Acer C110

A lightweight pocket projector with a USB power cable that reduces wire clutter

Portable projectors don’t make sense to everyone. But they can be irreplaceable if you have to make presentations in a very small office, or if you are stuck some place without a TV. This one from Acer weighs only 175 gm, and it reduces wire clutter as it uses a display over USB protocol, which means that a single cable not only powers the projector but also carries its display data.

The projector’s LED lamp is good for 20,000 hours, which means roughly 2,000 presentations of 1 hour each. If you do one presentation a day, the lamp is good for 5 years. And it is a good lamp too, as it reaches full intensity in just 5 seconds.

The projector can give you images as small as 11 inch (28 cm)—roughly the size of your laptop screen—to 100 inch (2.54 metre). But do remember that for a 100 inch image, not only will you need a very dark room, but a projection screen too. Not so for a 32 inch (81 cm) image. I could manage fine enough with a white wall. The projector’s contrast ratio is merely 1000:1, which means that at times black can look somewhat greyish. But in most cases you won’t miss a lot. The brightness is limited to 50 ANSI lumens, so you will need to ensure the room is dimly lit, if not very dark. And it is very quite too—at full brightness it makes only 30 dBA of noise. You can barely hear it.

The projector supports a maximum WVGA resolution or 854 x 480. It is not ideal for HD content, but can be very useful for home movies or pictures, and presentations too.

It also uses the DLP System, assuring you that its lamp won’t fade or distort colours—at least not before its three year warranty runs out.

So what is wrong with it? Just a couple of things. To start with, it works only with Windows. The gadget is positioned as a pocket projector, so there are no bags or jackets with it. It would have been nice to have something like that to carry it around. The good part is, it has a built-in stand and can be snapped onto a tripod. Tripod compatibility, however, is limited by the length of its USB cable. If you insist on using the tripod,  you may need to stand next to it, holding your laptop in your hand.

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