There’s little more boring than business-class front projectors, but every once in a while one burbles to the surface with some legitimately interesting features. The “extreme short projection” features of the Toshiba TDP-EX20U, for example, let it blow out a 60-inch image from three feet away—impressive, especially considering that means it’s possible to set it up in front of a presenter for table-top presentations. You can even jack in a USB key with JPEGs and the TDP-EX20U will read them right off the memory, no laptop required.
But if you put the DLP projector on the ceiling in a more permanent installation, the TDP-EX20U can be accessed via Ethernet or Wi-Fi from laptops on the network, streaming projections without physically connecting to the projector itself. (Presumably just slideshows, though, not screen-for-screen duplication.)
And if you’re the sort of person for whom “SNMP” makes your beard perk up, the TDP-EX20U also has temperature, fan, and lamp status capability.
It’s $1,600 and an awful solution for home theater with its XGA resolution, so don’t get confused.
Toshiba Announces Wireless, Portable Projector [ExtremeTech]
Yes, it’s nice to get a big display from so short a distance, but it would be nicer if the projection range weren’t so limited: maxing out at under 5 feet could put a serious downer on things.