Believe it or not, experts in Projection have strong, passionate feelings about the industry. We care about its direction and currently models like the ZTE Touchscreen Smart Projector, divide opinion. Some think they’re great. Others have principled objections. It’s about what you think a Projector should do. The purists believe projection is about displaying movies. games and presentations in clarity and on a big screen. The progressives believe they should double as Tablets, Computers, and Laptops so that you can actually surf the internet and do work on a big screen. What do you think? I’ll give you the pros and cons of ZTE, telling you what it can and can’t do and then you’ll be able to decide which side of the heated debate you’re on.
PROS
- 720p Projection
- Very Portable
- Doubles as a Tablet
- Snapdragon 2.3GHZ CPU
- 2GB RAM
- 16GB ROM
- 300 Inch Screen
- Clear Picture
- Good for Presentations, Movies, Games and Surfing the Net
CONS
- Tricky set-up
- 200 Lumens
Overall Impression
Size and Design
The design looks really nice with its curved edges on a white finish and the 5-inch screen on the top. It is in fact a fully functioning Tablet and so it doesn’t even become a projector until you put it down and throw out images. When you pick it up though, make sure you have clean hands because it does tend to stain easily. The weight is only 3.4 pounds so it won’t be a burden to hold and this adds to the portability because you could take it anywhere and not notice any extra weight. The measurements are 11.2 inches by 7.4 inches by 4.3 inches, so it is thick for a tablet, although I like that because thickness lends itself to durability. At this size, you could fit it into a small bag or case. It’s a pity a case wasn’t provided with the product.
Performance
Setting up the projector
There’s good news and bad news about the setup. The good news is that you don’t have to do anything except flip the switch to turn it on. Everything is done automatically, but that’s also the bad news. As well as auto-focus there’s also auto-keystone so you have to use keystone every time you transport the ZTE to another place for use as a projector. If you’re mainly using this as a Tablet you won’t have a problem, but for projection, you may get some distortions. Keystone has a tendency to import distortions so every now and then you’ll be watching a movie or playing a game and you’ll see slight spots of color in the corners of the screen. This is because of the auto-keystone.
Hardware
Better news comes in the form of the Snapdragon 800 processor. This is commonly used in mobile phones and other mobile devices like Tablets. It supports almost all digital cameras with 21 megapixels or less and has 800MHZ of speed. The clock speed is 2.3GHZ. and it supports the Bluetooth 4.0 you get with ZTE. It’s a good choice that’ll give you all the speed you need to perform multiple tasks when using the ZTE 4G as a mobile Computer. Speaking of 4G, it’s been pre-installed on this model, so you’ll be able to leave the house and still get an internet connection for movies, games, and surfing while you’re on the move. Models with 4G can do this because they are equipped to receive mobile signals whereas 3G models need to be within range of a Modem or Router.
Helping the speed of computing along is the 2GB of RAM. RAM retains information in a compressed form for short periods. Think of it as a bucket full of fast easy to obtain data. It allows you to do multiple tasks all at once like playing games while surfing the net and downloading movies. 2GB of RAM is what you’d find on medium-priced computers. So it’s a lot of short-term storage which means that unless you’re trying to crack the Da Vinci Code you won’t run out of RAM space and computing will run smoothly.
Connectivity
So the internet connection is fast and smooth. You’ll be able to access it at home or on the road, but what is the picture like? Well, it’s not Full HD 1080p but it is the next best thing at 720p. And, you usually don’t get 1080p on a Tablet or Computer anyway, so for these uses, it’ll be better than most. For projection, it’ll be good too, but there are a large number of 1080p Projectors available and the picture isn’t as good as these. It’s still pretty good though, and most non-experts can’t see the difference between 720p and 1080p. The internal memory here is 16GB so as well as watching movies, you’ll also be able to store them on the device which is something you can’t do on most Projectors. The Snapdragons response rate is also a plus point when it comes to viewing pleasure because it’ll enable you to play games at the standard of the arcade.
Most Importantly – Picture Quality
While I can’t fault the picture, there are limitations to when viewing on the big screen is possible. The ZTE 4G will project up to 300 inches but there are only 200 Lumens so for projection the room will need to be dark. For use as a Tablet or Laptop, you can view it in any light because of the Tablet-sized screen, which makes this more of a Tablet than a Projector despite the nice 720p native resolution. Although I haven’t heard of many Tablets that enable you to hook up almost any device. There’s USB, HDMI, and SDXC, so you’re spoilt for choice when it comes to connections.
Final Thoughts
These new Tablets/Projectors sure do simplify things. You don’t need to buy a Tablet or Computer and then hook it up to your Projector because you already have both a Tablet and the ability to compute on one product. There’s a seamless operation and easy user-friendly controls. You’re walking home from work playing a game or preparing a presentation on your Tablet, and minutes later you’re laying it down and throwing up those images at 300 inches. They’ve also avoided the problems of other Tablet/Projector devices in that this is both a good Tablet and a good Projector. There’s speed, a great CPU, lots of RAM, and a bundle of memory. I’ve seen some of these hybrids produce poor performance in computing but that isn’t the case here. Sure, they could have included more Lumens and the set-up could have been simpler, but I think this is a tremendous device, with a clear 720p picture. It’ll support your camera, and it’ll play most games well because of Snapdragon’s fast response rate. It’s a Tablet, it’s a Projector – maybe it’s the future but not if the purists have anything to say about it.
