I have a big expensive Optoma projector but wanted something more portable for fun around the house. I found the Yowhick DP02W Mini Projector on Amazon for a good price and it met my needs for ports and features so I gave it a try.
There were a couple features I needed or cared about in a mini projector:
- 1080p must be the native resolution. I see so many advertise 1080p but they are really more like 480 or 720p stretched out. This is enough to provide a crisp image and text you can read when blown up to 50-100 inches.
- HDMI input. I want to run a chromecast because they are small and portable and have a remote control.
- 3.5 standard headphone jack. Speakers on projectors – even my $650 optoma – are not great I want to plug in my own speaker
- Price! This was under $100 atter clipping coupon
- LCD instead of DLP. I find the rainbow effect on my Optoma DLP projector very distracting. Every time you move your head the screen has a rainbow like color effect.
I had no expectation of a <$100 projector working during the early evening before it was dark out, OUTSIDE, on a 100″ screen but WOW.. this thing performs. The projector is crisp and is truely 1080p as opposed to upscaled from a lower resolution. The brightness is totally workable even at 100″ with evening ambient lighting. Its not as bright as my 3000 lumen Optoma in this lightning, but its quite close.
What I really got this for was inside use at night. In a dark environment and something more like 65-70″ the sharpness is amazing and colors as bright as a TV.
For sound, the built in speaker was louder than I expected, but lacked the bass I wanted so I plugged in a battery powered JBL Clip 2 speaker and it sounds great and gets plenty loud to fill a room. Also in the photo above, the chromecast easily plugs in.
As far as mounting and setting up goes, the biggest weakness I came across was that the angle adjustment (keystone correction). Basically if you have the projecter pointing up or down, you need to adjust keystone to get a rectangle picture. When adjusting this, the image gets blurry on one edge or the other. The solution for me was to use a tripod. A tripod is by far the best and most convient way to mount this projector. You get good height and adjustability and can even point it straight up at the ceiling for movies in bed.
Leave a comment with any questions on this projector below. Link to amazon is here: https://amzn.to/3oAfFHY
