In this blog post about multi-room systems and creating individual playlists, we showed you how to get music into every room of your home. Today, we're showing all cinema lovers how you can bring the cinema home for about 100 Euros – into every room, and even into your garden or onto your balcony if you wish. Because with small and handy mini projectors (also called pocket projectors, LED projectors or pico projectors), you can set up your cinema wherever you want it. Resolution (Full HD), contrast, battery, speakers, brightness (lumens), connections (USB, HDMI) and more: In this blog post, we'll mention a few criteria you should consider when buying mini projectors.
Mini Projectors Vs. Business Projectors
One caveat right off the bat: mini projectors are qualitatively inferior to their big brothers, business, LED, or home cinema projectors, and demanding home cinema fans should stay away from mini projectors. While home cinema projectors or LED projectors deliver images in HD, Full HD, and 4K, the resolution of mini projectors is significantly lower. Often, you'll have to settle for a resolution of 800 by 480 pixels. The higher the resolution, the higher the price for mini projectors. So, Full HD resolutions of 1920 by 1080 pixels are also possible with some models.
However, if you accept the lower resolution, you get projectors that are significantly cheaper (usually under 100 Euros), and also small, compact, and therefore extremely flexible. You can easily take them with you and don't have to install a projector (on the ceiling). Home cinema whenever you feel like it, in the living room or bedroom – or at the campsite. These are the areas of application and strengths of mini projectors!
Criteria for Mini Projectors
As already mentioned, mini projectors offer enormous flexibility. They are quick and easy to set up, run on battery power, and are also very straightforward to operate. You can easily transport your projector to the location of your choice.
Connections for Mini Projectors
Connections such as USB and slots for SD or Micro-SD cards are essential if you want to use your device truly mobile and flexibly. Then you simply transfer the film to a USB stick, a hard drive, or a card and then view everything via the USB port on your projector.
HDMI and VGA are also helpful, for example, for connecting a PC or DVD player. HDMI would be preferable here, as most modern devices (laptops or TVs) only have an HDMI connection. An audio output also greatly enhances the home cinema experience. Because usually, the sound quality of the built-in speakers of the projectors is intended as a makeshift solution, and external speakers are highly recommended. For example, you could also play the sound through the speakers of your multi-room system.
A Wi-Fi connection or a Bluetooth connection are also advantageous. Then you can also control the projectors via smartphone (Android, iOS).
Projection Distance
Especially in small apartments or on a cramped balcony, you should make sure that the projector still projects a sharp image onto the projection surface even at a short distance. Many mini projectors can produce a sharp image at a distance of about 1 meter. However, you would then only have a diagonal of about 80 cm (30 inches). To get an image diagonal of 2 to 3 meters (approx. 80 to 120 inches), the distance should be approx. 3 meters.
Mini Projector Battery Life
Attention sports fans: with 2.5 to 4 hours, not every fully charged mini projector battery can manage a football match including pre-match coverage, extra time, and a penalty shootout. However, for a feature film of average 2 hours in length - even for a film on TV including commercials - all models are sufficient.
Mini Projector Noise
Since the lamps used in a projector generate heat, they must be cooled by a fan. The resulting noise level should not exceed 40 decibels. With some projectors, however, you also have the option of running the lamp with less power in Eco mode. This makes the picture a little weaker, but the projector's sound is then reduced to below 30 decibels. A good option for movie nights in darkened rooms.
Brightness of Mini Projectors
In darkened rooms, the question of brightness and contrast ratio of mini projectors usually doesn't arise – even in Eco mode. But as soon as sunlight hits the screen, or the movie or football evening takes place outdoors, brightness (unit "Lumen") becomes an important core variable.
- Up to 250 lumens per m²: good picture and good contrast only in darkened rooms
- Up to 500 lumens per m²: good picture and good contrast even if the room is not "perfectly" darkened
- 500 lumens per m² and more: good picture even outdoors and in direct sunlight
Our Recommendation:
Have you acquired a taste for it? Then here are three recommendations for mini projectors that performed well in a test or comparison of several projectors and are priced around 100 Euros:
- QKK Mini Projector (LED Home Cinema Support with Full HD)
- VANKYO Leisure 430 Mini Projector
- Vamvo L4200 Video Projector (Full HD 1080P 200 inch Display)
These mini projectors are also available on Amazon for under 100 Euros and have received numerous and consistently good reviews.
Helpful Software for Mini Projectors
Of course, in addition to movie nights, you can use mini projectors to watch slides or self-recorded videos. Presentations or playing TV programs are also possible. For movie and slide nights, we have two software recommendations from our company:
1. Videomizer - perfect cinema in HD, even with self-recorded videos
Would you like to bring your own films to the big screen via the projector? In optimal resolution? Then use Videomizer. The tool stabilizes and converts your videos and compensates for shakes that occurred during recording. And the best part: You can get Videomizer from us for free.
2. Photomizer 3 Premium – for optimizing your images and for the perfect slide show evening
Of course, you can not only host movie nights but also slide show evenings with mini projectors. For optimizing your images and perfectly preparing your photo show, we recommend Photomizer 3 Premium.
We wish you much enjoyment!
