It can feel a little crowded when huddling friends around a smartphone screen to share the latest viral video, which is where a pico projector can come in handy. China's Yaber is aiming to put a smartphone-sized projector in your pocket with the launch of the Pico T1.
Yaber was founded in 2018 and already has a bunch of budget-friendly 1080p tabletop projectors in its product range, which are reported to be available in more than 46 countries around the world. The company has selected crowdfunding platform Indiegogo for the launch of its latest and smallest model, the Pico T1.
The DLP projector has a thickness of just 0.52 in (13.2 mm), weighs in at 5.2 oz (150 g) and benefits from a housing made from a durable composite material to survive life on the road.
Of course that handy pocket-friendly form factor does come with output limitations common to pico projectors, and in this case you're looking at 960 x 540 maximum resolution at just 110 ANSI lumens with a contrast ratio of 350:1, and display sizes ranging from 10 to 100 diagonal inches. As such, low-light indoor viewing or starry sky campouts are going to be your best bets for projected screen time.
The T1 does support smartphone screen mirroring over Miracast, AirPlay or Eshare though, rocks a useful touch-wheel control interface up top, and packs its own operating system that's reckoned compatible with popular entertainment apps like Prime Video, Disney+ and Netflix.
Cabled connection to a media sources is via the single micro-HDMI or two USB-C ports, or over dual-band Wi-Fi. And there's Bluetooth 4.2 cooked in too.
The setup features quad-core Cortex-A53 processing brains and Mali graphics, supported by 1 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage, and the projector can be powered by portable battery banks while out and about. Auto vertical keystone correction, manual focus and automatic display orientation are included, there's a single 1.5-watt speaker but no headphone jack, and the RGB LED light source should be good for up to 30,000 hours of use.
Indiegogo pledges for early bird backers currently start at US$239, which represents a saving of 40% on the expected retail price. The Pico T1 will be supplied with a magnetic tripod and organizer carry bag, and if all goes to plan with the already funded campaign, shipping is estimated to start on September.
The company will be presenting the Pico T1 at IFA 2022 in Berlin, Germany, next month, along with its next scheduled product release – the Ace K1.
Source: Yaber