Aiptek Pocket Cinema V10 review

One of the gadgets we've always fancied is a mobile phone with a film projector built in. The Pocket Cinema V10 is the next best thing: a battery powered, palm-sized portable projector that you can use anywhere.

Well, almost anywhere. Its LED bulbs can only muster 10 lumens - that's around one tenth the illumination of most home cinema projectors. It means that, realistically, you can only use the V10 in the dark. As with any projector, the apparent brightness of the image depends on its size. You can project at any distance from six to 50 inches, giving a picture up to six feet across. Throw a 15 inch image and you can just about view it in daylight, but you'll only be able to see a 50 inch image in the pitch black. Image quality isn't wonderful, either. Colours aren't particularly accurate, and there's not much detail in shadows or bright areas.

The battery lasts no more than an hour, so you'll have to connect the Pocket Cinema to the mains if you want to watch a whole movie. The V10 will charge from your PC via a USB cable, but won't project at the same time. Instead, you transfer your photos, video and music to the 1GB of internal memory for later playback. If this isn't enough space, you can insert SD, SDHC, MMC or Memory Stick cards up to 8GB.

File format support is limited, but you can view JPEG photos and MP3s. Videos must be in a specific MPEG4 or Motion JPEG format, and ArcSoft Media Converter is included to convert yours. We had mixed success with this: some files played fine, while others looked a total mess.

Frustratingly, the Pocket Cinema has no fast forward or rewind controls; you can only skip to the next or previous video in the folder.

To connect an iPod, games console, digital camera or camcorder, you'll need a composite video cable for it. Audio sources can also be connected, but the Aiptek's tiny speakers are too quiet to be useful.

If you're happy to use the Pocket Cinema only in the dark, it could be a fun travelling companion. But its limitations are annoying, and it's not great value at £300.

Author: Jim Martin