This past Christmas my kids wanted portable projectors. I knew nothing about them so I immediately checked out Amazon.com. Initially I saw a bunch of them under $100. There are so many off brands it is overwhelming. Anyways, I read reviews and tried to discern real ones from maybe not so real ones. I quickly educated myself and decided what I was looking for.
From the reviews, here is what I concluded I wanted. I wanted the following features on the portable projectors:
- Wifi wireless – some reviewers liked their purchases but wished it was wireless both to the network and to the Iphone/android phones.
- Battery powered rechargeable – why have a portable projector if my kids have to plug it in
- Bright enough lumens to use in a lit room – I actually thought the one the one I purchased would require a dark room to work well, but it works really well in a moderately lit room. I was shocked. The 350 version description says it is 150 lumens.
- Built in speakers – the built in speakers are very good for watching movies in my opinion. We did not need to use additional speakers. I wear hearing aids and I could hear perfectly.
During my search, I decided I was going to spend a few extra bucks to buy something of quality. When I first started browsing, I thought….great I can get one for about $100 or so and almost settled for one at $150. After reading reviews, I decided not to skimp on quality and features. Ok…so to save you the hours and hours I spent trying to figure out what I wanted and then to figure out a quality product, here is what I bought. I actually bought two of them.
In addition to my criteria above, the projectors I bought allow my kids to use our Netflix and I am guessing our Amazon Prime Video as well. I have not tested Hulu but I think this will not be an issue as their is a great interface. I have read that screen mirroring to watch copyright videos like on Netflix may not work, but I did not test this and it was not an issue for us as my kids connected directly to Netflix.
We have not tried to connect the Iphones wirelessly through WIFI or Bluetooth yet. We have used a lighting to HDMI adapter (Apple brand) and it worked well to connect to our iPhones to project photos. Connecting the projectors to our wireless network was easy though.
Anyways, I bought two Kodak 350 projectors on Amazon. This is the 350 (w/150 lumens) version not the 150 (w/50 lumens) version. Do your own browsing if you want. I am extremely pleased with this portable projector and so our my kids. Here is the link to the 350 version on Amazon.