By Chris Scott Barr

With St. Patrick’s Day gone, you might see a little less talk about leprechauns and rainbows, however, that doesn’t mean you can’t search for your own pot of gold in your house. Sure, you can make a rainbow by positioning light just perfectly over a mist of water, but who wants to go through that hassle? Instead, you can buy one of these Rainbow In My Room projectors.

The projector is aimed to be a cute nightlight for kids, which projects a rainbow throughout their room. Sadly, it doesn’t make a real rainbow of sorts, since those require water (and leprechauns). Still, if your child likes rainbows and wants a night light, you could do a lot worse for $23.

[ Amazon ] VIA [ GeekAlerts ]

There’s some kind of threshold that electronics with a high cool factor but questionable usefulness have to cross in order for them to be worth buying, and this Sanwa pico projector is awfully close at $120. I can’t figure out how many lumens it is (safe to assume not many), and it only pushes out VGA (640 x 480), but it does take both data and power over USB, which is nice, and includes an assuredly crappy speaker. It weighs 85 grams and comes with a lil’ tripod, too. So yeah, it’s a pretty “meh” little thing (not nearly as fancy as the one from AAXA that we reviewed last year), but it may be cheap enough to justify your first foray into pico projecting.

[ Amazon ] VIA [ PicoProjector.info ]

By Evan Ackerman

This may be a glorified Epson projector commercial, but that doesn’t make it any less awesome. This guy strapped an Epson EH-TW450 projector to his chest along with a PS3 and what I can only assume is about 50 pounds of batteries and walked around London at night playing video games on walls, streets, and people. He also put on a helmet and goggles and pads, which while not strictly necessary, lent the whole outfit an “I’m from the future” type of feel.

The projector itself is outputting 720p video at 2500 lumens with a contrast ratio of 3000:1, and it appears to look halfway decent on the sides of buildings, which is rather impressive. The Epson EH-TW450 will set you back about a thousand bucks, but Epson hasn’t yet committed on the rest of the suit.

[ Epson Europe ] VIA [ Register Hardware ]

By Evan Ackerman

Calling this gadget a “mobile cinema” might be doing it a favor, but it does incorporate a DVD player, some speakers, and a small projector. So I suppose technically, it is what it claims to be. But only just barely… You’ve got two 1-watt speakers and a 13 lumen, 480 x 240 pixel image. I mean, this cell phone has a better projector inside it, and the crappiest projector ever is less crappy than this one. Maybe if it ran on batteries, or included some inputs, or even a USB port so that you could use it as an external DVD drive or something… But no, all you get is a microphone jack so that you can use it for karaoke. Karaoke.

KARAOKE.

Alright, there is one reason you should get this: for your kids. They will appreciate the cartoonish buttons and focusing handle, and when they inevitably break this projector (or it commits electronic suicide after one too many viewings of Happy Scrappy Hero Pup), you won’t have to feel too badly since you only blew $260 on it.

[ Firebox UK ] VIA [ RGS ]

By David Ponce

While we’ve seen our fair share of projectors for the iPhone, all of them work by taking the device’s video feed, amplifying it and projecting it onto a surface. Not so for the HypnosEye. It simply uses a lens and a mirror to project images from your iPhone’s (or iPod touch, we suppose) screen directly to a projection screen. No amplification.

rather than use an ordinary mirror which would result in an unclear image, HypnosEye has implemented a special mirror with a reflection agent on top of the glass surface (rather than behind). As a result, you can show media from your portable device almost anywhere at anytime.

For the full specs, price and a video, keep reading.

Here’s a list of the device’s full “specs”:

Portable wireless projector with screen and stand

Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, mobile phones etc

Projection distance: 0.5-2m

Projection area: from 17-45″ (43-114cm)

Projection focus is adjustable

Material: Polycarbonate (screen) + ABS (stand)

Screen size: 250 x 360 x 1mm (9.8 x 14.2 x 0.04″)

Stand size: 70 x 40 x 25mm (2.8 x 1.6 x 1.0″)

Weight: 80g (screen), 400g (projector and stand).

Manual: Japanese

It’s all of $80 plus $30 for worldwide shipping.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ Technabob ]

By Chris Scott Barr

I’ve heard a lot of talk about pico projectors and such, and how they would be a great addition to cell phones. The thought of one showing up in a digital camera never really crossed my mind. The people over at Nikon have obviously been mulling it over, since they have just announced their new Coolpiz S1000pj with a built-in projector.

I’m really not sure what I think of this thing, after all, it seems like a projector would be wasted on a camera. Sure, you can show off the pictures that you’ve just taken, but who really gets that excited about looking at pictures that they just got done taking?

