Sapphire announces LED Mini Projector 101

Posted on 22 May 2013 at 11:33, by Jim Martin

Sapphire is best known for its graphics cards, so it's something of a surprise that the firm has jumped into the displays market with a pico projector.

The Mini Projector 101 is much like others we've seen from Optoma and Aiptek, using a battery-powered LED lamp to cast an image from seven to 65 inches on a suitable surface. It will fit in your pocket and take a video input from any PC or laptop, digital camera or with an adapter to iPod and iPhone.

Based on multi-chip LED technology, the lamp in the Mini Projector is rated at 14 lumens (so will need to be used in darkened room) and should last for 20,000 hours. Its 640 x 480 resolution is reasonable, although it's a shame there's been no progress on this front in well over a year since the first pico projectors emerged in early 2009.

Sapphire claims that the battery will last over two hours on a single charge, but you can also use the mains adapter for epic movies. A mini tripod is also bundled along with cables for VGA, composite video and - thoughtfully - an approved iPod / iPhone adapter. However, unlike Aiptek's Pocket Cinema V10, the Sapphire has no built-in media player.

No details of pricing or availability have been announced, but we expect it to cost between £250 and £350 and we'll bring you a full review as soon as we get a review model.