Sunday, May 15, 2016

Pico Projector with HDMI Review











I don't get to relax very often, but when I do, I love curling up on the couch with a glass of good wine or a cup of coffee and watching TV or movies. We have a nice TV, but it's almost ten years old now and we have been thinking of replacing it. In mulling over replacement options, we really wanted to get a projector and screen. We recently got (and I recently reviewed) a nice screen so we were delighted when I found this projector as it had everything we wanted and was priced very affordably.

Upon receipt of the projector, I was very impressed by the packaging and the compact size of the projector. We did have one issue with the initial set up. The manual wasn't very clear; for example, there is a button on the side that the manual doesn't mention so we still don't know what it is for. Also, the manual refers to the remote control as being a Bluetooth remote and it includes pairing instructions, which we followed but we couldn't get it to pair. I contacted the manufactuer and the representative was extremely courteous and apologized profusely about the manual being incorrect. They are working on revising it, but I thought that it would be helpful to share what I learned here. The remote doesn't have Bluetooth capability. If you open up the battery compartment for the remote, there is a little USB dongle that you have to attach to the included adapter and plug into the projector - BEFORE you turn anything on. After we learned this, we were able to use the projector perfectly. Normally, I would dock the product a star or two for the manual, but I am a firm believer that mistakes and other issues can happen. I am more concerned with how a business addresses a situation like this and I was happy with how quickly and thoroughly they responded to it. I am also hopeful that the revised manuals will be issues soon.

I have to confess that I was skeptical at first about how bright this projector would be as I saw that there were projectors with far higher Lumens numbers, but we were perfectly pleased with the brightness and clarity of the images. The photo I have included of the screen may look dim at first look, but that was taken in broad daylight and it was still bright enough to capture with my cell phone camera. The projector has an Android operating system; I have always used Android cell phones for my personal phones, so it was quite easy for me to navigate. It's so user-friendly that I feel confident that you would find it easy to use even if you aren't already an Android user. The battery life is good and the cooling system is quiet. You can't adjust the projection size by pushing any of the buttons on the projector; this has to be done by adjusting the distance between the projector and the screen and then adjusting the gear to focus the image. Also, a stand isn't included, but we are using it with a flexible tabletop travel tripod (that cost us under $10 when we got it) and we are now very happily using it. I love that we can use HDMI to connect this to other devices. Overall, we are quite pleased with this find and I recommend it!

Click the link below to learn more about or purchase this product:

Pico Projector with HDMI on Amazon

I received this product free to review. Opinions are 100% my own.