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Four projectors that will make your eyes water and your wallet quiver

To our mind, there is only one thing better than a screen that takes up half a wall, and that’s a screen that takes up the entire wall.

Thus, we’re quite in love with the idea of projectors and how any flat, white surface can be turned into a display.

At the recent Dell Solutions Roadshow, we had some time to chat to Pamila Sewnarain, Business Manager at Dell South Africa about some of the very cool projectors the firm has on offer, and which will be releasing soon.

While these have a variety of applications, they appear be better-suited to boardrooms and classrooms rather than the living room, but hey, we’re not going to tell you how to spend your money.

Dell S320wi – Short and wide

Of the many types of projectors on the market, the short throw variant is our favourite. The S320wi in particular caught our eye because, from a distance of 40cm, you can create a 31-inch display.

The brightness is rated at 3000 ANSI lumens and your aspect ratio is 4:3. Unfortunately this isn’t a Full HD projector but the native resolution is a semi-decent XGA 1024 x 768.

You need less than a metre to make a 31inch display.
You need less than a metre to make a 31inch display.

At the back you’ll find VGA, HDMI 1.4a and composite video connectors as well as a 3.5mm audio jack.

The “wi” in the model name means that this projector has a WiFi feature, though if you’re finding the included module too slow you can plug a USB WiFi dongle into the dedicated port.

Pricing for the Dell S320wi starts at R12 000.

Dell M115HD – Pack up and go

Berate the humble portable LED projector all you want, but there are some benefits to using one like not having to wait for the lamp to warm up, and the person sitting near the projector not having to sweat through your presentation.

The Dell M115HD is a tiny LED projector that fits in the palm of your hand, and cranks out a respectable brightness rating of 450 ANSI lumens.

You don't even need to connect a PC to this projector thanks to 1GB internal storage.
You don’t even need to connect a PC to this projector thanks to 1GB internal storage.

This isn’t the best projector if we’re honest, but for a small boardroom with a few people this little projector will give you a nice 1280 x 800 resolution. The projection distance ranges from about a metre to 2.58m, and you can get up to an 80-inch display at the max distance, though the brightness of the image will be affected.

The tiny projector also has 1GB internal memory so it can be plug and play without having to connect your PC. For those that prefer wires you’ll find an HDMI 1.4a port at the back.

Pricing for the M115HD starts at R6000.

Dell Interactive Projector S520wi – The big daddy

With a brightness rating of 3 100 ANSI lumens, an aspect ration of 16:10 and a native resolution of 1280 x 800 the S520wi isn’t just big in size.

Perhaps the most incredible feature of this projector is how big of a display you can get with less than a metre of space. To be precise, at a distance of just 50cm you can project an image that’s 70 inches in size.

While that sinks in, we’ll point out that the S520wi ships with an 87-inch whiteboard that works with the projector to create an interactive display.

Using the included pens, users can interact with the screen just like they would with a touchscreen on a tablet or smartphone thanks to the 10-point touch capabilities of the projector.

See how it all works in the video below:


At the side (not the back panel as in most projectors) you’ll find HDMI 1.4a, VGA, S-Video and USB connectors. You can even connect it to your WiFi network so you can beam content directly to the screen with no cables.

Unfortunately Dell couldn’t give us a solid price for the S520wi, but could tell us that the current retail price across the pond is $4 129 (R66 573.30 at the current exchange rate), so expect it to cost a little bit more than that once taxes and import duties are added on when it lands here.

Dell M900HD – The best (that we saw)

Perhaps saying this little 900 ANSI lumen portable LED projector is “the best” is a bit presumptuous of us, but this little thing really blew our socks off.

Just as a matter of interest the room this was being projected in was brightly lit and you could still see the image clear as day.
Just as a matter of interest the room this was being projected in was brightly lit and you could still see the image clear as day.

The M900HD boasts a 1280 x 800 native resolution and a maximum screen size of 80 inches. From a distance of 90cm, you can get a 16:10 image of around 30 inches, with the image getting larger and dimmer as you move back.

Portable. Check. Small. Check. Powerful. Check.
Portable? Check. Small? Check. Powerful? Check.

Inside you’ll find 2GB of memory for PC-free presentations using Office Viewer or Multimedia Viewer, along with a mercury free LED lamp. Connectors include HDMI, 3.5mm audio and an SD card slot which supports cards of up to 32GB.

All of this retails for around R12 000, which is a lot but you really do get what you pay for.

Now if you’ll excuse us, we’ll be trying to convince the higher-ups that we need one of each of these projectors… for research purposes, of course.

[Image CC by 2.0 – Kevin Stanchfield]

 

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