also raised mosquito larvae by the simply means of a washing up bowl left outside with water in it. I was careful to ensure no adults hatched so I was also helping to lower the population by getting them to breed in my genetic dead end 'pond'.
The 'pond' also had daphnia in it and the two together are really good at getting tropicals like gouramis and bettas into breeding condition. It worked so well I had to be careful about giving them too often to the community tank when I didn't have space to breed any more. In that case I would simply put excess into the goldfish pond. They didn't last long in there.
>I think camping is just shorthand for being away from a power socket.
The specs say it can last up to four hours.
So "camping" is just trying to make more out of a night out under canvas...
In my house, 'camping' means: take over a local village hall with grounds, kids invite friends round and 'sleep' in tents, projector/sound system/xbox set up in hall permitting them to watch films or multiplayer CoD etc. - for which you need at least a 1080p projector.
"Given the general lack of flat white walls in the general area when out camping in the woods/fields/wilderness, won't the average millennial fairly-well-off youngster be a bit pissed off lugging an 8ft projector screen around with them?"
I'd just bring a white blanket and hang the thing off the side of the car, but hey, that's me. "Flat" is a luxury. You're camping, eh?
@hammarbtyp
The rest of us go camping to get away from the hi-tech world
I dunno, not entirely - LED lights are a pretty neat invention. Beats setting fire to the tent with a candle. And an e-book reader means less weight than a dozen books.
Main point of camping though is to get away from blasted humans! So I don't care what noise the others make, so long as they're at least 2 miles away.
Sometimes I enjoy the tranquility of camping, watching the mists rise from a small lake at dawn as the birds sing and warmth slowly returns to the land.
Sometimes I go camping and find myself dancing with a dozen women from the neighbouring campfire one of whom has MiniRigs* strapped around her, some under the influence of a substance first synthesized in 1970s California.
C'est la vie.
Either way, no one can deny that the white LED, the product of some high tech gallium alchemy is a far Eastern land, has made camping much easier. Less high tech but still appreciated is the Aeropress coffee device.
* Brand name of a battery-shaped modular speaker system that seems to be popular on the festival circuit.
"... some under the influence of a substance first synthesized in 1970s California."
If you mean LSD, I think that was first synthesised in 1938 in Switzerland - if we can trust my old chemistry teacher and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysergic_acid_diethylamide (the S stands for Saur = Acid). Not that I've ever tried it, I prefer a glass of bitter, or Barolo.
Do you mean MDMA? That was synthesized early in the 20th century by a German pharma company I think. However, if by chemist you mean the great Alexander Shulgin then he did synthesise loads of analogues and tested them in himself and his friends (and even had a licence from the DEA to do so!) He was an amazing chemist and empath. I had a copy of PIHKAL when I was at uni that I bought from WH Smiths! Those were the days... Still, I'm probably on some list somewhere now!
If you need one of these things (or any other hi-tech mind distraction) when you go camping, you're missing the entire point of going camping!
That's why I don't go camping. If I did, I would need something to distract me from the mosquitos that Trevor already mentioned, and the absence of a flush toilet and a coffee machine (although that may have actually been solved). And no Internet or takeaways. And rain.
About the only benefit I see in camping is an absence of cubicle walls and other human beings :).
Portable toilets have been around for ages - from the humble bucket with seat to fully sealed units with flush.
For varying definitions of portable. AFAIK no one's made one that would fit in a rucksack, but that's just an engineering (and emptying) exercise.
Standard height, seat with lid, flush water round the outside of the bowl, (pro tip: use a hand held garden sprayer - better "flush" and uses less water), pull out flush blade to seal your doings in the bottom tank, pressure release valve when you open the flush blade, 4 gal capacity waste tank. You'd be quite happy to bring it home in the back of the car part full - apart from the sloshing sound when you go round corners / over bumps you'd forget it was there.
Portable, yeah, only weighs a few pounds, Filled with 4 gal of sh*t and pi** on the other hand ... Think luggable to the nearest emptying point.
>> if you try this down under - watch out for 'ol redback.
