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On January 5th, Microvision announced their preproduction model, codename SHOW WX, of their Pico projector. Today I got a chance to witness the tiny projector in action.

The Pico projector is named as such because it’s so small. It’s not quite one millionth of one millionth of a meter or anything, but it is tiny when compared to standard projectors. Here are some specs on the device.

• Easy setup: Simply plug and play.
• Small and sleek: 118 mm long by 60 mm wide by 14 mm thick, approximately the size of a personal media player or mobile phone .
• Always in focus: No focus adjustment is required, ever!
• Image of any size: Ideal for controlled lighting environments, images are projected as small as 6 inches to 100 inches, or more.
• Wide projection angle: Brings the “big screen” closer to the user.
• High-resolution (WVGA) and 16:9 format: Serves both consumer (e.g., video) and business (e.g., presentations) applications.
• Vivid images: Stunning laser colors combined with exceptional contrast.
• Long battery life: Expected for the production version, up to 2 hours, provides plenty of time to view a movie on a single charge.

The reason the device can be so small is that the light source is laser based.

Inside of the case there are three lasers: red, green and blue. Lasers bring a number of benefits.  First, they are fairly bright, so you can project an image, preferably in a light controlled area, up to 100 inches wide without it washing out too far to be viewable. The darker your room, the better the picture is going to look, but it’s still usable in a lit room; you just have to be closer to your “screen” area to get a bright enough image. A second benefit of lasers is infinite focus. You never have to focus the image no matter what your current viewing size. You can even project to curved surfaces without it looking funky.

In real life, the projector does a good job. Bigger images will looked washed out, and honestly, anything over about 32 inches is “iffy” unless you’re in a very dark room. But this isn’t meant to replace a full sized projector. It’s targeted at professionals who need to make impromptu presentations; those worried about built-in projectors not working for a presentation or users who just want to have an extremely mobile projector.

As far as connections are concerned you will be able to connect via VGA or iPod cable. Videos in iPod mode can be displayed, along with YouTube videos and Pictures. Currently Apple doesn’t support video out from other apps like the upcoming Slingbox app or from games, so no luck there. More connections may be available when the projector becomes available.

In its current state, the product would be priced somewhere around $500, but we may see that lowered in time. You can expect to see Microvision’s Pico projector hit the market in smaller numbers during the second quarter of 2009 and bigger quantities during the second half of the year.

Via [Microvision]