Even under the much more conservative leadership of former PlayStation president Kaz Hirai, Sony can't resist the odd pointless gimmick. Take this pocketable projector, which is about the size of a couple of smartphones and is being marketed alongside the PlayStation 4. Due out in October, the MPCL1 isn't exactly cheap at $350, but it will allow you to beam some of your favourite games onto virtually any wall. Apparently, it doesn't even matter if the surface is flat – the fancy-pants laser technology inside the unit will focus the image anyway.
The downsides are that it's not full HD – it runs at the rather odd resolution of 1920x720 – and is actually quite dim, packing a brightness rating of just 32 lumens. To put that into perspective, Sony's top-of-the-line 4K image-slinger projects 2,000 lumens – but it also costs $50,000. The portable version does have an HDMI input, and is also capable of streaming video from a phone, tablet, or laptop via Wi-Fi. You can even use its 3,000mAh battery to charge your phone, which is a nifty little extra if you find yourself without access to a plug socket.
Of course, we can't imagine that there's going to be much of a market for this – much like many of the gizmos that the Japanese giant puts out. Wired hypothesises that it may simply be a case of Sony experimenting with the technology, as it prepares for a potential future in which all smartphones come equipped with a projector as standard. Seeing as the organisation makes a lot of its money from iPhone components these days, that's not a bad shout. For now, though, just think of this as a portable display which you can project onto your bedroom ceiling.
[source wired.com]
Comments 31
Amazing technology, totally pointless product. It's Sony in a nutshell!
@get2sammyb your comment just made my day (even though this day is over in 1 hour and 35 minutes)
@get2sammyb How is it pointless?
@get2sammyb Sadly seems to be Sony's obsession
As projectors go it seems decent. I need a pocket one to project slides when out on tge road fir work so the MHL will come in handy. And why would you nit want to play on a wall with full HD and no lag!?
Pretty neat, but pointless for what I need...so you basically summed it up right
@WARDIE I think something like this probably does have a use for maybe a teacher or something who needs to set up Powerpoint presentations in different rooms a lot, so it's not totally pointless I guess. But it's just one of those products that Sony seems to make all the time that doesn't appear to have a very big market, even if it is cool.
I want it but...no full HD and this weird resolution turn me off
@KratosMD My buddy takes his PS4 over to his girlfriends and she doesn't own an HDTV. Also, using it at a gaming party for split screen multiplayer.
There are way better alternatives. Unfortunately that's how I sum up Sony these days.
@KratosMD Some people work on the road. You can't go out every night & you do miss your games. I have a few friends & family that work on the road (trucking & various other jobs) they always take a console/handheld with them.
Oh hell no
Can somebody explain the weird resolution to me? (I know what it means, but why they would pick 1 number from 1080p and the other from 720p) Wouldn't that be a very long thin sliver of a rectangle? 4x3, 16x9, 20x7.
Doesn't make a lot of sense for PS4, but I can imagine a lot of dumped teen boyfriends using this to project their home made smartphone sex tape on to the side of their ex-girlfriends parents house. And that's just off the top of my head.
Sony have done really well with products and partnerships this year, until this. Wtf does there share holders think of this! Obviously support it.
@get2sammyb personally I hope they never stop doing things like this. Sure it may not always work but then they'd just be playing it safe, and that's never really been Sony's MO. Even going back to its beginnings, Sony's ID was engineering and I believe this made them different than other Japanese makers. Under Howard Stringer they played things pretty safe but under Kaz Hirai they seem to rediscovering some of their uniqueness, which I fully support.
@rjejr Jesus if that's at the top of your head you must really hate your ex girlfriend and her parents must have a weird shaped semi detached to have the side facing the street. How the hell did that pop into your head first?
@noodleking1987 shareholders love PowerPoint its a fact, check out any set up from any shareholders meeting in the last 10 years. They are the market. But it is a pre cursor for future tech. A working exoensive prototype to gain feedback for later iterations, the luminosity is terrible. That will be the first thing to change.
Its a great idea ! Looking foward to buying this ! Thanks Playstation !!
Nice but strange product but tbh at that price I would rather buy a separate projector at a higher spec
Seems really cool. Great for people who want a big-screen cinema experience that is also compact, portable and on a small budget.
On the business (office presentations) and education side, I imagine it can being very convenient too. You don't need a dedicated room with a projector anymore, but you can just use this pico-projector that people can carry around. The price and resolution is also fantastic for the kind of product that it is. (other pico-projectors are typically only 480p resolution and are in the €250-400 price range. 1920x720 resolution is a first for a pico-projector as far as I know, so great engineering achievement on Sony's part)
And by the way, you can't really compare the luminous flux in lumen from a laser projector (which this one is) to a bulb-based projector (DLP). Laser is always way lower because light is focused in one direction. 32 lumen for a laser projector is decent and considering the small form factor of this projector, it's pretty good I'd say.
The technology will probably be very important going forward too, with the emergence of AR glasses/HMD's that utilize small built-in pico-projectors. So good they're doing R&D in that area I think. Integrating it in smartphones is definitely also a possibility, like the article mentions.
And by the way, it isn't a PS4-specific projector. It was just demoed with a PS4 going by another article that I read, but it can obviously accept any HMDI video source. (and even receive stream from other devices, so pretty versatile I'd say) Using for playing games with a PS4 is one of the many applications.
The article is needlessly opinionated though. I don't see how it's pointless at all.
@get2sammyb
No offense, but article is needlessly opinionated (video games for consumers is just one of the many potential applications of this projector). It is not a useless product at all. Just because it isn't useful to you, doesn't mean that it isn't useful for people in other fields.
I think it can never hurt to do a bit more research when you're writing something that isn't that much about gaming but is more related to technology.
@rjejr I don't know, but it's probably a technical reason. Maybe the pixels are rectangular (not square) so it can still be 16:9 aspect ratio.
@get2sammyb
No idea why you consider Kaz Hirai having a conserative leadership (don't follow Sony Corporation news fervently or something so maybe I'm not the one to know), but you realize that being conservative is a bad thing for a technology, electronics company?
A tech/electronics company obviously has to invest in R&D to find new product applications, new tech standards, new technologies for products. It's a bit weird that you seem to be painting technological innovations as a bad thing.
@Cyrso Not only opinionated but the comparison to a $50,000 tv is dumb. Like comparing a ps4 to a $5000 pc and calling the ps4 trash. A 30 second google search showed me the average lumens for a projector is 1000 to 2500 .
I would have been interested if it were 1080p.
I want one....
Why is it pointless. Me and 10 to 15 family members get together every chance we get to play fifa tournaments on a projector in the basement this appeals to different people. Just because you don't need it doesn't mean it has no value. I'm buying one if the specs surpass our little projector.
This year it will be PES2016
@Cyber-BLP-- OMG don't you put those thoughts into my head. I am expecting morpheus to be $399 max $499 but now I'm concerned.
Totally getting this. Very excited.
@KratosMD You can use it with your bluetooth on your mobile looks neat to use when you working on the office. Wait i have to give a presentation let me pull pull my project out of my pocket or briefcase you are right no one wants that.
@Cyrso I totally agree with you people dont think about the future.
@get2sammyb
Can't you theoretically beam PS4 remote play via wifi with your phone or Vita? If so, that makes it the antithesis of pointless.
@goonow
It's 900p. I'm getting it in October, it's awesome. Remote play PS4 onto it on the road, hellz yes.
32 lumens for game play, I'm sure Sony could do better than that. There are better small projectors out there for the same price that has more features.
That's with 150 lumens and it still not might be enough.
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