Handtops, UMPC - LED Projectors by Mitsubishi, Samsung an

12/21/05 + AI

I posted a reply on the post link
But I thought it be appropriate to post it with a new title.

I have been keenly searching for Mitsubishi PocketProjector for the last six months and as most of us are perhaps aware that official release has also been postponed several times. From July to September, and now 19th Dec 2005. So I called up Mitsubishi and they regretted that it is still delayed.

Mitsubishi Taiwan Asia market is reporting 1Q 2006.
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Samsung is also releasing its LED based projector called Pocket Imager (model SP-P300MK), due to be released next month (January 2006)
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The Toshiba LED powered micro projector is out in France and it is to be released in UK around Christmas (or early New Year).
Find below the hyperlinks for detail perusal:
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The images on this link are detailed however I believe the description in the article quoting 400 ANSI lumens is a mistake. Verify it with product release info from toshiba France website.
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Those interested in checking out the projected images by Mitsubishi LED projector (model PK10 or PT10) and by Toshiba LED projector (model FF1) follow the links below:

More detail review and images with battery of Mitsubishi Pocketprojector at:
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Click the last image in the gallery at the bottom of the page to see the projected image by Mitsubishi PK10
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The projected image by Toshiba FF1 is shown in the penultimate image on the link below. The attached battery is also visible.
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The important question is ANSI Lumen and LUX values. Samsung states 23 ANSI Lumens while Mitsubishi and Toshiba indicates 250 and 400 LUX respectively.

Using the formula described on the following hyperkink:
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My calculations for producing a projected image of 70cm(W) by 50cm(H), approximately 83cm(33inches) diagonal view:

Mitsubishi probably has 102 ANSI Lumens (calculated) and 250 LUX(stated) compared to Samsung having 23 ANSI Lumens(stated) and 55.9LUX(calculated). Whereas Toshiba’s LED projector is rated 400 LUX (stated) and 165 ANSI Lumens(calculated). I could have miscalculated, so verify with the formula! Please note that resolution 800 X 600 is 4:3 ratio or (1.34) therefore I choose screen size 70cmX50cm, ratio (1.4).

All three projectors have SVGA (800X600)native resolution. Weight wise Mitsubishi is the lightest 450 gm (without battery) and Samsung is the heaviest 660gm(perhaps without batter). The Toshiba is 556gm (without battery)

In my assessment Toshiba LED Projector is perhaps the best of the three. I have ordered mine.

03/22/06 + Nekdo

AI, visit http://www.4vu.net where you can upload pictures. Then click the TAG button above the text field and use the image tag and link to uploaded picture at 4vu. Here is the sample

Image

03/22/06 + amateur

Having lurked on this thread for a while, I took the plunge and ordered an FF1 from TickPC.com. I must say, I am happy with the unit; it is obviously not very bright, but perfectly adequate for small meetings where the alternative would have been to take an LCD monitor to save everyone crowding round a single screen. I was surprised by the size of the case, though; in order to accomodate the screen, it seems bigger than the case for standard projectors! I expect in many cases I shall just slip the projector in my laptop bag, together with a piece of A3 foamboard (cut down to fit in my bag) to act as the screen.

I do have two minor complaints about the unit:

* it takes far too long to open a folder on a USB drive if there are hundreds of images in the folder - it took 5 minutes to open a folder containing 200 images. Resizing them all to 800x600 seemed to make no difference. This does not count as 'instant on'!

* every time I turn the unit off, I seem to lose any changes I had made to the default settings. Has anyone found a way of preserving changes, please?

03/22/06 + amateur

by the way, I've tried a simple test of battery life: running a slide show on loop from a USB stick, with the auto-advance set to 1 seconds (so the USB stick is driven quite hard). I did this twice, and each time got over 2 hours before getting the 10% warning. (When running from the USB, it is obviously sensible to stop before the battery is completely exhausted, to avoid damaging the file system.)

03/22/06 + AI

mcverbs, 11 inches diagonal

Nekdo, thank you for your advice and providing the link to 4vu net

Find below the hyperlinks to following images:

All images were taken with camera flash OFF so that the brightness of projected image can be appreciated as close to real look. The images background may look grainy and dingy, clearly because the camera flash is off.

1st Image, 52 inches projection on off-white/cream coloured mat finish wall. The side table lamp was ON.

[IMG]http://www.4vu.net/view/thumb-personal-a7cdfb88a8.jpg[/IMG]

2nd Image, 23inches projection on portable screen. Image taken during early morning daylight just after dawn. Room window’s curtain was open and ceiling bulb (60W) was switched ON.

[IMG]http://www.4vu.net/view/thumb-personal-6f53a87d39.jpg[/IMG]

3rd Image, 23inches projection on portable screen. Image taken during afternoon daylight just after midday. Room window’s curtain was open and ceiling bulb was switched OFF.

