Earlier this year we had a look at the decidedly diminuitive AAXA P1 Jr. pico projector. That thing was really tiny, but it only pumped out ten lumens of brightness. That might be good enough for some circumstances, but there are other situations where you want more brightness without having to lug around a full-size projector.

That’s where the AAXA P4 pico projector can come into focus (terrible pun intended). It really isn’t that much bigger, but it packs quite a bit more of a wallop when it comes to what a little pico projector can do.

Features and Specs

The AAXA P4 is being touted as the world’s brightest battery-powered pico projector. There may be brighter, but they need external power sources. In the case of the P4, you get an impressive 80 lumen LED light engine to go along with that DLP projector. This gives you up to an 80-inch image, which is easily big enough for most boardrooms.

You get “vibrant color technology” with 15,000 LEDs, as well as the 75+ minute battery, integrated media player, and Windows CE Embedded. That last point is particularly important, because it means that you can run PowerPoint presentations and use other Windows CE apps without having to connect to a separate computer. The 2GB of internal memory is useful in that regard too, but there is a microSD slot in the front, as well as both a USB and micro-USB port in the back. Naturally, this pico projector will take external inputs too, including VGA and composite (via the provided adapters).

What’s In the Box?

Opening up the box, you find just about everything that you need to get started. There’s the pico projector itself, of course, as well as a wireless remote, mini-tripod, composite adapter cable, VGA adapter cable, and mini-USB to USB adapter cable. Not shown is the power cable, but that’s included too.

Optionally, you can add the Rii mini Bluetooth keyboard, which certainly comes in handy when you are navigating your way through Windows CE Embedded. Indeed, some form of wired or wireless keyboard (and mouse) becomes necessary if you want to dig into the true Windows environment of this pocket-sized device.

Is It Really That Bright?

In short, yes. The most common complaint about pico projectors is that they are not powerful enough for everyday use. While this certainly won’t hold a candle up to many of the full-sized projectors out there, it more than easily handles itself even in less than ideal conditions. The colors are reasonably saturated, the contrast is quite good, and the brightness allows you to project videos, slideshows, and presentations in rooms where there is still some ambient light.

You can see a brief demo in this YouTube video I shot in a restaurant. It was the middle of the day and the restaurant was reasonably well-lit, but the image still came through clear. Yes, it does appear to be a little washed out, but that’s to be expected and even full-size projectors would have that kind of effect in that kind of environment.

It is possible to go brighter with something like the AAXA M2 Micro Projector, but that is not as small and it requires an external power source. The sheer versatility and portability of the P4, coupled with its higher level of performance, make it a valuable tool for executives on the go.

User Interface

The home menu on the P4 consists of six icons: video, picture, music, source, setup, and desktop. These are easily navigated using the controls on the projector itself or via the provided IR remote. The desktop is how you get full access to Windows CE; getting back to this home menu is a shortcut on the Windows desktop.

This is all very easy to understand and I found the interface to be reasonably responsive. Switching to the different sources — if you wanted to connect a game console, DVD player, or notebook PC for instance — is also easy enough. The interface for playing actual media files felt a little sluggish at times, though, but getting through the menus was fine.

Loading Up and Playing Media Files

One level deeper within video, picture or music from the main menu, you’ll find the ability to choose the source of your files. This includes the internal memory, the microSD slot, and the USB port. Putting files on the internal memory is done with a microUSB cable and the P4 will appear as an external drive on your computer.

Theoretically, you should be able to access the files on a USB drive, but I had trouble with this and it did not appear to work for me. I followed the instructions in the user guide and created the specified folders, but that didn’t work either. My hope is that this is either an early production unit or there is a firmware update that can rectify this, as having on-the-fly USB media access is huge for a portable device like this.

Conclusion

The on-board fan can be noisier than I would have liked. The one-watt speaker is quieter than I would have liked. Even so, I can’t help but to love this little AAXA P4 pico projector. The portable package is convenient and the 75+ minute battery should be able to last you though most presentations. It would be nice if you could charge via USB, rather than being forced to use the regular wall plug though.

It’s not the cheapest thing in the world with an MSRP of $399 (currently on sale for $339), but it’s not terribly expensive either. The Windows CE environment is versatile, the various inputs give you flexibility, and the built-in media player is a definite bonus. The 80 lumen LED light engine doesn’t hurt either.

[Aaxa Tech]

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There may be other pico projectors that are brighter, but they’d require an external power source. With the P4 from AAXA, you can do it off a battery and have your PowerPoint presentation ready to go anywhere you are. Just bring along the laptop.

The AAXA P4 Pico Projector is powered by a 750MHz Windows CE mobile processor, but how bright is bright? Well, it gets an 80 lumen high-contrast optical engine by way of Texas Instruments’ DLP. This works in tandem with AAXA’s Vibrant Color tech, utilizing 15,000 hour LEDs and an image of up to 80-inches (but only in low light conditions).

