Wow. It’s hard to believe this pocket-sized projector even exists; yet here it is sitting in the palm and beaming an image 1.27m across. Now that’s tiny by conventional projector standards, but it’s a boon to any road warrior who gives presentations on a regular basis. Its matt black housing includes its own rechargeable power supply (good for up to two hours viewing), a pair of built-in 0.5W speakers, and a single AV port on the back. The 3M MPro 120 is capable of displaying 640 x 480 VGA images on to any surface. It also boasts an LED-driven projection system that’s good for up to 20,000 hours usage.

Setting up the MPro 120 couldn’t be simpler. System Preferences pulls up a wider range of resolutions than the projector’s native VGA resolution would suggest – right up to 1,280 x 800. In practice, the projector downscales images higher than 640 x 480, but at least you’ll be able to show company videos alongside that Keynote presentation you’ve been slaving over.

The basic function buttons on the projector top let you set image brightness and the sound coming out from the rather tinny speakers. Another button brings up an onscreen display showing how much battery life you have left – and that’s your lot. You don’t even get keystone correction (where you square up to the picture to compensate for the projector’s angle, height, etc). On the front of the unit beside the lens is a basic focus thumbwheel, which, at least locks on to the focus you set for it – something that can’t be said of the Aiptek PocketCinema V20. Included in the bundle are a carry pouch, tiny tripod stand, connector cables and a 12v charger.

3M has missed a trick by not bundling an iPhone adaptor cable (although one is available as an optional extra.) The other problem is image brightness. With just 12 ANSI Lumens to play with you either have to make the image very small (down to 20cm in ambient light) – in which case you might just as well get everyone to huddle around your Mac – or sit in a very dark room. Displayed images are reasonably good quality to look at once you get around the lighting issue.