Hand Held Projectors: Is Texas Instruments Too Widespread to Defeat?

Wowwee's Cinemin Swivel projector is just one of many hand helds using the DLP chip.

When it comes to selling cool gadgets, the best technology doesn't always win. Sometimes being popular is more important than having the best specifications. That may be true for the upcoming competition in handheld projectors. Singularity Hub recently discussed projectors in mobile phones, and there's also a growing trend of independent plug and play versions of these devices. Texas Instruments (stock: TXN), Microvision (stock: MVIS), and 3M (stock: MMM) are all competing fiercely to dominate that trend. What strikes me, though, is the sheer number of third party companies that are adopting TI's DLP™ technology. That chip may have already secured its spot at number one. Check out some product videos after the break.

Just the concept of a hand held projector is cool enough to give a geek the bends, the fact that we could see them in a phone is added awesomeness. As we said before, TI collaborated with Samsung to create both a mobile phone and an independent hand held device (the MBP-200) that use their pico projector. Add to that list Wowwee's Cinemin™ Swivel, the Optoma Pico PK-101, and a projector from Bug Labs. All have specs that are in the same ballpark as the Samsung MBP-200. Take a small step up in size and you have Acer's K10 Pico Projector, Toshiba's TDP-F10U, Dell's M109S, and the BenQ Joybee GPI. With this many companies using the DLP™ chip, you can bet that someone is going to find the optimized sweet spot of pricing, power, accessories, and advertising. It's just a matter of time.

While I'll leave the debate as to which of the DLP™ using projectors is best to the gadget gurus, I do want to point out two unique things. One, the Cinemin™ Swivel has a built-in hinge in its design that allows it to operate without a stand or prop. Cool. If that doesn't do it for you, they also have a static version (Cinemin™ Stick) and a larger Cinemin™ Station. Second, while most of these projectors are going to cost you above $400, Dell is running a weird promotion to get their projector for $299. Very cool.
Cinemin Swivel Video [please excuse the creepy ambience]

Why should a Singularity Hub reader care about all of this? Well, as I said last time, competition is every tech-geek's dream come true. It leads to great innovations, cheaper gadgets, and sometimes unexpected break-throughs. The big three companies are going to fight over projector phones (Microvision has a deal with Motorola for a protoype), and if the competition wasn't enough, now we have all these companies working on the TI DLP technology just on its own.