3M Pocket Projector (3M MPro160)

 Brand 3M | Model: 3M MP160

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3M Pocket Projector (3M MPro160)

Feature

• 32-lumens brightness for full 2-hour battery
• SVGA (800x600) resolution
• Compatible with: PC, DVD, iPod, iPhone, digital camera, smartphone, gaming consoles
• Two, .75W stero speakers
• Light source: LED - 20,000 hours typical
• VGA input/output

Product Overview

Plug the 3M PocketProjector MP160 into your digital media device and watch the fun begin. It provides great versatility and value for business presentations‚ family gatherings‚ and school lessons—anything you want to see on a bigger screen. This portable companion projector is the brightest mobile projector on battery at 32-lumens for 2 full hours. A great tool to showcase a business presentation, show off pictures or play video games on the ceiling.

What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?

1.0 out of 5 stars Purchased a Defective Product, March 2, 2013

By 

Ross Holzman - See all my reviews

This review is from: 3M Pocket Projector (3M MPro160) (Office Product)

The projector I purchased never worked. I thought i was doing something wrong when I connected it to my Mac, but sure enough after calling 3M, the woman there told me she had never heard of such an issue and that the unit I had was broken. So, I bought a defective product to bring to Ghana for a two month trip of workshops and presentations and I DOES NOT WORK. This is why I give the product such a low rating.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great, January 14, 2013

By 

vivoo (jeddah, KSA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 3M Pocket Projector (3M MPro160) (Office Product)

Great size
Its beautiful form
Light
Excellent screen
Recommend buying

Defects in cables
Cable needs High-Speed A to C Type, HDMI to Mini-HDMI Cable

4.0 out of 5 stars 3M Pocket projector, October 12, 2012

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E. Alfonso "Edyalf" (Baton Rouge, La USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: 3M Pocket Projector (3M MPro160) (Office Product)

Amazingly small and convenient. Easy to carry anywhere. Good image definition according to its size, though you really need a dark room and speakers to amplify sound.
I am happy to have it, sure you will too.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Good concept, May 7, 2012

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Tracy Vest (Northern California) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: 3M Pocket Projector (3M MPro160) (Office Product)

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The 3M Pocket Projector is good in concept, however, unless you are displaying in a pitch dark room, the resolution is not that great. Even in a single window room with the lights out and the blinds drawn resulted in a pretty uneven display.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Impressive projector in a small package -- just know its limitations, April 14, 2012

By 

Brian Morris (Irwin, PA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: 3M Pocket Projector (3M MPro160) (Office Product)

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IMPRESSIONS
Upon opening the box, I was very impressed with the weight, size and look of this projector. It is very small, yet has a nice quality look and feel. The monster battery pack gives it a heavy, but not-too-heavy feel. There is a nice selection of accessories in the box, including an AC adapter, composite video cable, VGA cable with audio plug, triple RCA female to female adapter and an Apple adapter (although this may not be included normally).

I have in mind when testing that this is not a 2500 lumen projector nor is it to be rated based on its comparison with one.

FEATURES
The battery feature is just awesome. No regular projector can do that! It does have a small kickstand that tilts it up slightly, but also has a mini flexible three-legged tripod to make it easy to manage steeper angles or uneven surfaces. (It has a universal tripod screw hole, so any tripod would do.) It has a speaker inside (0.75 watts to be exact).

INPUTS
Keep in mind that the input is analog, so no inputting HDMI, DVI or DisplayPort without downgrading it first to analog with equipment. Your device must have an analog output. Out-of-the-box it can do an analog VGA jack from a computer and a plain yellow RCA composite video input. Many devices like DVD players, comcorders and the iPhone/iPad can do analog video out today, but new devices like many Android smartphones and Flip cams do digital only, so be careful.

Here are the other cables that are available:
3M Pocket Projector MP160/MP180 Cable for iPad, iPod, iTouch
Component Video Cable for MP160/MP180

BRIGHTNESS
My first test was in a room with a white wall late at night with the lights out. This is the ideal situation for this projector. In this scenario, it looks great. It has all the brightness you need to show your family videos or pictures. I then tried it at nighttime, but with lights on. While it wasn't terrific, it was still viewable for pictures or video, especially if I kept it within 6 feet of the wall (thereby limiting the picture size). The same goes for daytime while blocking some ambient outside light -- it was not bad viewing photos and video. A high contrast PowerPoint presentation, on the other hand, looked good in each circumstance.

TESTING DEVICES
First I tested it with my iPhone 4. I couldn't quite get the connector to plug into the phone with my case on (although I can get it to work if I don't move them too much), so I put it in my wife's iPhone 4S. It did what Apple allows the A/V adapter to do -- play a photo slideshow, play videos, YouTube and a few other things. Next I followed 3M's recommendation and tried the Apple iPad Dock Connector to VGA Adapter (MC552ZM/B) to connect to the VGA adapter included with this projector. A few times I had to fiddle with unplugging and replugging, but it did do mirroring with the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S. However, there was a strange flickering every few seconds that made it unusable with both devices. I tried with a composite video adapter from the iPad 2, but it didn't do mirroring with that cable.

I next tried my laptop with the VGA adapter. I put the computer into presentation mode and the projector took the 1280x768 resolution and it displayed it well. The image was stretched vertically since that is not the native resolution. I found that PowerPoint presentations, pictures and video looked good just like this. However, any fine text was too blurry to read. I pulled the resolution to 800x600 and it looked perfect! So, that makes this just like many of the under $500 full sized projectors on the market -- 800x600 natively and it adapts higher resolutions down to that level. Here are the resolutions it can downscale itself: 1024x768, 1280x768, 1280x960, 1440x900 (and 640x480, 800x600) plus three Mac resolutions.

