In recent months, I’ve been intrigued by the new, very small projectors that are becoming available. Lately I’ve been looking at the P1 Pico Projector, kindly sent to me from AAXA Technologies.

This projector displays pictures and videos on a wall or screen, and it literally fits in a shirt pocket. At a mere 6 ounces, it’s definitely an easy item to carry around. And it runs quietly and coolly – its 6 lumen LED lamp is not as bright as full-size image projectors, but also avoids the loud fans and heat generation that come with those larger units.

You connect your Zune or other media player to the projector using a male-male headphone jack cable. Video output is provided through the TV-out feature. Older Zune flash players don’t have TV-out capability, but your Zune 30GB (first generation), Zune 80 or 120GB, and your Zune HD will all output to the projector.

The 12 lumen lamp projects a decent beam for such a small device, and you can in fact watch your pictures or videos passably in a partially-lighted room. Your viewing experience improves with a darkened room; you can back the projector up to display up to a five-foot-wide image on your wall, although a 15 to 30-inch diagonal projection size is recommended.

Here are some shots of the display at a size of about 24 inches:

At larger sizes, you need to darken the room for a better viewing experience. I could project a reasonable four-foot-diagonal image in a darkened room. Pretty impressive to me, for a handheld, battery-operated projector.

The projector displays the images or videos in 640×480 resolution, and in a 4:3 aspect ratio. A focus lever can be used to manually focus the lens to match your distance from the wall or screen.

The projector has a built-in Lithium-ion rechargeable battery – a thoughtful feature that enhances the Pico’s portability. It enables you to use it in a variety of settings, such as on a plane (I’ve tried that with some success) and in other places where a plug-in is not possible or convenient. You’ll get an hour of video display out of a fully-charged battery.

It also comes with 1GB of built-in memory, and slot for a Micro-SD card. You access the on-board memory by connecting a mini-USB cable from the projector to your PC; the projector appears as an external drive that you can drag files to. You can store music and videos right onboard, or on an SD card… and display them from the projector without a Zune or other device connected. The P1 Pico has controls to for navigating to the file of your choice, and providing play/pause/fast forward/reverse functionality as well as volume controls. It supports JPEG, GIF, and BMP pictures. For videos, it’s compatible with AVI, MPEG1, and other formats in 640×480 resolution.

The only other thing you could want in an ultraportable device is sound, and the P1 Pico provides this through its tiny built-in speakers. For a fuller sound, I’d recommend connecting the Pico to an external sound system with the headphone jack.

Here’s a 360-degree view of the AAXA P1 Pico projector:

I recently took the Pico on a cross-country trip, and I must admit it was fun projecting a movie from my Zune onto the seatback in front of me, on the flight out.

With the Pico Projector you get an AC adapter, an RCA adapter for video and audio input, and a comprehensive instruction manual.

At $219, the P1 Pico is a fraction of the price of full-size projectors. And, while it cannot certainly can’t match the brightness of a full-size image projector, it’s a compelling gadget if portability is a priority for you.

You can see more about the P1 Pico at the AAXA website.

Tags: Aaxa P1 Pico projector