Thursday, July 21, 2016

ID&T Technology Review: aaxa pico projector

Product
aaxa Technologies P4-X pico projector

aaxa pico projector
aaxa P4-X handheld pico projector

Ordering info
~$280 from major retailers such as Best Buy, Amazon, and B&H Photo

Purpose
Handheld projector for small room presentations. Rechargeable battery with up to 90 minutes of battery life.

Possible classroom uses

  • Small group presentations
  • On-site presentations
  • Unplanned meetings where a projector is not available

Summary
The aaxa was originally selected for testing to determine its capabilities and usefulness in small group settings. For this purpose, the aaxa projector excelled. The unit is about the size of a smart phone and easily fits into a pocket or purse. The brightness, while not comparable to a full sized LED projector, was certainly bright enough to display a 2'x3' image in a moderately lit room from a distance of ten feet. Brightness quickly disappears the farther away the projector is from the wall or projection screen. There is also a slight but discernible loss of brightness when on battery power. And using the aaxa in brightly lit rooms could be a challenge.

Image quality was good enough to display spreadsheets to groups of 4-5 people at a distance of ten feet. The built-in speaker was tinny but sufficient for small group
aaxa pico projector inputs and outputs
Inputs/outputs
meetings.

The aaxa comes with mini-VGA and mini-HDMI display inputs, and a 3.5mm AV jack. There is also a headphone jack and mini-USB jack for plugging into an external USB drive. Additional accessories include a mini-tripod, remote control, power adapter, VGA cable, and a mini-USB-to-USB connector.

The aaxa supported most document and image file formats including docx, xlsx, ppt, pdf, jpg, and png. Although the product brochure stated that it supported MP4 video format, ID&T testers were unable to get video to play.

The aaxa was tested with several smart devices including iPads (both the original 30-pin and the Lightning connector), a Dell Venue Android tablet, and a Samsung S6 Edge. Adapters were used to connect the smart devices to the aaxa. ID&T testers noticed that after approximately ten months of light usage, the mini-HDMI port started intermittently not working. This caused testers to switch to the mini-VGA port exclusively.

Positives

  • Extremely portable
  • Good battery life
  • Mini-HDMI and mini-VGA ports
  • Supports external speakers
  • Very good screen brightness in dimly to moderately lit rooms
  • Fun to use!
Negatives

  • Screen brightness not as good when on battery power
  • Suspect durability
  • Lack of video file support
More information

Image attribution
All images were pulled from the aaxa Technologies website.

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