Sharp Notevision XR-1S

It's truly amazing that a projector barely the size of a shoebox can beam an image across the room for a lights-on presentation and then go home with you to watch the big ballgame-as long as you park it close to your wall. That's the magic of Sharp's Notevision XR-1S, a microprojector that makes a virtue out of smallness with an ultramobile format and a tiny-for-its-class price tag.

At 3.2 pounds and just 2.7 x 9.7 x 4.8 inches, the XR-1S is among the smallest DLP-based projectors on the market, yet is rated at a reasonable 1,100 ANSI lumens and an optimistic 1,500:1 contrast ratio. In a market dominated by XGA projectors, however, the SR-1S uses Texas Instruments' .55-inch imaging chip and Carl Zeiss optics to deliver a lower SVGA resolution.

The XR-1S supports S- and composite-video connections, but doesn't come with either cable. The component video is supported through the VGA connector. It's got a 1-watt speaker, but the audio is so hollow that it's inferior to all but the smallest notebook.

All work and no play just won't do, so the XR-1S can work with TV signals in NTSC, PAL and Secam formats, as well as HDTV. Unfortunately, its focus and optical zoom are manual, and the included padded vinyl case can just about hold the tiny remote control but not any of the cables.

Using the included combination VGA-USB cable, you can hook up the remote control, which can command nearly everything from in front or behind, including control inputs, volume, and image size. You can even move the pointer onscreen, complete with right and left mouse functions. However, the remote lacks a laser pointer and the ability to page through a PowerPoint presentation.

After a startup of 57 seconds, the XR-1S is ready to put on a show. One gripe: Many will find the startup procedure it projects to be helpful the first few times, but it quickly becomes annoying. To make up for that, its spring-loaded height adjustment and pair of screw-adjustable rear legs can keep the XR-1S level on anything short of the San Andreas fault. The gem of this projector is its remarkably precise automatic keystone correction, which takes a second or two to reliably create a vertical rectangular image.

It all adds up to a projector that, despite its size, is capable of consistently creating good graphics of up to about 5 feet, corner to corner. Beyond that, the image gets washed out, although the projector is capable of filling a 7.5-foot screen from 30 feet. Regardless of whether it's displaying video or a PowerPoint show, the projector does extraordinarily well for its size, but in our tests occasionally suffered from sparkle artifacts in complicated white or shadowed regions.

Once warmed up, the XR-1S runs a little on the hot side, with a peak exhaust temperature of 180 degrees Farenheit. It takes a quick 39 seconds to cool off enough to stop the annoyingly loud fan, which makes a 54-dBa racket from 12 inches away. If that's too loud, the projector's eco mode lowers the lamp wattage by about 15 percent and output to 974 lumens, while running more quietly. It also leads to a rated 4,000-hour lamp life.

In fact, the XR-1S comes with an excellent program that tracks the lamp's life. That's a good thing, because while it takes only about 5 minutes to change the lamp, we were dismayed that a replacement costs between $300 and $650, depending on where you buy it.

Should anything go wrong, Sharp stands by the XR-1S with a 2-year warranty that includes 24-hour turnaround for repairs, which outdoes most of the competition.

Ultimately, the XR-1S's price of $1,300 puts it up against budget projectors that can't do half as much half as well. It's a bargain that may not have high resolution or all the latest bells and whistles, but it works and travels well.