Despite the name, the AAXA P4-X Pico Projector ($300 street) is a bit too large to qualify as pico size by our definition. At 1.2 by 5.5 by 2.8 inches (HWD) it just misses being able to fit in a shirt pocket. Whatever you choose to call it, however (I'd call it a palmtop), it's both highly portable and highly capable, with a bright image, good image quality, lots of connection options, and the ability to read files from memory, a combination that makes it Editors' Choice.

Built around a DLP chip paired with an LED light source, the P4-X  offers a native widescreen resolution at 854 by 640, one of the variations on WVGA. Like the slightly smaller Editors' Choice Optoma PK301 Pico Pocket Projector ($400 street, 4 stars), it offers two brightness ratings, but note that the P4-X's lower rating matches the PK-301's higher rating. AAXA rates the projector at 80 lumens using AC power or 50 lumens with its rechargeable battery (which AAXA says is good for 75 minutes on a full charge).

You'll want to take advantage of the higher brightness whenever you can, which means that in addition to the 10-ounce P4-X itself, you'll generally need to carry the power block as well, for a total weight of 15 ounces. The good news is that you may not have to carry an image source also. Like many pico and palmtop projectors, the P4-X enhances its portability by letting you read files directly from memory, which in this case means USB memory keys or microSD cards. (There is no internal memory.)

Setup

Setting up the P4-X consists of little more than turning it on, pointing it at whatever you're using for a screen, focusing the image, and then using the built-in menus to pick the right image source. To read files from memory, you can either plug a card into the microSD card slot or take advantage of the mini USB connector and supplied adaptor that lets you plug a USB key into the other end. Note that the only file formats the documentation says the projector can read are AVI, MPG, MP4, and MP3, but in my tests it read JPG and TXT files without problems, and AAXA says it reads GIF and BMP as well.

If you want to use an external image source, your connection choices include a mini-HDMI port for a computer or video source, which is a particularly nice touch. A proprietary connector also lets you connect to a computer VGA port using a supplied cable, and an AV port paired with an adapter adds connectors for composite video and stereo audio. AAXA also sells additional adaptors (at $12.99 to $19.99 direct each) for iPod, Zune, and PSP connections. The only other connector is a stereo audio output for a headset or speakers.

Brightness and Image Quality

With palmtop projectors like the Editors' Choice 3M Mobile Projector MP410 ($599 direct, 4 stars) offering 300 lumens, the P4-X's 80 lumens may not sound like a lot. But keep in mind that perception of brightness is logarithmic, so although 300 lumens is 3.75 times 80 lumens, it won't make the image look anywhere near 3.75 times as bright. That makes the lower brightness a more than fair trade-off for the P4-X's much lower price.

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I tested the P4-X primarily with AC power. Based on The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) recommendation for image brightness, an 80-lumen image in theater dark lighting should allow comfortable viewing at screen sizes ranging from 35- to 47-inches diagonally. This closely matches the 48-inch maximum diagonal image size I settled on before I did the calculation.

Quite apart from issues of brightness, the P4-X did a good job on data image quality. On our standard suite of DisplayMate tests, it delivered fully saturated, eye-catching color; good color balance with suitably neutral grays over the entire range from white to black; and reasonably crisp, readable text at sizes as small as 9 points.

Video quality was also surprisingly good. I saw some slight posterization (colors changing suddenly where they should change gradually), and a moderate to major problem with shadow detail (the loss of detail in dark areas), but both showed only in scenes that tend to create problems for most data projectors. Neither showed up in any significant way in more carefully lit scenes, which is what you'll usually get with commercial source material. Skin tones were a little oversaturated in some cases, but video quality was generally good enough to be usable.

Rainbows and Other Issues

Rainbow artifacts, with bright areas breaking up into little red-green-blue rainbows, are always a concern for any single-chip DLP projector. That makes it very much worth mention that the P4-X shows very little rainbow effect. With data images, the only time I saw the artifacts was with one screen that tends to bring them out. Even with that screen they were so fleeting that I didn't find them bothersome. I saw them a bit more often in video, but primarily in a single scene that tends to show them easily. Given that I see these artifacts relatively easily, few people, if any, should see them often enough to consider them a problem.

One minor issue that the P4-X shares with most small projectors is a nearly useless sound system. The 1-watt stereo speakers are barely loud enough to let you hear everything if you're sitting right next to the projector in a quiet room. If you need sound, plan on using the audio output port, preferably with a powered headset or speakers.

Compounding the problem of low speaker volume is that the fan is loud enough to be a potential issue. I tend to ignore fan noise, but if you're sitting close enough to the projector to hear sound from the speakers, the whine of the P4-X fan, rated at 30 dB, is hard to ignore. For those who are sensitive to fan noise, this could be a problem.

By any reasonable measure, the AAXA P4-X Pico Projector is impressive for the price. It can read files from memory or a wide variety of image sources; it offers a brighter image and better image quality for both data and video than most projectors its size; and it doesn't show as many rainbow artifacts as most. The fan noise and low volume are the only real shortcomings, and the low volume, at least, is pretty much standard for the breed. All this makes the AAXA P4-X Pico Projector an easy pick as Editors' Choice for low-cost pico or palmtop projector.

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