The LCOS projector is rated at 10 lumens and has a 30:1 contrast ratio. It can be set anywhere from 10 inches to 6.5 feet away from the wall you’re projecting upon. This will create a picture that is between 5 and 40 inches high. Aside from the included projector, you’ve got your standard 12MP point-and-shoot camera with a 5x optical zoom. It does have a neat feature that detects motion, and adjusts the shutter speed and ISO to compensate. Look for this out in mid-November for $429.

[ Nikon ] VIA [ Crave ]

By Chris Scott Barr

iPhones and iPods can be great for watching videos, but only if a single person is trying to view them. However, if you’re wanting to show something to a group of people, you’re not going to want them to crowd around your tiny screen are you? Well later this year you’ll be able to pull out a small accessory that will make your videos large enough to be viewed by all.

The Mili Pro LED projector is a cool little dock for your iPhone or iPod Touch. Just slide your iPhone into place and it will project an image roughly equivalent to a 40-inch TV. The picture will be displayed at 640 x 480, which isn’t going blow your mind with its clarity, but it will get the job done. Having something this small that hooks up to your iPhone/iPod Touch (or any other device using VGA or RGA connectors) would certainly be appealing for the business types giving presentations, or anyone else just wanting to show off video on a bigger scale. Look for this in September for around $300.

[ PhoneSuit ] VIA [ Dvice ]

While the iPhone and iPod Touch are pretty good for watching movies by yourself, what about those times when you want to share? Having a group of people huddled around that relatively small screen can be pretty awkward, so this mini projector dock from Honlai Technology seems like a good alternative, at first glance at least. While it’s quite a bit larger than the official iPhone/iPod Touch USB dock, when compared to other video projectors it’s downright tiny. But that compact size does cost you when it comes to image quality.

While the 640×480 image resolution is understandable, the ANSI brightness rating is a less-than-stellar 10-15 lumens, and you’re looking at a contrast ratio of just 200:1. So while it’s able to project an image that’s roughly 15 to 27 inches in size, don’t expect a similar visual experience as you get from your local digitally-equipped movie theater. The dock also features a mini AV jack allowing you to connect other devices as well as a set of 2W speakers for stereo sound. Unfortunately I have no idea if this thing is currently available, when it might be available, or what it will cost.

[ QingBar MP101 Mini Projector Dock ] VIA [ GadgetGrid ]

Tiny, ultra-portable projectors might be grabbing most of the attention these days, but what you gain in portability, you lose in image quality and brightness. So if you’re instead looking for a top-of-the-line model for your dream home theater, you can go ahead and add the Meridian 810 to your wish list. It’s the type of projector you need to plan and make room for, but with a resolution of 4096 x 2400 (or 10 megapixels) I think it’s definitely worth converting that spare bedroom into a dedicated projector room. The 810 uses specially calibrated light engine panels from JVC along with a 4000 lumen lamp to project an image on a screen up to 25 feet wide without any visible pixelation. And since most home theater enthusiasts only have access to 1920 x 1080 HD source material, the Meridian 810 uses four 1080p scalers working together to up-res anything from 480i to 1080p up to its full 10MP resolution. In fact I can’t really see a downside to Meridian’s latest offering, unless you have a problem dropping $185,000 on a projector. (Hmm… new house or new projector… new house or new projector…)

[ Meridian ] VIA [ Gizmodo ]

If you’re a home theater snob who only considers projectors from companies like Christie or Barco worthy of your time, then please move on. But if you’re a financially restricted gaming enthusiast who would like to play on something bigger than the 19″ CRT in your living room, this might be of interest. The Olens XPJ projector doesn’t pretend to be the top of the line in any department, but with a price tag of just $279 there’s no way it can be. It has a resolution of just 640×480, so you won’t be playing anything in HD, but depending on how far you place the projector from a wall or screen you can get an image that’s anywhere between 40 to 70 inches in size. Apparently if you try and push it larger than 70 inches, the image starts to noticeably degrade.

The XPJ uses a proprietary 270 watt lamp which is rated for about 300 hours. For some reason the Olens Technology website seems to think that’s enough for 300 movies, so maybe they only watch Steven Seagal’s more recent one-hour action masterpieces. Fortunately the replacement bulbs cost a reasonable $29.99, and the projector even comes with a spare right out of the box. As for connections you get VGA, S-Video and composite video, and it also features a set of built-in stereo speakers since there’s a good chance that anyone buying this projector probably doesn’t have a surround sound setup at home.

[ Olens Technology XPJ Projector ] VIA [ PC World ]