What you need to know about pico projectors

Posted: 27th Jan 2012

Now that smartphones and tablets are capable of smooth 1080p video playback and handling complex office documents, as well as a laptop, the only thing holding them back is the size of the screen.

Wouldn’t it be great, for example, if your phone remained pocket sized and portable, but could also double up as a cinema like display when you want it?

That’s what’s on offer with the latest generation of pico-projectors: tiny projectors that use LED bulbs to throw big, bright images from a device the size of a matchbox.

The name pico comes from the Italian ‘piccolo’ and means ‘small’, and these little boxes of wonder have been popular with business and sales personnel for a few years now, because of their extreme portability.

Up until now, however, most pico-projectors have required an HDMI input to work. This year, we’re going to see a lot more which are compatible with smartphones like Apple’s iPhone that don’t have a native HDMI port.

Inside a pico-projector, the technology is very similar to normal projectors, using either DPL or LCD chips to create the image. A third type of pico-projector uses lasers to ‘write’ the picture one pixel at a time, although these are less common.

The future, however, has a large role set aside for pico-projectors. Combined with a mobile device’s on-board camera, with the right motion tracking software they have the ability to turn any surface into a giant touchscreen. As prices come down, expect this idea to become more common.