Back from CES 2010

I'm back from my first CES experience, and my first ever look at pico projectors of any kind. I saw the projectors of Microvision, Optoma, LBO, LG, and Samsung. Before I tell you about them, you need to know that I am human, I make mistakes, I'm writing this from memory, and I didn't take the most detailed look at each projector. So do not go through these words with a microscope. There are errors, I'm sure of it.

CES was huge, easily the largest event I've ever attended in my life. Was good I had a narrow list of things I wanted to see because it took me an hour to find each company and I only had one day to see them.

A couple of interesting things happened to me when looking at the projectors. I've been following this company for years now and have only seen things from videos. I'm glad I went because I had to rein in my expectations and base them in reality. If I can communicate one thing to you in this post, it is this: pico projectors are not home theaters.

So when we talk about brightness, colors, and such, it is pointless to compare them to full-featured projectors. And I can say, that I knew this already, but it didn't sink in until I finally saw them for myself.

Not having seen one ever, and reading so much about how awesome they are all this years probably gave me false, higher hopes than I should have had. But alas, all is not lost.

I arrived at the Microvision booth first. I first saw the SHOW WX under the indoor lighting conditions, and it was pretty good. I then went into the dark room and got the big viewing experience. It is definitely much better there, and you can project some massive sized images, but the rub is, it's not movie theater brightness. However, that the catch also is, movie theater projectors don't fit in your pocket! That's the key to understanding the pico projection market. This is not about producing a device that exceeds every projection spec possible, it isn't going to happen. It's about mobile projection, pulling a device out of your pocket and viewing images with your friends in that moment.

Regarding the speckle. Hearing about it over the years made me cautious. And I came to find that it didn't really bother me that much. However I was surprised that I could detect what the scanned lines. And I wondered if actually people were confusing that with speckle. I don't know. It did bug a bit, but it's more noticeable on still images and for videos it's much less noticeable. I also found that with speckle or the scan lines, that if you just relaxed or if you didn't go looking for it, your eyes could come to ignore it. It could also be a personal thing.

I was also able to see the infamous green line. Here I felt this problem has been blown out of proportion. It was only viewable in certain circumstances. I only saw it because I knew to look for it, I would not have noticed it otherwise. I think the only folks that are going to see it are those with home theater expectations. And let me repeat, since it is the biggest point I want to make, pico projectors are not home theaters. The SHOW WX is going to be about mobile displays. It's about bumping into your friends in the hall and showing them a funny kitten video you saw on YouTube, right then and there. And I guarantee no one in that scenario is going to be troubled by speckle, green lines, scan lines or any such defect.

Another thing to keep in mind, that all things in life have strengths AND weaknesses. This is a fact and there is no way around it. I'm giving an honest assessment here, trying to stay objective and not just covering the strengths only. But before I go into the strengths, let me talk a bit about what I saw from the competitors.

I got to play with the LBO. It's an interesting device that lets you interact with the projected image. Type, play simple video games, file browse images. It looks like it will be limited to table or wall mounted projection. I asked about green laser availability and he said they can use the common green laser available today because their engine is holographic(not sure what that means). They did have a demo of it being used as a projector though, but it was in a display case. The case was about 2 feet long and it was inside projecting an image about 1 x 1 foot. If I recall correctly, it had a label that said "Focus Free". I was dismayed at first but then I started to wonder, why is it being displayed in a case, in the corner of the room, where no one can touch or move it? I had assume then that it may not work as a mobile device for some reason, perhaps it was tethered to a computer, power supply, or just some other reason that I couldn't figure out. I think that if it could have been used as a mobile device, then they would have showcased it that way. But they didn't.

Optoma. I could easily see the corners were darkened. And their projections from indoor lighting conditions were not as bright. I got to experience it in the dark room and it looked much better. It was an animation movie, which I think makes all projectors seem impressive though. The model in the dark room also had features, like memory and file viewers for things like Excel and Powerpoint. I think he said it was $395.

I then got to see more Optomas, an LG, and a Samsung all together. The first thing I noticed was the Optomas and the LG were very, very warm and the Samsung was not. I asked about the heat and he said they've been running for 48 hours(plugged into a power supply) and the Samsung hasn't been on as long. He said they are all using the same chip. So I would assume the Samsung would also have the heating problem.

The Samsung looked impressive because it appeared to be a full-featured phone. I forgot to confirm if it really was a phone and not a projector in a case that looks like a phone. The rep said it was a prototype and not available anywhere. It was very slim. I think the resolution was lower, again though, I'm not an expert and this is all from memory.

When I played with the LG, the thing that would bug me(aside from the obvious hump) is the focus slider. The slider had a lot of friction and was troublesome to fiddle with. That's when it hit me, of course, infinite focus!

And that is where the SHOW WX really shines. All of the mobile projectors I played with required focusing. And I knew that already too, but I knew it intellectually, in my head only. It's not until you play with these things and get the real user experience that the SHOW WX really starts to make sense. When you take its weaknesses, (speckle, lines, and such), does it matter to the mobile user? Nope. When you take the weakness of the other projectors, like the focusing, does it matter to the mobile user? Yes, it's a big deal.

The strengths of the SHOW WX are about mobile projection. Mobile users aren't in dark rooms, they are out and about moving around, they want a bright display. They want infinite focus. They need low power consumption.

... more tomorrow.