Dell 3400MP

For its first ultralight projector, Dell wisely chose to continue its tradition of including an impressive set of features for a rock-bottom price. These include the company’s trademark semi-rigid carrying case, which for the 3400MP has been updated with a stylish silver/gray-and-black color scheme.

Another Dell projector trademark is a full set of cables, including a ten-foot-long AC cable, all with Velcro straps for easy storage. Here the company has skimped a little. Missing is the component video cable that Dell usually supplies.

The projector mirrors the gray/black color scheme of the carrying case. The top panel contains a slickly designed control button array, with enough buttons for effective operation. When plugged in, the Power button glows with a blue LED, making it very easy to find in a darkened room.

The connector array on the back panel eschews the standard VGA jack for the newer DVI port, which can connect to both the VGA and USB ports on your laptop. Unlike its three competitors, the 3400MP includes a speaker and both audio-in/out connectors.

For presenters, a full-featured remote control is a must, and Dell seems to agree. The included remote is not much larger than a Hershey bar, but it packs almost everything a presenter could need, including a laser pointer and Page Up/Down buttons for navigating through a PowerPoint slide show. These buttons are a bit close together for our taste, but we like the pointing stick for controlling the cursor and the pair of mouse buttons.

In our performance tests, the Dell 3400MP did quite well. We measured the brightness at 1586 lumens, slightly brighter than the advertised value. The contrast ratio was a remarkably high 684:1, one of the best we have seen and second only to the NEC LT20 in this roundup. The brightness uniformity was a better-than-average 79 percent. The only fly in the ointment was the relatively long time required for the projector to warm up and cool down.

At press time, the Dell 3400MP was selling on the Dell Web site for the attractively low discount price of $1,199. It is bundled with a two-year advanced-exchange warranty. Replacement lamps cost $349 and are predicted to last approximately 3,000 hours, resulting in a consumable cost of 12 cents per hour. Lastly, the 3400MP is one of the few recent projectors to come with a decent printed manual.
At nearly $300 less than some of the competition, the Dell 3400MP is a unbeatable ultraportable bargain.