Good projection

GIZMO GALLERY

Pricey iPod accessory but definitely not a waste of money.

If you are looking out for a projector that can help you display your presentations during the day and watch movies thrown from your iPod, PC or notebook at night, the ViewSonic PJ258D iPod DLP projector is a great device.

For home theatre buffs, the PJ258D doesn't cut it due to the lack of any HD inputs, making it unable to function in most home theatres.

Under its slick, glossy black exterior beats the heart of a business projector that might outshine much of its competition. Just insert a video iPod into the oversized dock on the projector's top panel and you can start watching your video in a size limited only by the dimensions of your walls.

The projector's remote has control buttons that relay directly to the iPod. The projector's control panel is well hidden on the rear panel and its buttons are small and poorly labelled. The all-important power button is particularly hard to find.

Obviously, users are pre-meditated to use the remote control, which includes a prominent power button as well as a handy laser pointer. Business users, however, might grumble about the remote's lack of buttons for controlling a presentation on their laptops. The solution "" save PowerPoint slideshows as JPEGs and transfer them to the iPod.

BenQ, on the other hand, has gone ambitious on the home theatre projector, with the W20000 that weighs a hefty 9.6 kg. This can make the projector's placement difficult if you don't have a dedicated home theatre room.

Clarity is excellent, with crisp edges and no visible aberrations. The unit particularly excelled when paired with a high-definition player. While you can connect video players like iPod, but it is the high definition cinema that is best enjoyed on BenQ.

Both companies have missed one basic feature "" cooling the unit. After 30 minutes, the ViewSonic PJ258D projector becomes too hot to touch and the fan noise too loud to enjoy viewing. Even the BenQ turns hot too despite a two fans cooling the unit and the interfering noise is very annoying when watching movies at a low volume.

The saving grace is BenQ's lamp life which is around 3,000 hours in economy mode. After operation, the power-down sequence takes about 90-120 seconds for BenQ, where the internal fans cool down the lamp. But ViewSonic comes with an instant shutdown feature lets you unplug with no cool down period for the bulb.

At Rs 65,000 ViewSonic PJ258D might seem like a pricey iPod accessory but definitely not a waste of money. The projector also comes with one year replacement warranty on lamp and 2 years on the instrument. If you are looking for more than an iPod accessory, like a home theatre experience, then fork out Rs 1.5 lakh for the BenQ W20000.