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New Review: Brookstone Pocket Projector Pro and AAXA P300!

Scenes from Paul Walker’s The Fast and The Furious projected on a huge wall by the Brookstone Pocket Projector Pro and the AAXA P300!

 

 

Who will be the main course in this years holiday pico/pocket projector review: Brookstone’s Pocket Projector Pro or AAXA’s P300?

Since it’s the holiday season, we’re going to be stuffing our homes with friends and family.  So you’re definitely going to have to keep them entertained with something when they’re all sitting around in their food comas.  Well this year you can prepare for it. The time is right buy some new gadgets and what better thing to get than a mobile projector! This year we’re going to compare projector recipes so you’ll have something to serve as entertainment. So we’re going to compare the Brookstone Pocket Projector Pro ($429) and the AAXA Technologies P300 ($389). There are some good ones out there, but we’re going to compare this new Brookstone pico/pocket projector with something fairly comparable in price, features, and brightness.

 

The Ingredients

The AAXA P300 is battery powered (battery Included) and lasts upwards of 60+ minutes on a single charge. Now the Brookstone Projector has the “optional battery” that will keep it going for 2-hours, which is really good. The down side is that the battery is going to cost you an extra $99 bucks! So the total to make the Brookstone completely portable is around $529…again, a side dish to think about.

While we’re on addition features, both the Brookstone and the AAXA have keystone correction.  The really cool feature of the Brookstone is that is has a USB output to give you the ability to charge other devices on the go, if you buy the external battery with it. The features that the AAXA P300 has that the Brookstone doesn’t is an onboard media player to project video and text files or play your music directly from a its built in MicroSD reader(up to 32GB) or through its full size USB port to read from a USB memory stick.


The Recipe

These projectors are very portable and pack some great features, some more than the other. However, the side dishes of any meal only complement the course, which in this meal review, is the projection quality. The Brookstone Pocket Projector is rated at 200 ANSI lumens and the AAXA P300 comes in at 300 ANSI lumens; both of which have a resolution of 1280 x 800 (WXGA).  The contrast ratio of the Brookstone is 1000:1, while the AAXA P300 is at 2000:1.

The Main Dish

Now on to the main course of this holiday projector review! Both these projectors are about 4 feet form the wall and are so we can see how well they compare to each other.

You can see that the brightness of both these projectors are very bright! The AAXA P300 does have a more vibrant range of color to its projection quality. Although the brightness of the AAXA is rated at 300 lumens and is a bit brighter, the Brookstone does a a good job itself. The brookstone is rated at 200 lumens but seems to be a bit brighter than that, guessing maybe hitting close to 250 lumens instead. But projected from the same distance you can see that there is a difference.

So putting the whole thing in perspective, the Brookstone Pocket Projector Pro is small in size and very bright for its size, comparing fairly well to the AAXA P300’s 100 lumen advantage. However, things to keep in mind from this is that the price is a little steep and gets really pricey if you want to add the battery to the package.  For the AAXA p300 that is a little bigger in size, but at a reasonable price, you’ll get those few extra features; the battery, onboard media player and USB/MicroSD memory reader ability.

Here are the specifications

Brookstone Pocket Projector Pro AAXA Technologies P300 
Battery Sold Separately ($99) Battery Included60+ Minutes on Full Charge
200 ANSI Lumens 300 ANSI Lumens
1000:1 contrast ratio 2000:1 contrast ratio
Aspect Ratio:16:9 Aspect Ratio:16:9
Image Size:Up to 115” Image Size:Up to 120”

 

1280 x 800 (WXGA) 1280 x 800 (WXGA)
2x 1.0-watt speakers 2x 1.0-watt speakers
No Media Player Has Onboard Media Player
Inputs:HDMI

3.5mm Audio-Out

DC Input

(MHL micro USB to HDMI cable, micro and mini HDMI adapters Included)

 

 

Inputs:HDMI

24-Pin Universal Port/VGA

SD Slot

USB (For Thumbdrives)

Mini USB

3.5mm AV Input

3.5mm Audio-Out

DC Input

 

 

 

General Imaging’s iPico targets Apple Users

We see more and more a redefined role for the pico projector as more manufacturers step up with their imaginative application for this technology. The iPico projector from General Imaging is not the first iPhone projector but it makes for a sleek and well rounded addition to the club started by Brookstone’s iPhone projector,  the Pop Video Projector,  and the Mili Pro V2 to name a few.

General Imaging’s ipico is a sleek hand-held, projector that sports a patented pop-up connector which will transform your iPhone or iPod touch into an instant social media tool wherever you are. Almost universal iPhone or iPod connectivity advances the iPico over its Brookstone forbears but likely, the brightness is going to be in the 15 -20 lumen range along with most other iPhone projectors with the exception of the updated 35 lumen Sanwa 400-PRJ011.  The ipico is capable of projecting a maximum screen size of 50″, where it will come in white this holiday season for $129.99 a pop making it one of the most affordable iPhone pico projectors we have seen to date.