"AFAIK no one's made one that would fit in a rucksack"
I've seen one. Collapsible alumin(i)um frame & inflatable seat. It used plastic grocery bags as the holding tank. Recommended for solid waste only. I never used it, nor was I tasked with packing out the result. Seemed a trifle flimsy to me, but the couple who used it claimed it was great.
The way that I look at it, if a bear can shit in the woods, so can I ... they sell easily biodegradable paper, the stuff for septic tanks works well. Kick a small hole behind a tree/rock/bush, do your business, wipe, drop, cover hole. Piss on the same location a time or two to give the bugs some water to work with. Come back in a month and you'll never know you've been (as it were). Only issue is if someone got there the day before you did. I've never had that issue.
"You'd be quite happy to bring it home in the back of the car part full - apart from the sloshing sound when you go round corners / over bumps you'd forget it was there"
Is there something special about human shit'n'piss that you need to bring it home with you to dispose of it instead of burying it in the woods with all the other animal shit'n'piss?
Portable toilets have been around for ages - from the humble bucket with seat to fully sealed units with flush.
For varying definitions of portable. AFAIK no one's made one that would fit in a rucksack, but that's just an engineering (and emptying) exercise.
You could just use the rucksack if you have good rear exit aiming abilities, but joking aside, you just gave a long list why I won't go camping - I have no desire to investigate portable toilets.
As Al Murray once said, I prefer to pass out near a firmly fitted appliance so that I later wake up with "Armitage Shanks" in mirror script on my forehead :)
"If you need one of these things (or any other hi-tech mind distraction) when you go camping, you're missing the entire point of going camping!"
Well maybe for you, personally when I go camping its a means to an end... Ill camp close to the bottom of a mountain (Normally in the closest camp site) so I can be off and up it at first light... That does not mean that I dont want to watch a movie or something similar the night before/if stuck in camp because of weather.
"The rest of us go camping to get away from the hi-tech world for a little while"
Stay away from camp sites and try a little wild camping* - you're then less likely to encounter other campers, let alone other campers with gadgets like this.
* Though these days I'd rather opt for hotels and nice beds.
oik playing music videos outside the tent at some ungodly hour
Or competing groups of yoofs trying to outdo each other with the volume and crapness of their doof-doof music.
Makes one long for a proper 10KW tower stack to play a decent bit of Spock's Beard[1] back at them
[1] Other fine modern Prog bands are available.
"I thought glamping was invented by the generation before the millennials, the ones who used to rough it at festivals but now in their forties and fifties whose aging bodies appreciate a comfy beds and other creature comforts."
I thought it was just a new buzzword for the sort of posh camp sites found in the south of France for at least the last three decades, ie pre-assembled multi-room, fully furnished tents.
We currently live in a motorhome. I am writing this from the campsite by Perth Racecourse, last week we were by an abbey in County Durham and we're on a long tour around the UK living and working on board.
We have Netflix courtesy of our dongle with the 3 card (all the Netflix we can binge) and we have enough data to work on board and, of course, to talk to other El Communards.
We watch films and we have a PlayStation/4 on board. Why shouldn't we?
And if we're still pushed to peel a starling or to start a fire with sticks, we're still able. though not necessarily willing.
There's a few things that one needs on board and this is where the Great Sage Terry P was ever so right: good toilet paper and good denishtry... The latter is what I do lack and I am now able to get a bit part if they ever wish to remake Deliverance...
Fair comment, but I've never really considered a motorhome to be anything but vaguely related to camping.
Granted, camping isn't my field of expertise by any stretch of the imagination but it's really just a hotel suite on wheels isn't it?
Which is why the SSID of our motorhome's WiFi is "TheGinPalace"
Agreed, in fact the Yoga Tab can be picked up for quite a bit less than that now and doesn't have the bugs. I bought the Yoga some time ago, with no interest whatsoever in the projector, but it's actually really good at least for indoor use (maybe not so much outdoors).
But as for the "Amazon Echo and Google Home – even iPads – producing really quite impressive sound" - seriously? I'm no audiophile (couldn't afford to be if I wanted to anyway) but my idea of quite impressive sound is a little more expensive than that. I don't rate the Google Home at all for sound quality, and even that's supposed to be better than the Echo.
So won't fit in a pocket, laptop bag or small rucksack. Not really portable in a "I'll just carry it around" way then.
