For families especially, projectors are often worth the investment as they enable mom and dad to have a levelled-up experience of Netflix and chill on date night, and the kids to enjoy all of their Disney/animated movies on a big screen.
Acer’s C250i portable projector allows for this in a take your cinema experience with you form factor. This portable projector’s licorice-inspired (twisted log) design saves space while also allowing for fully flexible 360-degree any-angle, rotatable projection without even needing a stand. Another novelty is the C250i’s auto-portrait functionality, which is especially handy if you are projecting content from your smartphone (iOS/Andriod). As your phone auto-rotates, the C250i lets you change your projection orientation on the fly. No need to mess with settings or the content – just stand it up, and the Acer C250i will automatically remove those pesky black bars when you enter portrait mode – neat!
In terms of connectivity, you are well catered for including amongst others an HDMI port, USB Type-A port, USB Type-C port, and a combined 3.5mm audio jack to connect the device to speakers. The latter is great for completing that cinema-like experience since we found that the single 5 W mono speaker is alright for an intimate viewing experience with good sound quality even at maximum volume.
However, that maximum volume is not too loud and if you are watching an action movie with lots of explosions and gunshots, you need a 2.1 surround sound soundbar at least for full emersion. When it comes to the visuals though, you will really appreciate the 100″ image at 1080p Full HD. The 300lm brightness is not the highest we’ve seen in projectors but sufficiently adequate. The lifetime of the lighting systems unit is around 30,000 hours so it should last you quite a number of years, even if you love watching movies/series each and every day on the device.
To complete the portability of the projector, Acer included a 9000 mAh so you can move it away from the wall-charger and that is enough for around four episodes of the Walking Dead on the go.
Ultimately, the C250 portable projector from Acer is a solid, well-featured piece of tech that the whole family will enjoy. It goes for between R10 000 and R13 000 from local retailers such as Makro and Takealot, depending on specials and discounts.
