Cinemin Swivel Multimedia Pico Projector

Cinemin Swivel Multimedia Pico Projector
My wife got me this nifty little gadget for my birthday in part to help solve a technical issue I was having. She had brought this device to me attention prior to getting it for me, and although I though it was pretty cool, I questioned whether it would be useful to me other than just a toy. Since getting it, I gotta say it's far exceed my expectations, which were low, so take that into consideration. One of my main problems in looking for any projector, was finding one that would project sideways, in portrait mode. Most projects don't. But the Swivel can easily be turn onto it's side, allowing me to project in portrait mode. I only wish that the Swivel had a standard camera tripod mount built into it, which would've made it so easy to project onto onto just about anything, in any variation. Instead I always have to find a place to set it on, and to project on portrait mode, I have to get a little more creative with that. 

As far as the basics, for a projector this tiny, I'm pretty impressed with the quality of the image it projects. It won't match the quality of a standard or more high end projector, more so in brightness, but it's still pretty decent for it's size. You'll really need to figure out your needs to determine if this is a projector you can use. I love it's size and portability, that's something you won't find in another projector. The size it's really the Swivel's strong suit. You can literally pull it outta your pocket and turn it on with an iPod attached and start watching videos, with minimal space. Being able to run off the rechargeable battery is a big plus too. Over 2 hours (140 minutes) according to the manufacturer, but I haven't tested that yet. 

It's pretty easily to use. Plug and play. It plays movies and slide shows, YouTube video, etc. off my iPhone and iPod easily and with decent quality. To play movies from your PC or Mac via VGA you need to get the Swap, which is an additional adaptor designed for the Swivel to make that connection. It works, but I had to reduce the resolution some to make it work with my equipment. Which makes it doable, but a tab annoying, since to use it this way, my tool boxes are now bigger and in the way more. I'm seeing if connecting my Mac using a composite adaptor instead might help this. 

The sound was really a non-issue for me. I don't have much use for it, but the tiny speaker does allow you to hear the audio well enough. With the audio output jack, you can easily plug in some headphones or to some other external speakers.