A conventional HD projector from LG has better resolution, is a quarter of the volume, a third the weight and in a much more usable 50mm high package. Not sure how battery life compares.
Ah yes, the LG is four times "brighter" (as in four times the lumens).
Engineering may be compromise, but in this case a large amount of the cost compromise appears to be marketing and freebies to journalists in order to shift a substandard product to a gullible audience.
I'd have though that with projectors now being commonplace the price of the bulbs would have come down accordingly , to the point where you dont just buy another projector.
We use a lot of very expensive projectors at work, but I was looking at a smaller, cheaper more portable unit for another purpose recently. Spare lamps from most manufacturers seem to tend to be between a third and a half the cost of the new projector.
M.
Just missed the edit deadline. I was going to add:
Actually, I suspect this is an LED lamp, not the normal discharge type (can't find the information anywhere). If this is the case, then it probably isn't designed to be replaced at all. LED lamps are often specified to last the expected lifespan of the projector.
Quick example from our units at work (though granted these are very different beasts!): Panasonic DLP projectors have a nominal lifespan of around 20,000 hours (seems pretty accurate in our use). Discharge lamps have a nominal lifespan (measured to half-brightness) of between 2,000 and 5,000 hours (varies according to how the projector is used, varies from model to model and manufacturer to manufacturer), so over the course of the projector's life I would expect to replace the lamp maybe as many as 10 or 11 times, unless I have to replace earlier to maintain brightness.
The new Panasonic Laser projectors (example) have lamps rated to the same 20,000 hours (to half brightness) as the whole unit. Our oldest Panasonic Laser projectors are just coming up to 4,000 hours so I can't comment on that just yet, but they seem ok so far!
Oh, and for those of you looking to buy a projector for home or office, please note that LCD projectors are life-limited by the LCD units themselves. I have yet to find a conventionally-lamped LCD projector offering more than 8,000 - 10,000 hours before the LCD needs replacing, and some of the original units here had expected lives of around 4,500 hours. Not very many lamp changes.
M.
> LED lamps are often specified to last the expected lifespan of the projector.
This is a portable projector, so expect it to be 'used' ie. powered off and put back into bag still warm, joggled around etc. so from my experience expect the 'useful' lifespan to be significantly less than the stated 20,000 hours, unless you like watching stuff through dead pixels.
There's also the Nebula Mars - https://seenebula.com/pages/mars - (disclaimer: I have nothing to do with this company) that looks interesting too, and they're developing an even smaller one... so quite a lot happening in this area.
The target audience - generic millennial occasional glampers - is illustrated here: https://seenebula.com/pages/about
It's not the only product to sell itself using pictures of attractive people in beautiful surroundings at the 'magic hour'!
Even Birdseye fish fingers have swapped out some bearded salty sea dog for some stubbled young chap who appears to escaped from the cover of a pulp romance paperback.
But, I'd like to see a model without the bulk of the speaker to reduce package size (and save some of the battery for more projecting) I already have a bluetooth speaker so running that discreetly will do. So 5.5"x5.5"x3 for instance, would be a lot more appealing as I could conceivably fit that in my day to day bag.
Also, not really fussed about having the apps on the device, so long as it dnla's then the netflix/youtube/etc can stay on my phone.
Good point, a lot of the target market will already have battery speakers. To regain the convenience of a 'one lump' device, self-adhesive Velcro tape is your friend.
We're beginning to see portable Li-ion battery packs that have the capacity and the oomph to power laptops and similarly hungry devices over USB-C
so long as it dnla's then the netflix/youtube/etc can stay on my phone.
Well there's the real killer. Does netflix on your phone allow you to play on a remote renderer? I don't know about netflix specifically but I know for sure that NowTV doesn't (though it does allow chromecast), even free to air stuff like Channel 4's catch-up service doesn't allow that. How is that going to work when you're glamping so presumably using mobile data? In that case your phone and the projector can't possibly be on the same network.
Possibly you can have a wired connection your phone with an MHL or a Lightning Digital AV Adapter (£50!) but now you're carrying a bunch of cables as well so you're losing a bit of the magic.
Ideally it shouldn't matter but in reality, that integration stuff is going to be make or break for this sort of device.
