Boxlight BumbleBee LED/DLP, Palm Portable Projector Review: General Performance

Boxlight Bumblebee
Image Quality
General Performance
Warranty
Summary, Pros, Cons

Boxlight Bumblebee Projector Menus
Remote Control
Lens Throw and Lens Shift
SDE and Rainbow Effect
Audible Noise Levels
Projector Brightness
Lamp Life and Replacement

Boxlight BumbleBee Projector Menus

The Boxlight BumbleBee projector color menu. While the BumbleBee and Mitsubishi PK20 may be siblings from a hardware standpoint, they have markedly different menu designs.

The Boxlight Bumblebee starts with its Color menu (shown here). The Color menu has the standard goodies - Brightness, Contrast, Gamma, and preset modes (called Brightness modes), as well as color saturation, and where active, Tint.

In addition there is a color temperature control, and separate color controls for Red, Green, and Blue.

The Boxlight BumbleBee projector color gamma menu. The Gamma mode lets you select between Enhanced, PC, Movie, and Photo modes.

The next main menu is the Image menu.

The Image menu provides control for vertical keystone correction, selection of aspect ratios, and Sharpness.

In addition, for locking in a PC signal, The Boxlight BumbleBee projector image menu. there are also Horizontal and Vertical Position controls, and a tracking control.

The Management Menu, lets the user select orientation (Ceiling or table, front or rear projection), provides the option of Source lock (always looks for the last input, or scans all inputs looking for an active one). There is also a lamp hour The Boxlight BumbleBee projector management menu. counter, and the Battery level gauge.

Lastly, the Management Menu offers a Reset control

The last menu we will look at, is labeled the AV Setup menu.

The AV Setup menu primarily relates to utilizing the SD card slot on the BumbleBee.

This menu lets you define a slideshow, including thumbnail previews, auto or manual advance, timer (for showing images), The Boxlight BumbleBee projector AV setup menu. and special effects between images, such as wipes, blinds, dissolves, and so on.

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Boxlight BumbleBee Projector - Remote Control

The Boxlight BumbleBee projector remote control. The Bumblebee comes with a remote shaped the same as the Mitsubishi PK20's. There is one additional button on the BumbleBee's remote control, and the order of the buttons is slightly different. The additional button, however, relates to keystone correction. The BumbleBee remote has two buttons for controlling keystone correction, whereas the PK20 has one, then you control keystone with the arrow keys.

The remote worked well enough The manual says the range is 16 feet, and I definitely had no problem using it up to that distance, getting a decent bounce off of my screen, when needed.

As you can see, there is a power button on the top left. Next come the four arrow keys in a circle configuration, with a center Enter button.

Additional buttons: The two keystone buttons, Hi-Bright button, Computer, Video, Blank, Still, Aspect ratio, and finally, the Auto (setup) button.

Boxlight Bumblebee Lens Throw and Lens shift.

Bumblebee has no adjustable lens shift, and it lacks a zoom lens. As a result, there is only one ratio for screen size vs. distance. As noted in the first page of this review, placing the front of the projector 5 ft. 6 inches to a 50" diagonal screen (standard 4:3 aspect ratio). This is identical to the Mitsubishi PK20

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Boxlight Bumblebee Projector - Screen Door Effect and Rainbow Effect

Almost Perfect! Since the Bumblebee doesn't need a color wheel, there cannot be any Rainbow effect, and since it is a DLP projector, the pixel structure is barely detectable, unless you get very close.

Boxlight Bumblebee Projector - Audible Noise

While using the Bumblebee, I noticed that the noise will increase and decrease, as needed, to keep it cool while operating.. Most of the time the projector is very quiet, rivalling a good home theater projector. Sometimes, however the fan kicks into high gear. When it does, it still isn't offensively noisy.

Boxlight Bumblebee Projector Brightness

While I did not measure the Mitsubishi PK20 when I reviewed it, I did hook up my gear to see if the Bumblebee hits its claimed 150 lumens. I must confess, however, that I don't know how accurate my light metering system is at these low levels.

Still, the Bumblebee not only did not achieve the 150 lumens, but measured in at less than 50 lumens (actually 38 lumens in its brightest mode, and as little as 22 lumens. These are not official numbers, as this is the first time I have tried using my metering system for a projector with such low light output. I have no idea how accurate it is at these levels, but I can tell you its one of the reasons in my home theater projector reviews that I don't measure grayscales below 30 IRE, because of the the accuracy of my gear at such low light levels.

In the brightest mode - "enhanced", the color shifts strongly to green, which can be cleaned up with the RGB controls. Color temperature was measured at 6670K. The other modes were even warmer (shifted more towards red).

Boxlight Bumblebee LED/DLP Projector - Lamp Life and Brightness

This is the beauty of LED lit projectors. The LED lights last far longer than traditional projector type lamps - whose life is normally between 2000 and at most, 4000 hours.

Boxlight rates the Bumblebee at 10,000 hours. Now that's 10 hours a week for twenty years!

In other words if your lamps go out anywhere near that time, I'm sure you'll be able to buy an even smaller, much brighter projector, for far less than the cost of repairing the Bumblebee. I am not aware of what it would cost to replace an LED light that failed early. There is no traditional lamp door, as would be found on most projectors, so, who knows - it may be like the new Apple iPhone's battery, if it goes, it needs factory service. Still - 10,000 hours expected life - that should be long enough for just about everyone.