There was a time when a projector was something you only saw in cinemas. These days they’re a staple of workplaces and schools, helping to project anything from spreadsheets to presentations and videos onto any available surface. Once a hefty machine with limited options, the projector has seen something of a renaissance as a portable device over the past few years, so we’ve focused on the more mobile of the breed in this test.

At current prices, portable projectors are now a realistic option for those looking to avoid awkward huddles around a computer screen and provide more polished presentations. While prices have come down, specs have gone up, so you’re no longer forced to sacrifice quality when opting for a smaller, lower-priced model. Of course, within our chosen price bracket of £200-£500 there’s a great deal of difference in the projectors you find. Some opt for superior specs and connection options, adding a little more bulk, while others are incredibly small but a tad limited when it comes to performance. We want to find the happy medium – the perfect pairing of form and features, with the added benefit of a modest price tag.

Something else you need to consider is brightness and clarity in ambient light, the sort you’d expect to find in an office or classroom during the day. Portability is one thing, but we also want to find a model that will display crisp images without the need for a total blackout in the room. This shouldn’t really be an issue thanks to the DLP technology, as well as LED, at work in most of the projectors here. It does away with the traditional projector bulb in favour of better contrast and colour performance, along with overall clarity.

We’ll look at connections too. HDMI is a favourite, but not widely supported in this price bracket and, in most cases, not required due to the lack of HD support in smaller projectors.

In our tests, we used identical lighting conditions for each device in order to gauge colour and brightness performance, and used the same media for each device using the available inputs. We projected onto a plain white wall rather than a projector screen for each test. Obviously, with each projector offering a different Throw Distance – the distance from the wall to the projector – we had to make adjustments in terms of position but, aside from that, all the conditions were stable throughout testing.

Buying Advice

We were looking for the ultimate in portable projection and it was a tough call, with scores very close across the board. Ultimately, we had to look at certain essential features to decide on the winner, which we determined as image quality and portability.

While the additional expense of the Mitsubishi EX240U gets you an enviable set of features, it’s also the least portable of the bunch as a result of cramming HDMI and 3D technologies into one package. At the lower end of the scale, the Aiptek and 3M models offer handheld projection, but are let down by their lack of connections. BenQ’s Joybee GP1 looked set to provide the ultimate balance between both camps, but its score was hurt by its lack of built-in battery and limited connectivity.

So that leaves us with the Samsung SP-H03 and Acer K11. While the Samsung didn’t excel in all of our display criteria, it put up a decent fight when compared with more expensive models and is the very essence of portability. For its low price and remarkable design you can forgive the SP-H03 its lack of brightness; onboard storage and a removable battery also improve its score. Whether you hold it in your hand, mount it on a tripod or sit it on a desk, the SP-H03 is a convenient projection device that, in darker rooms, offers a brilliant image at a decent size.

Should money be no object and you don’t mind lugging a larger device around, we would almost certainly award the Mitsubishi EX240U top honours. However, given our criteria, the Samsung provides the perfect experience for those who don’t require very large, high-definition projection but demand flexibility.

Having said that, if you can take a slight drop in portability and a price bump, the Acer K11 offers more, with HDMI, a larger image and better ambient light handling. Coupled with a laptop or iPhone, the SP-H03 is a great travel mate for business and pleasure but, with more connection options and clarity of picture, the K11 pips it to the top spot as an excellent all-rounder, despite its cost.

A special commendation should go to Aiptek for its PocketCinema V50. We’re happy to see that many improvements have been made on earlier models like the V20, and with just a few connectivity adjustments it could become a portable frontrunner.