Tiny projectors might be the next step in portable displays, but until their manufacturers figure out how to embed them into one of the popular media players, it looks like they’ll test out the market through stand-alone players.
The first one of these to come out (by late ’08 in Asia and early '09 in the U.S.) might be the DLP-chipset enhanced Pico projector from Optoma, since they'll be the first to put their unit on the line at this month's InfoComm 2008. The company joins other Pico makers Microvision and Explay in trying to establish the new category as a must-have.
The LCD projection will go up to 100 times the size of the tiny screens, without losing much detail. From our own testing of a prototype at CES, we're still skeptical about the color distribution -- the first try was too saturated in color and slightly blurry for it to be used for anything more than a few minutes.
It also lacks a definite physical feature, which means it could pass for many different things (like a tiny gun cartridge), and will surely be detained by the kind folks of Homeland Security at the airport.
But the Picos are not upon us quite yet, so you're going to have to wait to project your inappropriate videos on the unsuspecting public for a bit longer.
