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Sub-4-pounders are all the rage
the three projectors featured this month represent a milestone of sorts, for they are members of a new class of sub-4-pound projectors that offer users both impressive features and impressive quality.
Each of the three - the InFocus LP120, Mitsubishi XD50U Mini-Mits and Philips bCool XG1 - are DLP-based, have XGA resolution (1,024 x 768 pixels), deliver bright, high-contrast images in both computer and video mode, and can be purchased for less than $3,000.
Not long ago, such a remarkable convergence of performance and price was but a dream. The technology had not evolved far enough, parts were too expensive, and squeezing that much light out of such a small box was an engineering problem for which no one had a solution.
A growing market
Texas Instruments tends to get most of the credit for this profound evolution in projection technology because its DLP (Digital Light Processing) micromirror chips are at the heart of these diminutive powerhouses. But it took breakthroughs from InFocus, Mitsubishi, NEC, Philips, Sharp and many other companies to make this revolution complete.
Whether you see these projectors as the end of one revolution or the beginning of another is a matter of perspective, however. According to market research by iSuppli/Stanford Resources, an estimated 4 million projectors will be sold in 2006,80 percent of which will be projectors that weigh less than 5 pounds. Currently, these ultraportables account for a little more than 50 percent of the market, and projectors that put out between 1,000 and 2,000 ANSI lumens of brightness own about 70 percent of the market.
In short, the models reviewed this month are the sort of projectors you're going to see a lot of in the next few years. Small, full-featured projectors are becoming the norm, and with each passing month, the trade-off between weight and performance is becoming less...