(Projectors shaped like towers aren't palmtops.) For our purposes, we limit size to no more than about 5 inches on the longest side. But as a rule, these models have a square or near-square footprint (like your palm itself) and a relatively flat shape, so they'd be stable sitting in your palm. What you personally consider a palmtop projector will vary depending on how big your hands are. For home entertainment, they'll similarly throw a large-enough picture for just a few people, but you'll probably need an external Bluetooth speaker to go with them. For road warriors, they're perfect for giving desk-side presentations to one or two people from files stored on a cell phone, a memory card, or USB memory. However, they'll give you a little higher brightness for a bigger picture or for viewing at a higher level of ambient light. The largest will be a better fit for a backpack or briefcase. It will give you a somewhat-larger image than you can get from a tablet, whether for showing off photos or streaming movies, and if you download a movie to your phone before getting on a plane, you're all set for the flight. The smallest projectors in this category are ideal choices if you want a cell phone companion that takes no more effort to bring with you than carrying a second phone. They also tend to have low resolutions (as low as 640 by 360 pixels), but their low brightness ensures you won't usually notice the low resolutions, because you'll need to keep the images small enough to hide any loss of detail or sharpness that might mar image quality compared with higher resolutions. They tend to have low brightness (less than 100 ANSI lumens for the smallest ones), and typically include onboard batteries. Their defining characteristic is that they can fit in a pocket, which could mean fitting easily in a shirt pocket or just barely making it into a large overcoat pocket. Most weigh well under a pound, but some are a pound plus a few ounces. Pico projectors, or pocket projectors, are the smallest, lightest category for portable projectors. Pico Projectors: The Smallest and Lightest So, if you're thinking you might want a model at the biggest, heaviest end of one category, you should also be looking at the smallest, lightest end of the next step up. Also keep in mind that the categories tend to fade into each other at the extremes. We've seen some "pico projectors" that are way too big to fit in any pocket. So if a model has a term like "Pico" or "Pocket" in its name, it will usually fall into the category as we're defining it here, but not always. Note that although the names we're giving the categories are widely used, individual manufacturers are free to define them however they like. For dessert, we end with a detailed spec breakout of our top choices. Below are our lab-tested top picks for each category, followed by detailed explanations of the categories and the key points you should keep in mind when searching for the best portable projector. To help you wade through all the options, we've narrowed the portable projector world down into categories by size, shape, and weight. The wide range in size and weight for the best portable projectors today goes hand-in-hand with large ranges for features-from brightness level, to audio volume and quality, to presence or absence of built-in batteries or smart TV features. No matter where you happen to be, they'll let you show your photos and videos, or stream a movie, at a larger size than you can get on a tablet. Some are mere ounces-small and light as a cell phone, and also perfect phone companions. The vast majority of what we now consider portable projectors are 5 pounds or less. Today, they're not, except for some that are designed for moving no farther than from one room to another. Three decades ago, models that weighed about 12 pounds and fit in an airplane overhead bin were considered fully portable-in fact, they were the smallest and lightest available. When it comes to projectors, "portability" is a flexible and evolving concept.
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