Rounding out the specs are 2GB memory, included tripod, 1280×800 VGA input, microSD slot, composite video input, 1-watt speaker, 3.5mm headphone jack, 720p video support, and support for 3rd party apps like Office Mobile, Adobe PDF viewer, and other Windows CE apps. The rechargeable lithium-ion battery is good for 75+ minutes. MSRP is set at $399, but that’s been reduced to $339 for current pre-orders.

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Pico projector’s are relatively new to consumers. They haven’t gained a widespread adoption yet, simply because not many people can imagine the possibilities of carrying one around. At nearly anytime and anyplace you can pull up a 50″ screen on a wall and begin presenting, displaying or projecting a video.

This is not going to replace your LCD TV, nor will it replace your full-sized projector. This will go along in that ever-shrinking gadget bag of yours, giving you an enhanced sense of mobility and that cutting edge ability of blasting a film on the wall at any time.

We’re only months away from these devices becoming integrated within many mobile phones, tablets, and other devices. We saw camcorders packing pico projectors at CES, we also saw the reference design for a new type of pico projector, the MicroVision PicoP laser display. These devices in essence are evolutions of the Aaxa P1 Junior.

Hardware
The Aaxa Technologies P1 Jr. is very small and lightweight. Aaaxa says it’s the world’s smallest LCOS pico projector with onboard MP4 player, and that’s not hard to believe.

Inside is a 10 ANSI Lumen LED bulb. It’s life is approximately 15,000 hours, which is quite typical for LED. It’s capable of projecting an image from 10-50-inches, has a manual focusing lens, a 1 Watt speaker, 5V, 2000 mAh battery giving 1 hour of use, Mini USB port, SD Card slot, measures 105mm x 56mm x 20mm and weighs just 126g. Inside the box is a composite A/V cable for outputting video from your mobile device, iPad or iPhone (adapter required), DVD player, PSP, or what have you, as well as USB cable, charger, and a small tripod.

It feels solid enough to not feel like a complete toy, but at $110 what do you want? The fan is a bit noisy but it is there to keeps things cool and since it’s LED, you have instant-on and off capabilities.  The fan is situated on top and the speaker on the bottom. Sound from the speaker is audible, I wouldn’t say it is “good” either. If the speaker was perhaps placed on top and the fan on the bottom it may have made for a better sound. The manufacturer rates it at .5 watts, I opened it up and discovered it was a 1 watt speaker. Not a huge difference, but it’s probably better than a .5 watt.

Connection via Mini-USB does not charge. This was a disappointing fact that I could not have it run off my laptop power, or a small power pack via USB. The battery must be charged off the 5V power adapter and it takes 3-4 hours to get 1 hour and it’s just another thing to carry along.

The button and controls are small and relatively easy to use so long as you don’t have bear paw hands. The D-Pad style control gave me some difficulty, I suspect it was software lag rather than hardware because moving it in the direction I want was no problem at all.

Software
The Aaxatech software is fairly decent but could use some improvement. I had issues with file formats in playing video, as well as displaying very large images from my DSLR but that was my fault. Keep in mind this is a Pico Projector, video resolutions and image sizes will have to be smaller than we are used to seeing on a desktop; think mobile phone size. NTSC and PAL are supported at resolutions up to 720×480. Video compression is a bit nitpicky, and has to be DivX; XViD; MPEG-2; MPEG-4 or AVI; MP4; MPG; 3GP; RMVB; RM; VOB; DAT. It also plays MP3 compressed with AAC, MPEG2 or MPEG4. JPG images are only supported.

Playing videos was good. Although pausing, fast forwarding and things like that were not the greatest. Sometimes crashing the video app or just not responding at all. This could have been due to the file size I was using as smaller files seemed to respond fairly well.

Image Quality
This thing is tiny, it’s only 10 lumens too, so keep that in mind. The image it projects is somewhat pixelated and has good contrast. It is definitely watchable and in a dark room you can enjoy a nicely sized screen on any brightly painted wall. The larger you go the more pixels you will notice, also the farther you go obviously the picture will be darker. The optimal size I found was around 30 to 35-inches for a not so pixelated look with a decent amount brightness in a semi-dark room. If there is too much light in the room it will of course looked washed out. That also depends on the quality of the source video or images you are playing.

Bottom Line
I really liked the SD card support – being able to just pull up videos and images on the card was easy and convenient. I think battery life needs to be improved as well as sound quality but a worthy sacrifice for ultimate portability and convenience and on par with other pico projectors out there. Not able to charge via USB was the biggest downfall. At $110 you won’t find any 10 lumen LED projector better than this.

Special for our readers: If you wan’t to go a bit brighter, but still stay portable, Aaxa has two specials on right now for our readers if they buy the M1 or M2. The P1 Jr. is already discounted.

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