January 4, 2006 Today at CES we were fortunate enough to catch up with the folks at Viewsonic and to get a preview of a new handheld, battery-powered projector prototype. The diminutive PJ106D uses a white LED light source and a .55" DLP chip and can operate for about 2.5 hours when mated with it's portable battery pack. We actually saw the device in action and were impressed. While the PJ106D's light output is only 25 lumen, we found that it was more than adequate for "small" presentations and Viewsonic claims that it's enough to produce a 30 or 40" image in a darkened room. Inputs include an SD card slot (for jpeg slide shows), S-video, composite video, and VGA. The prototype we saw had a speaker and audio input, but these are unlikely to make it into the final product.
Viewsonic says that the device is ready for production now, but is still working on getting the price down to what they consider to be a market friendly, under US$500 level. None the less, the device is expected to be produced for sale initially in the EU sometime this year. US and AU customers will have to wait.
For more information (or if you'd like to see them ship this product on your continent first), contact Jeff Muto
Dave Weinstein