AAXA P1 Jr. - Performance

Posted on October 21, 2010 by Art Feierman

AAXA P1 Jr. P1 Jr. Brightness

.Not bad, in terms of performance vs. claim, the P1 Jr. measured just a touch below 9 lumens, while they claimed 10. Only the Optoma PK301 actually beat its claim, so that's pretty good. That considered, it's still 9 lumens. Yes, you can have a vibrant 20 inch image in a dark room, or even go larger, to perhaps 40 inches and still find it watchable, but, 9 is a very personal number of lumens - you and a friend viewing photos or video, or maybe that movie Road Trip, up to maybe 24 inches wide, if you plan to watch the whole thing. You can go larger, with less fatigue, for very short viewing, of course.

❮ ❯

At nine lumens the AAXA P1 Jr. ties the 3M for the least bright of the Pico's this year, but in fairness, three of the five are under 13 lumens, and none measured more than 21 on battery power, meaning only the $399 Optoma PK301 can go brighter still (about 50 lumens), when plugged in. Of course, that Optoma is over three times the price. Considering the prices of the other projectors - the least of the other four has an MSRP of $299, I certainly can't complain about the lumens per dollar, as only the PK301 - when plugged in provides more lumens per buck.

Sharpness

I have no problem with the sharpness of the projector, the individual pixels look nice and sharp when you focus it. Focus is a little corce but not as bad as some other pico projectors.

On the other hand I found watching content like a movie to look less sharp. The P1 Jr has a light path that puts out some stray light extending to the left of the image. I presume it's also in the image, and while a much dimmer level, it does exact some toll on the crispness of the image.

❮ ❯

Once again, I should stress that Pico projectors serve a purpose and are not designed to be the projector that handles everything you want to do. They are great for short presentations to a small number of people. A group of 6, give or take 2 people would be a good example. And, they need to be fairly close to the projected image in a dark environment to see the image clearly. In a pinch, when you need to show something on your laptop or iphone to more than two people, a handy Pico would do just the trick.

Light Leakage

There's a lot of leakage through the lens, primarily seen to th left of the image and about the same height there is virtually no leak like that on the right side. It's always there. I've worked with 2 different Jr's, the picture here is of the second one, and the light is clearly visible, if a whole lot dimmer than the actual image. Obviously I've had to badly overexpose the image so you can see the light leak.

With the first version of the P1 Jr., that bright almost rectangular area to the left of the image was perhaps 3 times a as bright and larger.

❮ ❯

Audible Noise

This projector has a whisper fan, unlike some others. It's quiet enough. They claim 20 db. That's quiet, only a handful of home theater projectors could match that, and you'd probably need 50 of these to make as much noise as a typical portable biz projector. Consider the projector virtually silent.