The 3M MPro150 is one of a new breed of pocket, or pico, projectors, distinguished by uprated brightness, increased internal memory and improved functionality. I’ve been testing one out for a while, and first reports are that it’s a cracking piece of kit, which offers a wide range of value for both business and pleasure.
The first surprise is the build quality of the device. It comes complete with a full set of cables, manual and charger as you’d expect, but there’s also a 2GB microSD card and tiny tripod in the box, and the whole feel of the product is top quality, the kind you expect from high end smartphones.
There’s no real set up, just plug it in to charge up the stonking great 2200 mAh battery and you’re ready to go. The cables are designed for plugging in to obvious devices like laptops but I thought it was a bit strange not to include some adapters for the major mobile phone brands, but maybe there aren’t enough with TV out to make it worthwhile.
Luckily that’s not much of an issue, because hard core road warriors will simply load their memory card of choice with the material they want to display and that’s it, no external connect needed. The firmware in the MPro 150 is compatible with Word, Excel, PDF, .PPT,.MP4, JPG, PAL, MP3 and suchlike, so you can load up movies ripped from your collection, Powerpoint presentations, music, TV shows, just about any multimedia you want, and it will all be accessible to you at up to 50 inches size on the nearest wall or screen. Amazing.
In actual fact I found myself keeping screen size at around 30 inches in order to maximise brightness and clarity, but at that size, the picture was really surprisingly watchable, even without lowering the blinds or curtains. Of course in a bright room image quality is going to suffer, but in general I was amazed by how bright the 15 lumens LED lamp shines. Impressive.
Fire up a movie, plug your headphones into the 3.5mm socket and it’s a pocket friendly home theater on the go. There’s even a set of weakish integrated speakers for headphone challenged moments. You get around 90 mins of battery life per charge, which is hopefully enough for a full movie, but you’ll probably need to keep a portable USB charger of some sort handy (or an extra battery) just in case. Or switch down from high brightness to ‘normal’ mode which extends run time to over 120 mins.
Where this thing could really shine (!) is for presentations on the go, where you don’t want the hassle of carrying around your laptop. Just drop the preso on to the memory card, pop the device into your shirt pocket and you’re set. The result won’t match big projector quality, but it’s going to beat huddling around a grubby laptop screen that’s for certain.
Overall the product is an impressive example of how far this technology has come since it was first introduced a couple of years ago. Solid build quality, impressive image quality and a genuinely useful memory storage option make this a winner. You’ll find them for sale at most good consumer electronics stores for around $340.00 or £277.00.
Project images and videos on almost any wall, almost anywhere. It supports the most popular apps in the Microsoft Office Suite, Adobe PDF as well as movies and other file formats. And, you can still connect and project from your favourite digital media sources: PCs, DVD players, iPods and iPhones, digital cameras and cellphones. Fully equipped with sound, 2+ hours of battery life, screen size images up to 50 inches and 15 lumens of brightness. Whether you’re making an impromptu business presentation or sharing photos with friends, the MPro150 allows you to project images and videos on almost any wall, almost anywhere.
