Size matters

When the alarm sounded this morning, there were visions of lumens dancing in my head.

It was obvious that I hadn’t adequately cleared my cranium following yesterday’s marathon search for a new portable LCD projector. After hitting six stores, I came home empty-handed and light-headed.

You see, I have immediate need for a teeny-weeny portable projector to show presentations around the country. The most striking lesson I learned is that one man’s portable is another man’s albatross.

1. It’s all about the lumens. For the unenlightened, a lumen is a unit of luminous flux, or brightness. The more lumens the better. Any fewer than 1,000 is considered impotent.

2. The challenge is finding mega lumens in a small package. Two pounds—about eight inches in length—is an ideal size, yet a portable projector must be able to be stored in a small space, and not arouse suspicion at the airport.

3. They actually make a “pocket projector.” One salesman boasted that, at 50 lumens (pfft!), his packs as much punch as a thousand. Nice try, mister.

4. There’s a difference between an LCD and a DLP display. Apparently, looking at a DLP can give you a headache of not-tonight-honey proportions.

5. While I can grasp such measures as resolution, contrast ratio and viewable screen size, I’m puzzled by something called “throw ratio range.” I gather that’s the distance it’ll go when it suffers performance anxiety in front of an audience and I hurl it across the room.