3M Pocket Projector (3M MPro160) Review

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(More customer reviews)The miniaturization of technology is amazing. With iPods and cell phones and netbooks I've always had ways to show neat stuff, but generally one at a time. Nobody likes to squint over a tiny screen or deal with viewing angles. Something small and battery powered that I can just stow in my bag and project on any wall would be pretty great. Unfortunately, this just does that and doesn't quite seem to be as magical as the PR makes it out to be.
As far as controls and circuit logic goes, it's pretty plain. Just a stand-by screen waiting for input, volume up and down, mute, battery check, and off. No color adjustment. No 16:9 / 4:3 toggle. No high-power mode when plugged through AC. I know it's small, but even a simple color adjustment could maximize the range of non-ideal surfaces you can confidently project onto.
The image itself is fair quality... even though this 2010 model has double the brightness of the earlier 3M models, you still really can't consider using this in a lit room. That "whether you're in a cafe .. or conference room" really is a bit of a stretch since the cafe isn't going to let you turn out the lights. One real annoying bit about the display is the rainbow effect that drives me crazy from early DLP televisions. Newer revisions are fast enough to minimize it, but the red/green/blue flicker is quite obvious with this. I would say that rules out most movement-heavy video sources, relegating it to the world of Powerpoints and camera shots. For those things it should do fine: the standby screen gives a nice big "3M" logo in the center and you could use that for a focus reference. As the machine stays on and heats up, though, it seems to lose focus a bit and it then becomes a little more difficult to readjust because the focus dial is now hot. Last part about the image quality: you should know it's a 800x600 display, so, even though you could, in theory, hook up a 1080i or 1280x960 WXGA source, it's all gonna get scaled down to 800x600 anyway. Ye shall find no forgiveness for small fonts.
Audio is another let down. The volume adjust only has 4 levels so there's not too much control over it. And even at it's highest it barely exceeds the noise of the cooling fan. While it's nice it has a headphone port for more substantial audio setups, I wouldn't see why you would route it through the projector unless you were forced to (by using HDMI or a dedicated iPod cable).
Now the stuff that doesn't matter quite so much. It comes with a lot of goodies. It comes with a flexing mini tripod with a standard mounting post, which means not only can you mount the projector on any standard tripod, you can also put anything on this mini-tripod. It also has a fold-down kickstand to raise it, so, it seems like a duplicated accessory. You get tons of plug adapters which are nice, a composite cable with gender adapters for each cable, and a VGA cable with audio tail. The connections are flexible but I much would have rather had real ports on the sides. There's room enough for composite, component, HDMI, and a 1:1 iPod cable. It wouldn't be neat and it would be scattered all around each edge, but at least I wouldn't have to carry an additional bushel of cables for devices I might want to plug in. Rounding up the accessories is a little carrying case that fits it just perfectly. Unfortunately, with the extra stuff you'll have to carry around, the utility of a carrying case that JUST fits the projector is a bit silly. I would have been fine with just a snug little lens cap. I think they included all this stuff because after being a little disappointed with what you get you might not want to throw more money at it for adapters and cables.
Look, I understand it's a POCKET projector, but really I don't think the technology is there yet. Seems the biggest limiting factor of the technology is the battery with a leisurely 2800 mAh. If it simply had more juice then they can crank up the brightness, color cycling frequency (less rainbow), and audio. It takes 3 hours to charge but lasts only 2 while operational. All this puts together a ho-hum product that will put off my fantasy of an impromptu drive-in movie date on the side of a tractor trailer in a parking lot for perhaps another 5 years.

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The new 3M Pocket Projector MP160 is an ideal tool for people who don't need on-board memory or additional connectivity. Combining 30 lumens of brightness, full color gamut and SVGA resolution with 2 hour battery life, the MP160 merges an attractive feature-set with an affordable price. With its bright crisp images and robust built-in sound you can use it for business presentations, family gatherings, school lessons - anything you would use a projector for. It connects to virtually any gadget - computer, cell phone, iPod/iPhone or PDA to share files, photos, and movies virtually anywhere.

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