Smartphones are great, no argument there, but there’s a bit of a problem. Most people like a phones with a screen between 4″ and 4.7″, then you’re edging into phablet and then tablet territory. Devices of this size are great too, but you end up with a bigger device to carry around and that can be a little cumbersome at times, plus there’s the fact that it’s quite large next to your head.
Getting a big screen on a smartphone is possible though, and I mean a really big screen. Sure, there’s DLNA for beaming video and picture content to your TV and yes, you can get a Chromecast to watch YouTube videos and films, but what if you want more?
When I took a look at the Luckies smartphone projector it really got me thinking about properly super-sizing your smartphone content. When we think about projectors it usually conjures up images of presentations at work and that battle with the VGA input. If you’ve thought about using a projector at home you may have discounted it because they’re not traditionally as “clever” as the new breed of Smart TV’s. However, there’s a rather clever widget to help bridge the gap between the content on your phone and the VGA input on a projector. It’s a wireless 1080p presentation gateway with WiFi, WiDi and DLNA. What all this basically means is that your can “throw” content to it over DLNA and it’ll pump it out to a VGA port which any projector will happily accept.
If DLNA seems complicated then it really needn’t be. Just grab your phone, find a video, then choose to share it with the gateway above and you’re done. You can also send pictures to the device, which is £162.60 from projectorshop24.co.uk and get those holiday photos projected onto your wall with ease.
If you don’t need a DLNA and you’re quite happy showing media via a laptop then I’ve found something quite interesting for you too. It’ll work if you’re doing a presentation at work also, and any Viewsonic DLP projector seems to support it. Instead of using faffing around with the buttons on the projector, why not adjust all the bits you need to with an app? The Viewsonic remote will let you setup the input source, adjust the volume, alter the aspect ratio and do many other bits directly from your phone.
I’ll be honest and admit that I got a bit carried away with all this. A projector with a HDMI and DLNA connection in my lounge could be happening very soon .. 😉