BenQ Joybee GP1

The BenQ Joybee GP1 ($500 street, and backed by a standard one-year warranty) is the kind of product that stands out in the crowd. It's not perfect, but for the moment at least, it's the most impressive example of its breed—the palmtop (also known as pocket-size) projector. And it offers some highly pleasant surprises that help it...ummm...outshine its competition.

As with all palmtops so far, the GP1 is built around a DLP chip along with an LED light source meant to last for the life of the projector. The LEDs, rated at 20,000 hours, help keep the total cost of ownership down. Standard projector lamps typically cost $200 or more to replace, and unlike LEDs, they often contain environmentally unfriendly mercury.

By definition, a palmtop projector is both light enough and small enough to rest on your palm. The GP1 is a little on the large side, at 2.2 by 5.4 by 4.7 inches (HWD), and weighs a claimed 1.4 pounds, not including its power adapter and power cord. My postage scale put the weight at a slightly lighter 1.3 pounds for the projector alone and 2.9 pounds with the power cord and adapter included. As a point of comparison, the is one of the smallest and lightest palmtops at about 2 pounds, including the cables and power cord.

Whatever the GP1 loses in portability on account of weight, it makes up in its ability to show photos, graphic files, and full-motion video without your needing to carry along a computer or video source. Instead, you can use a USB key. You can even show a presentation from a USB key by saving it in an appropriate file format. The directly competitive offers a similar feature for images, but it can't read video files.

Note that the unit BenQ provided for testing was one step short of the final production model. According to the company, however, the only difference in the shipping version will be in the video and audio formats it can read, so the change won't affect any of my test results. The shipping version will read MPEG-1 and MJPEG video; MPEG-1 layer 2 and PCM audio; and JPEG, GIF, BMP, and TIFF image files. It will also come with ArcSoft MediaConverter to let you convert virtually any audio or video file to a form that the USB reader feature can handle.

Setup for the GP1 is a little different. On the projector, you'll find a USB reader port, an audio-out port, and the power connector, along with a connector for an octopus cable. The octopus cable includes a VGA connector that plugs into a computer, and three RCA phono plug jacks, for composite video and stereo audio. BenQ doesn't include any audio or video cables, however—you have to buy those separately. You may also want to buy an extension to the short (only about 2-foot-long) octopus cable so that the GP1 can reach your computer.

After everything is plugged in, you simply point the projector at the screen, adjust the image size by moving the GP1 closer to or further from the screen, and focus the image with the manual focus ring. I ran my tests with a 1-meter-wide (roughly 49-inch-diagonal) image, with the projector about 79 inches from the screen. If you need to adjust any other settings, you can use the GP1's remote control—a welcome feature that's missing from many palmtops.

BenQ rates the GP1 at 100 lumens. I measured it at 92, which is a much higher percentage of the claimed brightness than most projectors can manage. It's also a close second to the 115 lumens I measured for the brightest palmtop I've yet tested, the . (I didn't measure contrast ratio on either projector, since neither is bright enough for reliable measurements.)

When comparing brightness results, remember that the perception of brightness is roughly logarithmic, which means an image that looks twice as bright is actually ten times as bright in lumens. It also means that the difference between 92 and 115 lumens isn't all that much. I found the GP1 to be easily bright enough for images at 1.5 meters (59 inches) across in a darkened room, arguably bright enough at 1.8 meters (71 inches), but a little too dim for extended viewing at 2 meters (79 inches) across.

Our suite of DisplayMate tests (www.displaymate.com) turned up some minor flaws in image quality, most notably a color balance problem, with some shades of gray showing a distinct green tint and others showing a pink tint. In addition, small font sizes (smaller than you should use in a presentation) were virtually unreadable. Keep in mind, however, that the test images are designed to make problems stand out if they exist at all. These aren't major issues for real-world use.

Worth mentioning in particular is that the GP1 shows very little of the rainbow effect common with DLP projectors, with bright areas breaking up into little red-green-blue rainbows when you shift your gaze or an object moves on screen. Some people are more sensitive to this effect than others, but however sensitive you are, there is less of it with the GP1 than with most DLP projectors.

On our video tests, the GP1 lost detail in dark areas on screen but did a reasonably good job with flesh tones. On the HQV Benchmark test, which measures how well a projector handles standard-definition video, it scored 63 out of a possible 130, a midrange score for a business projector. In short, it won't give you image quality as high as that of as most LCD TVs, but it will give you decent quality and a larger image size than that of most TVs.

One surprise was how loud the audio was for such a small projector—easily enough to fill a small conference room. Unfortunately, the quality was a little off, with a "sounds like it's coming from the bottom of a barrel" echo effect. The GP1 is certainly good enough for games or background music in presentations, but for watching, say, a movie, to hear all the words you'll want to connect it to an external sound system.

The GP1 is also the first projector to earn the PCMag GreenTech Approved seal. In addition to the mercury-free light source, which is a key requirement, it uses lead-free glass for its lens system, includes an automatic power-off feature, and is RoHS compliant. BenQ also has a recycling program in place, as well as a trade-in program. The recycling program includes free shipping in some states, although in most states you have to pay for shipping.

The BenQ Joybee GP1 offers more than enough to make it a strong contender for business travelers who want extreme portability and for home users who want to project video games at a large size or watch the occasional movie. It's bright, has reasonably good image quality with very little rainbow effect, and includes audio. Moreover, you don't need to a carry a computer or video source to be able to use it—just a USB key. For the moment, at least, it's the most impressive palmtop you can get, and our new Editors' Choice.

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