BenQ’s Mini Projector is Mighty
When it comes to projectors, small is the new big thing. While BenQ‘s (s benq) new Joybee GP1 Mini Projector isn’t as small as some of the pocket-sized projectors we’ve seen recently, it’s definitely tiny enough to be considered portable. And perhaps, more importantly, what you give up in size, you get back in performance: The Joybee GP1 proved quite powerful considering its footprint.
The $500 Joybee GP1 looks like a small, square alarm clock. When compared with Optoma’s $400 Pico Projector
, which is about the same size as a cell phone and can easily slip into a pocket, the Joybee looks huge. But, it weighs just 1.4 pounds, significantly less than a typical projector, where 6 pounds is considered to be “ultra-portable.”
The Joybee GP1 will project an image that ranges from 14 to 80 inches in size, and it packs some pretty sophisticated components when you consider its small size. You get a lamp with a rating of 100 lumens, a noticeable improvement over the 10 lumens lamp that the Optoma projector includes. (A typical desktop projector would have a lamp with a rating of about 2000 lumens.) The Joybee GP1 also bumps the native resolution up to 858 by 600, also a noticeable jump from the Optoma’s 480 by 320 resolution.