[IMG]http://www.4vu.net/view/thumb-personal-48ceb1a1b7.jpg[/IMG]

4th Image, showing the ambient light in the room during the afternoon snapshot.

[IMG]http://www.4vu.net/view/thumb-personal-dc8a2d975e.jpg[/IMG]

5th Image, showing projector’s weight on a digital measuring scale

[IMG]http://www.4vu.net/view/thumb-personal-e49cf7ce7e.jpg[/IMG]

6th Image, showing battery’s weight on a digital measuring scale

[IMG]http://www.4vu.net/view/thumb-personal-a08a90ec4f.jpg[/IMG]

03/22/06 + AI

mcverbs, thanks for the ultra thin VGA cable link

03/22/06 + AI

amateur said: "I must say, I am happy with the unit; it is obviously not very bright,"

Firstly, it is not a conference/seminar room projector, so any comparison is unfair and misleading in terms of brightness. It is more than bright enough for an initmate gathering, small group,(3 or 4 people) in an office with NO need to switch off room lights, when projected on foldable screen.

amateur said: "• it takes far too long to open a folder on a USB drive if there are hundreds of images in the folder - it took 5 minutes to open a folder containing 200 images. Resizing them all to 800x600 seemed to make no difference. This does not count as 'instant on'!"

The manual explains the size limits of folders, sub folders and file numbers. The images, I have posted were all through USB pendrive, images were 5 megapixel in resolution and unedited. When in the root directory images appear very quickly.

"Instant on" is referring to immediate appearing of projector light when it displays "Toshiba" logo.

03/22/06 + AI

Addendum:

The projector turns on within 5 sec and switches off the moment the power button is off. When ON, within seconds the Toshiba logo screen appears then it searches for input signal. Whichever signal was inputting during the last running whether it was USB or Computer or Video signal, it looks for the same input. According to the instructions, the input device should be connected before switching on the projector. I connect my USB before turning on the projector's power button. If the JPEG images are in the root directory of the USB pendrive it appears immediately(few seconds) after the welcome(Toshiba logo) screen.

03/22/06 + AI

mcverbs, more dimension details: minimum projected image is 11 inch diagonal, 6.7 inch vertical and 8.8 inch horizontal in size.

03/22/06 + AI

My projector takes 3.5 sec in displaying the welcome screen after turning on, then if USB is already connected and if there is a JPEG file in the root directory then it takes further 13 sec to project an image file size of 1.2 MB with 3 megapixel of picture resolution. I have not tried small file sizes yet.

03/23/06 + amateur

AI, re your reply about brightness, you appear to be simply restating what I said: it's not very bright, but adequate for its designed purposes: individual use and small meetings. It is just that I'm a Brit: I don't do hyperbole.

regarding startup times: yes, the display starts within seconds. however, if what I want to do is present a slide show from a USB stick with 200 images (well below the 512 limit per folder mentioned in the manual), I have to wait 5 minutes or so. It would appear that the device does a check of all the files in the root folder (or selected subfolder) when it opens it: this is much slower than just looking at the directory and later skipping files that are not in an acceptable format.

The behaviour of my unit seems to differ from yours in another way: at startup, I have to cycle through the inputs to get it to see the USB stick. perhaps you have a later version of the firmware? mine reports software version 1.1.0 - 1.3.0. Does anyone have a different version? Does anyone else have problems in saving changes to the default settings?

03/23/06 + AI

amateur said: "It is just that I'm a Brit: I don't do hyperbole."

I didn't intend to fire back on your comment. Simply clarifying and emphasing to potential readers/buyers that it is a different category of projectors and that Toshiba FF1 with its included foldable screen does the job very well. Cheers.

03/23/06 + AI

amateur, are you using USB 2.0 Hi-Speed certified or USB 1.0, that could be the reason for it to take 5min in loading. Remember not all USB 2.0 devices are certified. In addition, USB pendrives have different read speeds and actual read speed varies among manufacturers to what they state. Try using a different USB 2.0 certified Hi-Speed pendrive.

03/23/06 + amateur

AI, I've tried with 2 different USB2 devices, and an Ipod shuffle. Putting 200 800x600 JPEG files on the USB device from my laptop takes about 1 minute in each case; copying them back to my laptop (a Sony TR1MP, somewhat bigger than the computers this forum concentrates on!) takes under 10 seconds, so the limitation does not seem to be the speed of the USB sticks. In each case, it takes over 5 minutes to open the folder.

I wonder why the USB socket it upside down?

03/23/06 + AI

amateur, I ran some tests for you:
Putting 200 JPEG files (800x600)on the USB root directory, took 14 seconds to commence slideshow. When same files put in a folder took 1min 23 sec to start slideshow after selecting the folder.

I think you need to check your JPEG file format and compression setting.

My projector version is 1.1.0-1.3.0.

03/23/06 + mcverbs

wired's latest issue features the viewsonic PJ106D -- not really a review though. From viewsonic's website, it looks like this one is still not for sale.

wired link:
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