The World's Brightest Pico Projector Still Isn't Bright Enough [Pico]

By Andrew Liszewski Oct 15, 2011 3:00 PM 9,751 10

We love the idea of carrying a compact device that turns any bare wall into a movie theater. Like the makers of pico projectors have been promising us for years. But even with an impressive 80 lumens of brightness, the P4 still has a long way to go before we really get excited.

In the world of pico projectors, 80 lumens with a 2,000:1 contrast ratio is as bright as you can buy right now. Using Texas Instruments DLP LED technology the P4 can project an image up to 80 inches in size on a wall. But outside of a seedily dark room, that image is very probably going to be washed out. It just won't compare to your standard projector that usually boast lumens in the 2 to 3,000 range (you can't fit those in your shirt pocket though).

Composite and VGA video hookups, and a max resolution of 1,280x768, allow you feed the P4 a 720P video signal from a laptop or media player. While two gigs of onbard storage and a microSD card slot can also be used for natively playing media files directly from the projector. Unfortunately, the other area where pico projectors aren't quite ready for primetime is their battery life. The P4's rechargeable lithium-ion battery is only good for about seventy five minutes, well short of your typical Hollywood feature. And since it uses LEDs instead of lasers, you're going to be constantly refocusing the image every time you move it. On the plus side the prices of picos continue to drop, with the P4 pre-order going for a mere $339. [AAXA P4]

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LED Lenser X21 Flashlight Lightning Review: Really, Really, Really Bright [Flashlights]

Maglite's 4 D-cell flashlight spits out around 120 lumens of brightness. The mammoth LED Lenser X21 shoots out 1,200. It's blindingly bright. It lights up entire rooms on its own. It will hurt your eyes. A lot.

Why do you buy a flashlight? To light things up. The X21 is almost too bright. It's extremely visible even in a well-lit room, or outside—photos do it no justice. And because it uses electricity-friendly LEDs, it can beam brilliantly for a long, long time—at its max power mode, we've far surpassed LED Lenser's advertised 2.5 hours. We'll take their word on the 25 hours of 225-lumen low power mode. The thing's also brutally substantial; if you want a flashlight you can drop repeatedly and also bludgeon someone to death with, this is tops.

The X21's very heavy: 3.25 pounds. This might wear on your wrist if you had to use it for extended periods. But the X21's only real design flaw is the stubborn push motion required to switch the light's lens and mirror mechanism between a focused and diffuse beam. A twisting control would have been much better, or something that didn't require jerky motions.

This is the ultimate emergency flashlight. For reading, it's overkill. But for power outages, wilderness wanderings, or anything dark that needs to be bright as a trillion dollar casino, the X21 is a stellar pick.

LED Lenser X21
Price: $450
Brightness: 1200 Lumens
Weight: 52.49 oz
Battery: 4 x D cells
Length: 15.55-inches
LED Lenser
You can keep up with Sam Biddle, the author of this post, on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+. Related Stories

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Nikon's First Rugged Cam (!), Super Bright Projector Mutant Camera and Pro Point-and-Shoot [Cameras]

So Nikon announced about a million new cameras today, including its first go-anywhere, do-whatever-the-hell-you-want-to-it point and shoot. It's like when Gizmo eats after midnight, except with Nikon cameras instead gremlins. Here's a quick rundown on each of them.

AW100
The AW100 is Nikon's first rugged point and shoot. Since we're pretty well behind all-rugged-everything, that's great to see. But what the hell took so long? Anyway, the AW100 is shockproof, waterproof (to 33 feet), and freeze-proof (whatever that means?). It packs a 16.1MP BSI CMOS sensor and has built-in GPS and internal mapping functions, like a travelogue to view your path. So you can use this thing to go snowboarding way out in the middle of nowhere, or like, search for Amelia Earhart.

Our current favorite rugged camera is Panasonic's Lumix TS3, but we we're crossing our fingers that the AW100 will jump into the lead. Its specs look great, and we've been waiting for a rugged cam from Nikon for too long for it to not be awesome. $430 in September.

P7100
If the P7100 looks familiar, it's probably because it's a gussied up P7000, with essentially just a 3-inch LCD and a new dial separating the two. But that's not really a bad thing, since the P7000 was a pro-worthy camera, with pretty stunning low light performance for a point and shoot. $500 in September.

S1200pj
Well if we're going to be shoving projectors into just about everything, why not our point and shoots? The S1200pj connects to either your computer or your iPad/Pod/Phone, can pull media from local storage or from online, and is 40 percent brighter than its predecessor. Nikon thinks you're going to use it to play 720p movies in your living room, but, umm, I'm pretty sure even college kids have too much dignity to resort to that. $430 in September.

S8200
The S8200 is the option for if you want a solid point and shoot, but don't want to drop $500 on the P7100. It's got decent video capabilities—1080p at 15, 60 and 120fps—and a 16.1MP sensor with optical zoom, but won't handle low light nearly as admirably as its big brother. $330 in September.

S100
The S100 has a sort-of-huge 3.5-inch, 820,000-dot OLED screen and a 5x optical zoom, which should probably make it the ultimate 2AM-in-a-bar, self-plus-one-shot camera. $300 in September.

S6200
There's not a whole lot to say about the S6200. It's got a 10x optical zoom, which is nice, but aside from that its features are a little, shall we say, dated? (Shoot in black and white! And sepia!) Still, it's got decent enough specs, and it's the least expensive of the bunch. $230 in September.

You can keep up with Kyle Wagner, the author of this post, on Twitter and sort of Google+.

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