Luke Skywalker arrives: Laser Projectors and importing pico projectors from overseas

New laser projectors will come onto the market this year but as the recent article in todays New York Times suggests they have a long way to go before they become useful and affordable. You only have to look at the latest laser products coming out of the US which are still in their infancy to realise its going to be at least next year before a true laser product comes to market which appeals to the whole market.

According to the New York Times the lasers are suffering from speckly picture quality, flashes of blank screens, file conversion problems, resolution challenges when switching from your laptop to the pico, are difficult to use and with poor speakers. The worst of it all, is it costs $600 and by the time that gets converted into euros or pounds it will be £600. Importing anything into the EU results in large import duties of 14%, plus at least 17.5% vat plus shipping and handling charges which makes it not worthwhile for a consumer or business to import them in low quantities.

So it begs the question why anyone would pay twice the price for a laser pocket projector which has half the resolution of the world's brightest LED pocket projector, the Adapt 305.

None of these issues occur with projectors like the Adapt 305 which is currently voted the world's best pocket projector as it has twice the lumens (45), accepts most file formats without conversion, has 4gb of onboard memory and micro sd slot and has connections for just about everything you can think of including standard VGA. The extra brightness, improved storage, ease of use and the fact its $150 or £150 cheaper suggest you'd be mad to go for laser right now unless of course you like dressing up as Luke Skywalker and pretending its a useful Lightsaber...