"Also, not really fussed about having the apps on the device, so long as it dnla's then the netflix/youtube/etc can stay on my phone."
Yes, considering that anyone buying this device will also have a phone, and the phone app to control it almost a requirement, it seems odd to load up the device with apps which may or may not still be supported in year or twos time. Just look at the abandoned and derelict apps on smart TVs of any sort of age.
Having said that, what are the odds of having a goof enough data signal while camping to stream video at any sort of decent resolution?
It is odd that a $500 device with only 720p resolution would be described as "outstanding". It seems that there is no absolute definition, it depends completely on the reviewer's disposition towards whatever is being reviewed. If they have already decided they like a product, then such descriptions will fit. But (I suspect) only until something better comes along: a 1080p projector, for example.
As such, we have to wonder what is actually being reviewed? Is it the gadget itself, or the progress in technological development. It would appear to be the latter.
Projected against a sheet strung between a couple of trees, I don't think that full HD is necessarily worthwhile. Also, higher resolution comes at the expense of battery life.
As regards your second point, the article stressed the ease of use and ease of set-up of this specific device, comparing the adjustment of the image shape favourably against pricier models.
It is odd that a $500 device with only 720p resolution would be described as "outstanding".
As others have said, 720p is more than enough for most purposes (1024 x 768 and 1280 x 800 are still the most common resolutions among "boardroom" type projectors) and if you are going to project onto a painted wall or the side of a marquee, you really, really won't notice the difference between 720p and 1080p at the sort of sizes you can sensibly get from this unit.
What matters much more is the brightness, and although it took me a while to find it (the Indiegogo page has the figure), 350 lumen isn't going to get you very far in the daylight - I seriously doubt
It works pretty well in anything but direct sunlight
unless you are looking at a small image. For typical classroom use, for example, I would always recommend 3,000 lumen as a starting point.
Couldn't find the info - maybe this isn't a standard discharge lamp? Maybe it's LED?
M.
You misread the article. It doesn't rely upon a smartphone. However, a smartphone can be used in addition to the included remote control.
If you have ever tried to enter a search term using a television's remote control (left left left down enter up right right enter down left enter ...) , you appreciate the ease of using a smartphone to enter text instead ( W E S T W O...)
>put 6 wine bottles in a carrier bag and carry them, Then do the same with 6 bottles in a wine carrier. which feels lighter to carry?
The 6 bottles in a wine carrier! this is because the wine carrier has a semi-decent handle so doesn't cut into the hand, also it better distributes the weight of the bottles across the two handles!
put 6 wine bottles in a carrier bag and carry them, Then do the same with 6 bottles in a wine carrier. which feels lighter to carry?
Oooh, that's easy. Can I answer this one?
It's the bottle carrier because half way across the car park the origami has unfolded and what was once six bottles is now a pile of broken glass and lost liquid.
kids today wont even look up from their phone to reap the benefits of the 32" screen they are sat in front of , so yes , they are not really interested in size or scale.
They'll probably take it the other way and put the screen in front of their eyes in glasses before too long.
Then we'll have a nation of blind zombies sitting on our sofas, addicted to moronic youtube content by the like of pew-de-pie , like some horrific Philip K Dick story
As a long-term Apple fan, I like to know I'm rocking the best equipment money can buy. That's why I have an iPhone X. So I'd like to buy one of these portable projectors to enhance my outdoor world, but only if it's fully part of the Apple ecosystem. So what would readers of the non-Android (no offence meant) persuasion recommend I do?
So what would readers of the non-Android (no offence meant) persuasion recommend I do?
I've got a suggestion for what you could do with your i-things, but I'd recommend that you fully discharge the battery first to avoid electric shock risk to your lower alimentary canal.
350 lumens? Good to know but isn't a review supposed to include such important info? Why the hell do people have to go wandering around the adbot infested internet to hunt down details which should have been included in the so called review in the first frickin place? Less a review, more of "Here's the daydream I've been paid to have by JBL about a device they want shifted off shelves, which I have never ever seen in realish life".
Yuck. No good.
My 4" by 4" by 1" miniprojector is that bright, and it weighs a quarter or less.
