Home Movie Projector

Pico projectors maybe the next big buzzword in the gadget world but not all of us are going to afford such luxuries in the coming months. That said, if you ever wish to have a portable projector at a reasonable cost, then Geniesys has one just for you.

Mini Projection Wonder

This “carry it anywhere” projector is no larger than an A5 size book with the thickness of Tolstoy’s War & Peace. If you are wondering why the name Geniesys sounds so familiar, well wonder no more.  The Geniesys Optimax II is an upgrade from the Geniesys OptiMax I— one of the first few dedicated projection systems designed exclusively for the iPod and iPhone.

The OptiMax II uses micro-LED projection and supports a native resolution of 557 x 234 pixels. In simple English, it is able to project video up to a size of a 32 inch TV screen. Geniesys claims it can project up to 110 inches of video but at that size, output quality would be pretty hard on the eyes. Picture quality isn’t bad as it gives a decent image but only in pure darkness. Use it with your lights on and you’ll probably be straining to see the projected image.

Ports Galore

 

The nice thing about it is that on the side of the OptiMax II are two ports, one for composite video output and the other a composite video input. I saw no reason to test the composite video output but the video/audio input is probably what you’d all want if you don’t have an iPod to plug it in. The Optimax II comes with a three port composite A/V adaptor cable that works well with the Nokia N95 as well as Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. You can shoot video on the N95 and have it projected using the supplied Nokia cables. Quality of the output is a little lower but as long as you’re not expecting HD video, it’s really quite acceptable. LED burn rate is at 30,000 hours but that’s still quite a lot.

The Optimax II is endowed with iPod/iPhone charging and music output capabilities as well. The switch on top of the projector allows you to toggle between video and audio mode. Switching to audio mode allows you to listen to your iPod through its Real Sound Reproduction "RSR" Super Titanium Speakers. These speakers will give any JBL or Altec Lansing music dock a run for its money.

There are no contrast or color controls so video wise, what you see is what you get. The device also comes with a remote control so that you can control your video or music from a distance. Aside from the obvious, you can pretty much connect anything to stream video via WiFi and have it projected onto the screen. I tested this out with the 5800 XpressMusic through the France 24 WiFi streaming news service and it worked without a hitch. That said if you have any video streaming application residing in a portable device, you can pretty much project it as well. You can even plug in a SDHC media player if you wish as the usage is limitless.


Bang for your buck

Now we all know that the iPod and iPhone have no video-out port unless you buy an Apple Universal Dock with composite A/V cable. These will probably set you back about USD100 if bought on its own and it obviously does not include a projector The Optimax II is listed as USD245 (which is around RM840+) and for that amount, I think it is a bargain as it is an all in one without any need for extra cables.