For anyone that has had to make presentations as part of their business be it sales, training or any other sort of presentation, you will probably appreciate the need for a projector to make your presentation. For quite some time this has meant lugging around a fairly chunky projector, which is honestly still an options.
There are really two considerations when it comes to selecting a projector for your business. Cost and portability. This choice is very much dependent upon what you need to display, to how many people, and the time you have available to set up prior to a presentation. Let’s consider some of these choices for a moment though.
- Cost – Projector’s do have a very wide range of price. They can really vary anything from under $1,000 to tens of thousands of dollars. Depending on the specifications and requirements you have.
- Portability – The ability to move a projector around can be a key buying decision, there is no point in buying a very high end projector, with high level features as they will often be larger and bulkier and not really designed to be moved around. On the other hand there are a number of small and portable models which are more then suitable for many indoor situations.
- What you are displaying – Displaying a presentation using powerpoint slides, is quite different to displaying a live video, while often you may be able to display both on the same projector, it is quite possible to get better results from spending a little more for video, but this is probably going to be marginal, and will be more dependent on the next few points.
- How many people need to see – The visibility of an image from a projector over distance, can vary depending upon many factor’s aside from the projector itself. However a low end projector is probably not going to be suitable for displaying to an auditorium with thousands of people in. Where as a high end projector, may be a little to much for using in a boardroom presenting to a dozen people. So matching the needs of the projector to the audience size is a consideration.
- The Lighting Conditions – Different projector’s have different brightness ability. This is usually defined in Lumens(or ANSI). The higher the Lumen’s the better the projector will perform in even well lit environments. This can have a dramatic impact on the cost at times, so while a 1200 ANSI projector may work ok for an office or boardroom situation, it may be ineffective in a better lit environment or outdoors.
- Set-up time – This should be a consideration, if you have to spend half an hour unpacking your equipment and setting it up, with alignment, and such, this may be to much time. Sometimes half an hour is all you have to setup present and be done.
While these are all considerations that you may like to make when you are purchasing a projector. If you know that you are going to be doing a lot of indoor presenting, then you may like to take a look at a very small and very portable projector like the AIPTEK PocketCinema V10. Which is pretty much a handheld projector. It is small, light and can project up to 42″ which is well probably more then enough for business sales presentations.
So now with any luck making the decision when buying a projector may be a little easier, or at leas you may be little more informed on some of the considerations that you need to make.