Projector Buying Tips
Just about any small business today uses projectors for meetings and presentations. A vital piece of equipment no doubt, but also one that is fairly expensive to purchase. Here’s a guide of some items to consider before making the investment.
1) Functionality: There are two types of projectors available out on the market. There is a data projector and there is also a home theater/gaming system projector. The difference between these two options are cost and functionality. A data projector is mainly used for office presentations, spreadsheets, and PDF files and can run from a few hundred to up to a little over one thousand dollars for a basic model, while the home theater projectors are designed to mainly handle both video and data and can run into the thousands of dollars.
2) Portability: Consider if the projector is going to need to be mobile. There are all types, sizes and weight of projectors, some small enough to fit in a shirt pocket all the way up to permanent installed fixtures. If you have a need to hold meetings offsite or frequently move the presentation around the office, a portable projector is a must.
3) Resolution: In an ideal situation you would want to match the projectors natural resolution to the resolution you plan on using the most, if that is hooking to a computer, video equipment or a combination of both of them. Projectors have the ability to scale images up or down to the native resolutions of the projector, but they do lose image quality in the process.
4) Widescreen: Most video projectors are becoming standard in widescreen format, however many data projectors are still not. If you are planning on showing video presentations and data that was created on a widescreen notebook or monitor it is recommended that the projector also be widescreen.
With technology always advancing, be sure to keep yourself educated in what is on the market and ask the questions of what the company needs the product for and make sure you are getting the best bang for your buck when buying a new product.