AAXA Pico - Review Summary

Posted on August 23, 2010 by Art Feierman

AAXA Pico: Bottom Line

In summary I would say the AAXA L1 stacks up with other Pico projectors pretty well in terms of performance, but the price point with a MSRP of $599 is a little on the high side when you consider projectors that are more capable are going for about half the price. It is hard to recommend the AAXA L1 because of the price. Compared to similar models it just did not have any particular special features that justified its above $400 price tag. One has to really know exactly what they want to get out of such a tiny projector. As mentioned, this is not a tool for presenters who need to impress large audiences. It is more designed for those that have portable devices that want a portable device to help them share content on their iphone or similar. Quick, show and tells when you need something bigger than your smart phone screen make these really an ideal tool. If a projector that is a little larger, lets say about the footprint of a piece of paper and a varying height of about 3 to 4 inches is not a big deal, then you might be able to find a much more powerful and capable projector for about the same price. So keep that in mind.

Navigating and setting up the AAXA L1 was pretty straightforward, but certainly was not as easy to use as your typical portable projector designed for professional business presentations that often produce 1500 lumens or more. The menu system was just not as easy to work with because of the limited control panel and lack of remote control. Nonetheless, the projector was never really designed for those purposes to begin with.

The fact that the projector can read so many different types of files without the use of a laptop is pretty impressive. I can see a lot of moments where a person who prefers to travel very light might want to project a PDF onto a hotel wall to review points for a business presentation. It could provide a great practice platform.

The projectors ability to show movies and games is limited, but for camping trips and other situations where image quality is not a make a break situation, the Pico style of projector, especially the L1 would perform adequately.

❮ ❯

AAXA Pico Projector: Pros

Incredibly small size and weight. Weighs just 170 grams
Reads many different types of files without the use of a laptop
Has a USB port to read files from
No need to focus the projector. Just position and start presenting
Has a fairly long battery life of 1.5 hours
10,000 hour light source
Supports up to three different types of video signal. VGA, RCA and S-video

AAXA Pico Projector: Cons

Not very bright at 20 lumens. Measured lumens on a 30” x 23” image was 11 lumens
Menu system was not very straightforward and required the manual.
Laser light technology had a speckled appearance and was distracting after a few minutes.
Limited video inputs.