Next, I tried a DVD player, which worked great, since the DVD player had a composite video jack (remember, no digital input on the projector).

As for the audio, it sounds like a small and tinny speaker (because it is) and sounds much worse than my laptop's speakers, but sounds similar to a smartphone. Just like the 32 lumen brightness, this is designed for a small audience of a few people, so the speaker does its job.

BATTERY
I ran a test and allowed an iPhone to run through a slideshow of pictures and videos, which a small amount of time taken by videos with audio going through the speaker. It was able to make it for two hours, and I am very impressed.

OVERALL
If you get a full understanding upfront of what this can do and what it can't do, I would recommend it.

4.0 out of 5 stars Use the right tool for the job..., January 26, 2012

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J. Flood (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: 3M Pocket Projector (3M MPro160) (Office Product)

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This is a perfectly seviceable and useable device for it's intended purpose. It's not a home theater or projection TV. It a portable device and limited in it's power, sound, and clarity. But you can also stick in a briefcase or carry on and take it with you without chewing up a lot of space. It gives you a lot of flexibilty and if you manage your expectations you can use this. There are likely smaller and better ones now but this does a good job...

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Very handy, November 10, 2011

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Moner M. Aljehani - See all my reviews

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This review is from: 3M Pocket Projector (3M MPro160) (Office Product)

I loved trying the 3M MP160 Pocket Projector... because it does the job it is supposed to do.
The 3M MPro 160 is literally small enough to fit in your pocket (though not very comfortably) and will easily fit into most laptop bags and brief cases.

Like all projectors of any size, the 3M Pocket Projector MPro160 has its limitations. If you give presentations on the road to small groups, this projector can make your life easier.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Cable malfunction no replacement, October 4, 2011

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CKC - See all my reviews

This review is from: 3M Pocket Projector (3M MPro160) (Office Product)

I purchased a 3M portable projector last year. The cable that connects to my PC USB drive appears to have malfunctioned and the supplier doesn't has the replacement, which is strange. Without that basically I can't use the projector

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars I remember when projectors were huge!, August 18, 2011

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Senor Zoidbergo (Washington D.C.) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: 3M Pocket Projector (3M MPro160) (Office Product)

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I'm pretty impressed with the 3M pocket projector; the small size is wonderfully convenient and portable. How 3M managed to miniaturize their projector technology into such a small package is amazing. The projected image is a bit dim, but it excels at giving small presentations in a dark room. I also was able to watch movies projected onto a wall with decent quality. The projector comes equipped with iPod connectors and despite checking their online manual (the provided manual is terribly unhelpful), I was unable to project an image from an iPod or iPad2.

PROS:

- Small, ultra portable size
- Extremely lightweight
- Package comes with almost every single cord or connector imaginable (ipod connectors are included, so you don't have to fill out the rebate form)
- Good battery life

CONS:

- low powered, on the dim side
- terrible manual
- was unable to project from an iPod or iPad2

While the Pro160 came with many generously included cords and connectors, the higher end model the MP180, might be better in terms of offering wireless connectivity.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Plug and Watch~!, July 28, 2011

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J. Ung - See all my reviews

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This review is from: 3M Pocket Projector (3M MPro160) (Office Product)

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I really like this portable projector for a couple of reasons.
First, its portability is just awesome. Nowadays regular projectors are getting smaller and smaller, but they are still heavy and bulky to carry around, which is inconvenient, because it is as if I'm carrying an extra laptop. However, with this tiny projector, I don't feel that way. It feels more as if I'm carrying an extra smart phone, just a bit thicker than an iPhone. This pocket projector also comes with a nice carrying pouch for your convenience.
Second, the connection. This projector comes with all kinds of connection cables; I did not have to worry about buying any additional cables, which often times is the case with other gadgets. My favorite is the iphone connector cable that worked great with 3GS, iPhone 4, and iPad. The projector worked immediately with photo, movie, air video, streamtome, YouTube, and a whole bunch of other video apps on my iPhone and iPad. Now with these two small gadgets, I have discovered many creative ways of using this projector for fun or professional business. For instance, a wedding photographer (which is profession which could benefit from this projector) can set up this projector easily on any white wall to showcase the night's captures. And again its portability lessens the weight of a photographers' gear. I also can't wait for the iOS 5's airplay mirroring feature. I am not sure how it will work out with this projector yet, but I can imagine it will be awesome if it does (maybe via apple tv 2).
Third, it is simple and user-friendly, which is great. Lack of settings or simplicity can be annoying for some people, but not all of us have to be technically bright. All I had to do to operate this projector was simply plug, turn on the power, focus, and watch. The fact that this projector is easy to use makes the gadget unbelievably likable.

As for cons: Things I don't like about this projector, however, are: sound quality, lack of settings, mini tripod that it includes, and fan noise. I did not expect great sound quality out of this tiny box, but fortunately, there is an audio out on the projector if I needed better sound.
Also, the tripod connecting hole is not in the center of the weight; therefore, unless you have a better tripod than the one it comes with, it's not too easy to get the projector the way you want. I recommend the $15 Joby golliapod. [...]
Lastly, the fan noise is there. It is not super loud, but it's there. I noticed once the fan started running, within a minute or so, it buried under the movie audio and I forgot about it after that.
There are little things I might want to mention such as the product not including a lens cover, battery life lasts about two hours, which was enough for me, and no keystone control; however I can't have all the features I want in this small projector. Rather, I put it this way : it's awesome that this tiny projector makes huge video screen out of my empty white wall.