How do you choose a data projector? How much money you should spend? How much lumens do you require?
First of all, there are two type of business projector 1) Portable Projectors- the ones that you carry around for meetings or presentation. 2) Projectors that usually stay in the same room. (Installation projector)
How portable do you need depend on how much weight you can carry. Some people prefer a palm sized type projector, some can carry up to 2kg. The smaller the projector it is, the lesser component it can fit in in a small unit, the less brighter it is.
There are some palm-sized Pico projectors that are weigh under 500 gram and can produce 800 or 1000 lumens. They are suitable for room for small meeting with 3 people or so.
Most 3000+ lumens portable projectors are around 2.5 to 3kg.
How big and heavy you can carry, all depend on your personal preference.
PC Free
Some projectors have a USB Media player built in. It is ideal if you do not wish to carry a laptop around. Most of these projector can play simple file like Jpeg, Gif, or simple video. Only specific model from specific brand have an Android system built into the projector and can display Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint file. Please check carefully before you buy. In practice, your Laptop is always more powerful to display large video file or MS Office file as it has a dedicated processor.
Wireless
If you room’s setup is too hard to fit in a long video cable or you like the freedom of not having to connect to a cable and be able to walk around boardroom while presenting, consider wireless projector! Wireless projector allows you to show documents, picture or movies or documents from your PC or MAC desktop or handheld device to the screen. Some wireless projectors include wireless adapter, some require adapter to be purchased separately. Please refer to our wireless guide:
Native Resolution: Refer to the number of pixels that can be shown natively from the projector.
SVGA - 800x 600 pixels (Half a million pixels) Less expensive projector for basic presentation. If you're on a tight budget and only need to show simple graph, charts, or video, this is the one for you. Or if you only use the projector few times a year and want the cheapest option. SVGA is starting to phrase out recently.
XGA - A bit better than SVGA, 1024 x 768 pixels (780k pixels) give you clearer picture. Suitable for old PC or laptop that display in 4:3 aspect ratio. XGA is also starting to phrase out recently as WXGA becoming cheaper.
WXGA - High Definition (HD) quality but in wide screen format in 16:10 aspect ratio. This is the most popular for cheapest option.
FULL HD- The most popular resolution for data projector on the market at the moment.
WUXGA - Same as FULL HD but in 16:10 ratio Wide Screen format. The picture looks taller than FULL HD.
4K - 3820 x 2160 pixels. It has 4 times the resolution of Full Hd. This is more popular for home theater use than in the business world. If you need to show a lot of detail e.g Digital Photography, Engineering Drawing, Scientific Data Excel Spreadsheet with lots of row and cells on a very big screen, this is the right resolution for you.
Contrast is the measure of darkness, from the whitest white to the darkest black colour.
For basic presentation, projector with WXGA resolution should be enough.
For business presentation for presentation that have a lot of details, a Full HD projector is recommended.
If the native resolution of the video input is more than the native pixels of the projector, the projector will display at the maximum resolution that it can support. When the video has less resolution than the projector, the projector will display accordingly to the video signal to the video’s native resolution.
If you’re using your projector for presentation, contrast ratio is not as an important factor than lumens.
Brightness
There are factors determine how bright a projector do you need. Dark room usually give the best picture
Some rooms require notetaking and eye contact, thus room's light need to be left turned on.
A room where light cannot be turn off or dimmed or where there is no curtain or blind to block off the windows will require a brighter projector.
800 to 1000 Lumens - HD Pico LED projector, Mostly built in with media player, it’s for 3 to 5 people
1000 - 2000 Lumens brighter Ultra Portable projectors, most are led, WXGA, some come with Full Hd native resolution.
3000 - 4000 Lumens - most DLP LCD projectors come in these range of standard lumens. Suitable for people or 10 to 20 people.
4000 - 5000 Lumens - Suitable for people or 20 to 30 people.
6000 - 7000 Lumens - For large room such as conference room. Suitable for 50 to 100 people or so.
8000+ Lumens suitable for permanent installation in large venue.
If the lightings in the venue can be controlled, usually a brighter projector is not required.