Gadget review: Big delivery from Acer’s pint-sized projector

At Dh950, Acer's C120 travel-sized projector is a cheap alternative to owning a TV.

Acer’s C120 travel-sized projector. Courtesy Acer

To test Acer’s C120 travel-sized projector, I watched Paul Greengrass’s latest release Captain Phillips on it. And what a way to catch this Oscar-nominated film.

It’s not my first experience with projectors. In my youth, I remember plugging my laptop into a device that weighed about five kilos and was the size of a small dog. My friend’s dad, a lawyer, had taken it home to practise making PowerPoint presentations. Falteringly, it juddered into life, and after much negotiating with cables and settings, my desktop appeared.

For a boy in his early teens, playing the classic real-time strategy game Total Annihilation, magnified to cover a wall, was about as satisfying as it got. I became a Napoleonic space general in command of an army of robots, considering the map spread out before me. I still remember the narrator’s voice as he introduced the game: “What began as a conflict over the transfer of consciousness from man to machine has escalated into a war that has decimated over a million worlds …”

The world has changed. Acer’s C120 is tiny. I can hold it in the palm of my hand.

It has maximum resolution of 1280 x 800, when properly configured, which is equivalent to a 720p TV. Actual resolution depends on the distance between the projector’s aperture and the projected surface: you have to make trade- offs between size and detail. And in practise, because the area is usually larger than a TV, the quality is a bit lower.

It’s easy to plug and play with the device. My laptop recognised it quickly, and I was watching films in no time. But I also tried this on a Mac, which was not so easy.

UAE residents enjoy a plentiful supply of whitewashed walls, so a projector is an excellent way to make use of them. At Dh950, it’s a cheap alternative to a TV and a great way to take in Captain Phillips.

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