You never really associate projectors with Apple devices or as a home appliance. Sure some people use it on their private screening room but a projector that’s also a docking station for the iPod, iPhone or iPad? It’s a first and Epson is bringing it to us.
According to Epson the MG-850HD home projector is aimed towards homes and schools. Why school? Because some academic institutes use iPad as a teaching tool or as a learning tool. Got a Keynote presentation or report on your iPad or iPhone? Slap it into this projector and show it to the class.
The Epson MG-850HD only outputs via display out meaning it won’t really display things as seen on your Apple device unless the app (like official Mac apps) also supports display out. You can’t play Angry Birds and use the projector to have a bigger screen. In fact, it has its own UI to navigate through your videos and photos from your camera roll.
It has a 10W speaker output so you can really use it as your iPod speaker dock. There’s also a mic jack which you can use to aid you in your presentation. The USB port accepts flash drives but will only play photos from it so it’s not really a media player projector. It also recognizes Epson-accepted WiFi dongles so you can use this projector to display your PC or laptop content wirelessly.
Did we mention that this one’s also an HD projector? To add to its versatility, you can connect your device/appliance via HDMI, component and composite into it if you wish to view your 720p HD videos on a bigger screen. With its 2800lm brightness, it is just like watching your HD videos on your TV with the picture quality retained.
Supported devices for its dock are the iPad 1 and 2, all iPhone models, all iPod Touch models and iPod Nano 3rd gen to 5th gen. It will be available starting next month with an SRP of Php43,900.
Epson MG-850HD Specs:
- RGB liquid crystal shutter projection system (3LCD)
- 720p (1280 x 800) native resolution
- F-number: 1.58 – 1.72
- Focal length: 16.9mm – 20.28mm
- Zoom Ratio: 1 – 1.2
- Throw Ratio: 1.30 – 1.56
- Lamp: 200W UHE (E-TORL), 4000-hours
- Screen size: 33″ – 318″
- Brightness: 2800lm
- Contrast ratio: 3000:1
- Sound output: 10W x 2
- Keystone correction: +- 30 degrees
- Connectivity: VGA port, Component, Composite, S-Video, HDMI, Audio RCA, 2x USB, stereo mini-jack, iPod dock connector
- Start-up period: 6 seconds
- Cool-down period: Instant off
- Power consumption: 303W normal, 256W eco, 0.3W standby
- Weight: 3.9kg
- SRP: Php43,900