Bright Ideas

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then certainly a polished sales presentation--complete with digital slide show and video materials--will speak volumes about your company. But how do you take this message on the road? The CRN Test Center recently tested five ultraportable projectors, all weighing 6 pounds or less, from Hewlett-Packard, InFocus, Philips, Toshiba and ViewSonic. Most of these projectors include direct VGA, composite and S-Video inputs, remote controls and built-in mono speakers.

If you're in the market for a basic projector, the InFocus LP70 (www.infocus.com) and the Toshiba TDP-P5 (www.toshiba.com) are excellent choices. Each has a heft of just 2.4 pounds and provides excellent image quality. These two projectors are virtual clones of each other and are rated at 1,100 lumens, with native resolution of 1,024 x 768. However, both blow a lot of heat back at the user, so you (and that customer you're trying to impress) should sit on either side while they're operating.