HITmagazine

Having watched the slow development of pocket projectors for years, I'm thrilled to have not one but two real-life models to play with. 3M's MPro110 ($360) debuted in September and earned a grand award in our Best of What's New roster for 2008. This week, Optoma will start selling the first competing product, its Pico PK-101 projector, for $400.

In two or three years, we'll probably look back at these first contenders with the same nostalgic chuckle that we reserve for 56K modems or the brick-like first-gen iPod. But now is the time of wonderment at the birth of a fun new product category. Each of these projectors delivers the wow factor, and they are equally good performers, although in different ways.

3M's model, with its utilitarian, pale-gray plastic case, looks like a 1970s prototype rather than a 21st-century shipping product. You won't get many style points for carrying it around. But one of those utilitarian features, a VGA adapter for laptops, makes it the natural choice for a lot of customers--and not just people who can only speak in PowerPoint. The laptop link would be equally handy for showing DVDs or Hulu broadcasts, for example. The big, ugly focusing knob up front also provides an advantage: It's easy to grip for making fine adjustments. (The Pico's elegantly recessed focus dial is hard to get at.)