Acer X1261P XGA Portable Projector Review
Economical, compact, 3D, portable or mounted, the Acer X1261P projector is quite capable, and value priced. Just posted, a few more images, and comments will be added. This projector is included in the Education Projector Comparison Report, although it is a small portable projector for business or schools.
The Acer X1261P projector earned our Runner-Up Best In Classroom Projector Award in this year's 2011 Classroom Projector Report: The Best School Projectors for K-12 Education!
April 2011 - Art Feierman
|
|
|
Acer X1261P Projector Overview
Low cost, XGA resolution, good basic feature set, plus 3D, the Acer X1261P is the top of Acer's micro portable (under 5 pounds) X1 series. It claims 2700 lumens. Just think, only 10 years ago, 2000 lumens was typical for use in auditoriums and hotel ballrooms. Obviously this Acer projector has more than enough power for a moderate sized conference room or classroom, even with significant lighting.
Photo of the Acert X1261P projecting a 72" diagonal image from a web browser, with partial room lighting, using Standard mode (not the brightest).
Unlike many other projectors being reviewed for the new Education Projector Comparison Report, this Acer, lacks networking. That's OK, not every school wants to network projectors. In a large district, there are advantages of central monitoring, but not all have the staff. Most schools have been getting by fine, hanging isolated projectors, keeping projector costs down, and as they say, keeping life simple.
Forgetting education for a moment, the X1261P projector is a formidable, very lightweight and small projector. It has a footprint about that of a standard sheet of paper.
Acer offers it on their website for $519, which likely establishes the highest dealer prices, street prices are drastically lower! This Acer projector is sold through online dealers, and through some of the big box houses (not sure which but the likes of Best Buy, Office Depot, Staples, Walmart Costco..), although as is typical, they would likely be found in only one or two brands.
The Acer X1261P is designed for economy. Once you get over the unusual "sticker shock" of finding a surprisingly low price, you will also notice the lamp rated at 5000 hours at full power, plus, if you run in eco mode, you'll get an extra thousand more hours! That's about as good as it gets!
Acer X1261P Projector Highlights
- Small and medium room capable - 2700 lumens
- Very low cost of operation with 5000/6000 hour lamp
- Lightweight and highly portable (comes with soft carry case)
- Monitor out
- Digital zoom 2X (five increments)
- 3D ready (requires active glasses, not included)
Specs for the Acer X1261P
Click here for full specifications: Acer X1261P
MSRP: $519 (only published price) street prices from around $400
Brightness: 2700 ANSI Lumens claimed, measured even higher
Imaging Technology: Single Chip DLP
Resolution:
XGA (1024x768)
Contrast: 3700:1
Zoom Lens: 1.1:1 Manual Zoom
Lamp Life: 5000 hours Full power, 6000 hours Eco-mode
Dimensions: 10.6" W x 7.6" D x 3.1" H
Weight: 4.85 lbs. (2.2 Kg.)
Warranty: -1 Year Limited Parts and Labor, 90 days on lamp
Acer X1261P Projector Special Features
3D Ready
The Acer X1261P is ready to go with support for both Nvidia's 3D standard as well as DLP 3D. This should allow this Acer projector to work with most educational 3D software (hey, 3D is still new and standards and compatibility is just starting to get good) We tested this Acer projector using three different coursework demo clips. The X1261P did fine on all of them, using a standard 3D movie player. The Acer lacks an HDMI port so forget Blu-ray 3D for now, but then, that isn't the purpose of this projector. Still, those looking for a personal business projector with 3D capability might like that. If you have that in mind, don't necessarily despair. I've been waiting for an Optoma device (to review), the 3D-XL, which is designed to take in an HDMI 1.4a source with content including Blu-ray 3D, and convert it to work with most standard 720p projectors that support 3D. That device will likely also work with an XGA projector like this Acer, but we won't know until tested.
Bottom line, the Acer, as far as the limited selection of content I have here, seems to be as able as any of the other 3D projectors so far reviewed. Even the more expensive Sharp projector, which does have HDMI, lacks 1.4, so is not Blu-ray 3D compatible.
Micro-Portable
A few years back, micro-portables were defined as sub-five pound projectors that had a footprint smaller than a sheet of paper. This Acer X1261P meets the description. No longer of course are micro-portables the smallest and lightest game in town. This Acer X1261p is still magnitudes bigger than the pico and pocket projectors out there, but it costs less, delivers more. The Acer is 10 to 50X brighter than those smaller lighter projectors, making it far more useful. From a portability standpoint, note that while smaller than just about all the other projectors reviewed for the Education report, there are still noticeably smaller and lighter projectors, that are equally powerful without getting down to the pocket sized ones, and some of those are under 3 pounds.
This Acer micro-portable projector has a monitor out, unlike most Micro-portable projectors, and that is important for many educators, and users in general, when working from a desktop computer, rather than a laptop.