We weren’t entirely happy with the picture quality and that was despite the allowances we made for the limitations of the LED light source. Although the picture was reasonably sharp and clear, it could have been better. We suspect this is due to the bizarre native resolution of 858 x 600, which isn’t an option in Windows Vista. The closest we could get was 800 x 600 so we never saw this projector at its theoretical best. Instead, we used the maximum forced resolution of 1280 x 1024 which worked well but lacked pinsharp definition.
Not noisy, but annoying nonetheless
We also didn’t think much of the colour reproduction, which is pretty much par for the course with cheap DLP projectors. However, as the K10 is destined for a life of PowerPoint rather than home cinema it’s perhaps not a major problem.
Finally, there's the carry case. This is a tiny padded pouch that looks smart but which has no storage for any cables. In an ideal world, you'll use a laptop power supply for the K10 but there’s no getting away from the need for a cable to connect the projector to your Acer laptop. Acer supplies a 1m VGA cable as well as a short s-video cord, but they'll end up loose inside your bag where they will inevitably wrap themselves around all of your possessions.
When the K10 was announced we had hoped that it would sell for £299 but the actual price is £450. You buy get a much better projector for the same price in the shape of the Hitachi CPRX70, but you’ll be missing out on the pint-sized form-factor of the K10 if you do.
Verdict
If you’re sick and tired of lugging a bulky projector around and are prepared to sacrifice image quality for convenience then the K10 has a great deal to offer. As an added bonus, it's a safe bet you will never need to buy another projector lamp again. ®
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Acer K10
COMMENTS
@ Jolyon Smith and non-fans of fans
Not quite!
LED lamps HAVE to run cool, certainly a lot cooler than HID. A hot die kills off the output light intensity. Couple that with the fact a lot of light is output (although 100 lumens isn't that much, even when considering colour losses) at not much efficiency means cooling is still needed. Turn the fan off, the LED might get as hot as HID - but you won't get any light.
My estimate: that LED will have to lose at least 6 watts (and that's assuming the latest tech is used – say a P7) and that's assuming a perfect cooling system. Keeping a small component cool without active cooling will require a large, expensive and heavy heatsink; for this application it is better to use a cheap, SMALL and LIGHTWEIGHT fan.
old hat
I still have my Toshiba FF1 ... bought as an early adopter at the start of 2006. 500g LED projector with mains plus 2 hr rechargeable battery pack, supporting 800x600 and 1024x768; also has fully featured remote (not that you need it). I paid £350 then - seemed a lot at the time, but it did (does) what it says on the tin, and is ideal for travel use.
Although the colours (particularly reds) are a bit harsh and lacking 'warmth', and the brightness means it really needs a dark room to shine, it is still quite possible to enjoy a full length movie running only on battery, with a projected image easily equivilent to that of a 60" Plasma screen ... and unlike the Acer in the review, it is almost completely silent.
I actually looked it up as I couldn't believe that this Acer is being touted as a new gizmo 3 years on ... http://www.wedgwood-group.com/toshiba_tdp_ff1_multimedia_projector.htm ... turns out the Tosh has been discontinued and they haven't replaced it with a similar spec.
I can only conclude that it is too niche a market (£300+ for a low res, low intensity projector is quite steep). The current netbook craze will no doubt give this an initial sales opportunity, but the old Tosh was a much better product IMO - if they couldn't find a market for it, I think Acer will struggle (particularly at the quoted price).
Pretty nifty but...
...since Samsung (I think) look like they are going to be building projectors into mobile phones, I'm a lot less impressed by the smallness of this projector.
As one of the posters above points out, old fashioned bulbs get very hot and until they replace that with something that generates a lot less heat, these things are always going to be too big, which is a shame because it would be nice to have one small enough to be able to carry around.
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