Ok the speaker is awful but that's trivial to fix and the whole shebang would still be smaller.
Can't buy it anymore though, because it's too dim.
Go away, and come back once you have more than 1k lumens.
I mean, how much effort would that actually take to put together? Does it have a removable battery? 4 hours will be 2.5 hours in a year or so. What kind of charger is included? Or is it charged through a USB cable? HOW MANY LUMENS IN FRICKIN BRIGHTNESS???? I remember buying a HP printer off the back of a Reg review (highly recommended by Vulture Central it was, glowing, looking back there may have been some sort of backhander from HP to the Reg) and it was quite honestly the worst printer I have ever owned, it was suddenly clear to me that the reviewer had never actually used the device. Totally p*ssed off with Reg reviews. Easy to do better, why not damned well try?!?!???
I mean, is he getting a salary or what? If the Reg actually employs this guy to write fluffy cr*p reviews for what is an internationally recognised IT news website I'd be questioning the sanity or whoever hired this guy. A dude on a YTS Scheme could do better. NO LUMENS?!?!?!!? Writing tech reviews isn't like political essays or whatever he's used to writing. This is a technology website and there should be specificity and detail in any and all reviews!!!!!!!!! ...not just an friendly writing style, save that for your very long vacuous novel.
From the crowd funding page this projector is
350 Ansi lumens
projects a 180" image (I'm assuming diagonal not 180" wide) from 4.4m (their mix of metric and imperial measurments) so throw ratio is about 1.1
4 hour max batery life sounds like it will be capable of showing a film from a full charge for about 6 months.
Trying to throw a 180" image using a 350 lumen projector is going to be crap. I'd suggest this projector is probably useful up to about 90" diagonal in a pitch black room. It probably looks good at around 50" in a situation with some ambient light.
I'm not saying it isn't good at what it does, just that 180" is pie in the sky.
"Trying to throw a 180" image using a 350 lumen projector is going to be crap. I'd suggest this projector is probably useful up to about 90" diagonal in a pitch black room."
The reviewer was going on about the projected image being visible in all but direct sunlight! He plainly has never smelt nor touched the reviewed item.
projects a 180" image (I'm assuming diagonal not 180" wide) from 4.4m (their mix of metric and imperial measurments) so throw ratio is about 1.1
You'll find this is common among projector manufacturers, and it's an absolute pain in the backside for someone like me who has to be quite specific about throw and image size sometimes. Fortunately, given that I mostly use Panasonic projectors, there is help available at their Interactive throw calculator.
As far as this thing goes, it's simple Pythagoras, innit? 180in diagonal is about 460cm, which on a 16:9 screen equates to an image width of about 400cm. 4m width from 4.4m distance is a throw ratio of 1.1 : 1.
350 lumens to make a 4m wide image? No chance outside of a darkened room.
M.
Throw is important to me too - my house is too small to get an average projector far enough away from the screen.
This one however , from what I gathered in the reveiw is designed purely for showing The Blair Witch project whilst sitting round a campfire in the woods - so space shouldnt be an issue
Throw is important to me too - my house is too small to get an average projector far enough away from the screen.
Look for projectors with "ST" in their name :-)
(never actually bought anything from Projectorpoint, but the website has lots of info, even if the revamp makes it a bit ukky these days)
M.
JBL always charge stupid money for their speakers which are not as transparent as I would like, hardly audiophile grade
Yeah, but they do have some nice built-like-a-tank units which sound pretty decent for not terrible amounts of money. Richer Sounds regularly has offers on the Control-1 speakers which aren't quite as good as the Control-1 pro, but remarkable for their size. Just don't even bother with the utterly awful ball mounting system.
The rest of the Control series is good in some ways, but I've blown fuses on my Control-5 speakers more often and more easily than should be possible :-(
M.
I was really intrigued by your review of this device, and was seriously considering buying one or getting it as a Christmas gift for my boyfriend... until I saw the price tag. Even the discounted crowdfunder price is more than I would spend on anything other than a device I use every single day (i.e. a laptop or smartphone).
Also, because I'm a stickler for accuracy:
"The good news is that its maker is doing a Kickstarter with a discount right now"
That is not a Kickstarter, that's an Indiegogo campaign.
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