AAXA P2 Micro Projector (Portable) - Fantastic!! (my mini review)

[centrino321]

Hi everyone,

I noticed there's been a lot of chatter on here about micro / pico projectors. Lots of confusion too with mixed reviews and many reviewers warning people away from laptop / business use. I've owned a few so I thought I would share my experiences. To begin I've owned the Optoma PK101, Dell M109S, and the AAXA P1 projectors.

After almost a month on back order I just received my AAXA P2 micro projector this week and I thought I would share my experiences.

To summarize my feelings about the AAXA P2 - WOW! This projector is an 800x600 33 lumen battery powered projector. The detailed specs are here:

http://www.aaxatech.com/products/p2_pico_projector.htm

I own a printing business so I am out meeting clients very frequently. I've owned the Optoma PK101 and the AAXA P1 which while very cool toys and great for videos, really were not up to the job of doing presentations - the color and resolution were not ok, embarrassing at times frankly. I have also seen the 3M Mpro in action at Office Depot - it performs the same which basically means it's not ok for business / client meeting use.

I can say the AAXA P2 absolutely blows the other pico projectors away. The resolution, color quality, black levels, and above all the portability is fantastic.

Now I do own the Dell M109S projector also, which I must say is a great projector. It's a 858x400 55 lumen projector. The specs are here:

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/p...9&sku=224-0939

I like the Dell projector, it is brightness and color quality are good for my uses, but the major downside is that it is bigger (it's still pretty small), it has a substantial power brick (doubling the size) and it has no onboard file viewer, remote control, etc.

The AAXA P2 addresses all these issues as it is battery powered, has a file / video player, and is 1/4 the size when you take the power source (batterY) into consideration. In terms of brightness - honestly I couldn't tell the difference. I would say the AAXA P2 has slightly worse color quality than the Dell, but it is definitely good enough for my needs.

The picture quality in bright areas is really good where you're used to the low brightness that the Optoma / P1 throws. It's night and day really... I will let you judge for yourself, the picture below is a ~50" image with half the lights left on in my printing area. The picture quality with the lights turned off is fantastic the pictures below also show a ~60" image with the lights off with some daylight / flourescent light streaming in. But where the other pico projectors really failed and the P2 does well is Excel, Word, and webbased presentations. The P2's text, graphics, and chart clarity is very good - good enough to present to 18 people with the lights off (I've done it).

But where the P2 really knocks it out of the park is portability. This projector is battery powered which means no power cords, adapters, etc. Also with its built in file / video viewer I can just load the pictures / videos into the unit, do a quick presentation, without having to bring out the laptop, boot up, and hook up power cords. Oh and also the remote control is a great feature which my Dell does not have.

But before you guys think I am an AAXA groupie or plant let me mention some of the downsides. The battery life is pretty horrible. The Optoma had a 1.5 hour battery life. This thing does 60 minutes on a good day, if I don't charge it overnight I've only gotten 50 minutes before (which means talk fast!) . The fan noise is seriously obscene. It is literally louder than my Mac workstation. The micro SD card is hard to remove. And one of the buttons on the projector sometimes gets stuck - I would actually try to warranty it for this issue if I didn't use the remote all the time. The tripod design is terrible, if you don't angle it just right, the weight of the projector causes it to fall - don't try to throw an image on the ceiling with the tripod as it'll just topple over.

But with those issues aside, the P2 projector is seriously a fantastic business tool - the reviewers that have commented that pico projectors are not designed for business use must not have seen the P2 yet. For those of you like my wife (she's a consultant) that has to travel carrying around a giant 10lbs projector, this projector is definitely for you - as long as you keep in mind that your 10 lbs projector is probably 3000 lumens so you'll need to turn down the lights for just 33 lumens!

I've attached some pictures - please note this is done with my point and shoot camera - the actual projected image is not blurry.

[K-TRON]

Wow, thanks for the review. I hadnt realized projectors were even made that
small.

Do these projectors get any hot, cause of there confined space?

Cool stuff, the prices have come down quite alot over the years I see. I remember when Mitsubishi came out with the first LED projector, it was like $800 and it was supposedly pocket sized.

K-TRON

[centrino321]

NP

Yeah even with the LEDs this projector runs really hot! I was pretty surprised, after an hour of operation the entire unit gets warm. The fan on it is insanely loud so I would imagine it emits a bunch of heat.

[FrankTabletuser]

Strange that it runs that hot and needs such a loud fan.
Modern white LEDs have an efficiency of around 100 Lumen/Watt, whereas single chip LEDs easily have more than 180 Lumen.
With such a LED the projector should only consume 0.5Watt or about 1 Watt.

So either they use older or cheap LEDs or they can't use a single white LED but have to use three LEDs, RGB, to get a better color spectrum.

However, let's wait for the LASER projectors, which will be really small and much more useful.

[centrino321]

Agreed, the loud fan is sort of bother some, not a big deal when doing presentations but a bit annoying when trying to watch a video especially when the projector is right next to your head... I guess there's some tradeoffs for portability!

I actually saw videos of the Microvision laser projector at CES and I was interested in that, but they are saying it is only 10 lumens??

Trust me 10 lumens is basically worthless from a presentation perspective unless you are in complete darkness and willing to put up with a 30" image!

[P2-4ME]

Hey Centrino321,

I work for a television show in Los Angeles, CA. We've been trying to get a hold of an AAXA P2 Pico Projector for a few days now. Unfortunately, it's on a 3 week back order. We were wondering if you'd be willing to rent out yours for a four day period in November. We'd be willing to negotiate compensation for your time and trouble.

Please respond if you are at all interested.

[ViciousXUSMC]

Hey Centrino321,

I work for a television show in Los Angeles, CA. We've been trying to get a hold of an AAXA P2 Pico Projector for a few days now. Unfortunately, it's on a 3 week back order. We were wondering if you'd be willing to rent out yours for a four day period in November. We'd be willing to negotiate compensation for your time and trouble.

Please respond if you are at all interested.

Haha, ok.

That sounds professional, AAXA told me they had units now anyways. Maybe its because I was asking about reviewing it I am not sure.

[centrino321]

P2-4ME - sorry I use it about once a week, so I don't think I can loan mine out. Have you checked with AAXA directly? www.aaxatech.com

I would imagine if it's for a television show they can probably get something for you...

[Needmore4less]

Hi, great review.

I'm interested in this Pico Projector, however I wonder if you can power the projector using a AC adapter, or is it just a battery powered device?

I'll need a projector that I can use for 4 hours straight so battery powered devices are a con for me.

Thank you.

[v3loc1ty2.0]

Nice review,

It's the first positive review i've seen of these projectors so hopefully a good sign - i've been interested in these things but have been dismayed by the horrible reviews. This + a camera based "touch screen" would be pretty sweet (quick! somebody make it!).