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I would like to buy a projector to link to my laptop (Lenovo, if that matters) to show Powerpoint presentations of photographs - the modern equivalent of the slide projector, I guess! I've looked online and am getting confused; there seem to be a bunch of cheapish ones in makes I've never heard of in the £60-£70 region, and then much more expensive ones - at least a couple of hundred quid. This is for occasional use, not regular film shows or anything, but does need to show pictures of reasonable quality. I don't need party tricks, just a straightforward slide show effect.

Does anyone know anything about these? I can't afford to spend a couple of hundred quid, but don't want to be landed with a piece of rubbish either. Hope someone out there can help me sort the wheat from the chaff, thanks.

Projector's are expensive there is no two ways about that.

Have you considered plugging your LaLaptop to a HDMI lead and a larger screen, like a Tv??

If you give us the links we can advise better.

The little portable ones (pico) arent much cop if you want to be able to share presentations. They are okay in near darkness, but struggle otherwise, they tend to be too light and wont stay put, moving easily.

Like Mark says, you most definitely get what you pay for, had a Portable Sony for about 5 years and it was ace, bit chunky but came with a carry case, paid about £600 for it, also had a static Samsung but it kept eating components, they swapped it under warranty everytime, turned out to be a humidity issue with the room it was in, was great when it worked paid about £400 for that.

If your buying secondhand check the number of hours its been run. Most have an in built log of how much its been used you can find the log when its switched on in the extended menu's. Worth checking as bulbs are expensive to sort out.

Hope this helps

K

If you are thinking of buying second hand, beware of the horrendous price of the bulbs on LCD projectors and CRT projectors have to be on their last legs by now.

The 1080p sub-£50 ones only accept a 1080p signal in - the actual display is very low resolution 320X240 being typical.

To whoever moved this into the right place, thanks! I'd have to do a lot of talks to recoup the cost of a decent projector, by the sound of it. Plugging it into a tv wouldn't work, as the groups I'd be talking to would need a larger picture - I was thinking of projecting onto a wall. Might have to think again about this.
Thanks for your input, folks!

How about you answer theae few questions (which i've robbed and modified from a guitar forum i frequent, this usually helps us recommend gear to other users) and we can help you more

• Budget
• Screen size required
• Usage (ie how frequently are you going to use it)
• Brightness required (will you be using in a blacked out room or one with curtains open on a bright sunny day)
• Extra's required (built-in speaker, remote control, HD, 3D etc)

Cheers

Ooh... budget? As little as possible and still get a decent picture.
Size? Imagine talking to a Townswomen's Guild-type group - you'd want a good size picture on display as on averae 30-odd people will want to be able to see it.
Usage? Possibly not that often, once every few weeks in teh early stages.
Brightness? I imagine most rooms will have curtains that can be drawn, but are unlikely to have full blackout.
Extras? Remote control would be useful, party tricks not required.

This is just a fund-raising idea at the moment; illustrated talks are more generally appealing than just listening to someone whittering, I think.

Thats cool, gives us some paremeters. Here's a few ebay item numbers of projectors that may or may not be of some interest:

261939347453 <- used and looks actually quite decent

181765508846 <- used but looks alright

121674111066 <- new. This one my friend has and plays his xbox1 through it and it's actually really good!!

Just a few suggestions i found on ebay but if you search places like amazon and even 2md hand shops like cash converters you might find something (don't be afraid to make an offer in cash converters, i've never paid the asking price for anything in there, they're always open to a haggle)

I do a lot of work with and managing projectors. I can say that the cheap ones are disappointing.

My personal recommendations would be a second hand Epson EB or Sanyo projector, especially if there's a decent amount of bulb life left (but you'll probably only have the sellers word on that).

This is the one I have a lot of:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Epson-EB-..._DefaultDomain_3&hash=item25a88ec575

I had one of these quite a few years back, these are really good and until recently no other projector I've had has beat the quality of it.

Your probably looking at £50 on eBay now as it's quite an old model.

It's 4:3 but would be ideal for what your using it for.

I used to use this model to play pc games years ago and it's a good piece of kit, it gets hot and gives a lot of heat off so best used in a large room.

http://www.projectorcentral.com/Mitsubishi-X70UX.htm

Edit: lol, looking at the specs now it seems like nothing compared to the units we have today but I can assure you that you won't be disappointed.
Your on a budget, this is ideal as these old units go for buttons on eBay.
Don't touch those £40 hdmi ones, they're not suitable for anything useful at all.

Thanks very much folks, you have given me some very useful hints there. Time to do some serious fishing around, now! Will let you know how I get on.