Optoma Pico pocket projector

One of the rules of electronics is that everything always gets smaller, apart from flat-panel TVs.

For example, the first programmable digital computer – Colossus, developed by Britain in 1943 – was 24m long, 12m wide and weighed 35 tonnes. Today the PDA in your pocket boasts more computing power than that pioneering giant.

The same downsizing trend has been seen with many other types of device, from radios to mobile phones. Now, with the launch of the Optoma Pico, the relentless drive towards miniaturisation has reached the world of projectors.

This glossy black wonder – said to be the world's smallest – measures 50mm by 103mm by 15mm, which means you can take it anywhere.

It's designed to be used with portable devices such as iPods and other media players, phones, PDAs and digital cameras. You just plug it in and project still or moving pictures onto a wall or screen.

Remarkably the Pico contains the market-leading Digital Light Processing system – as seen in a cinema near you. Fitting this advanced technology into such a small device is a coup for Optoma.

It's great to carry your photos around on a mobile phone or iPod but often they don't look good as the screen is so small. No problem with the Pico – just hook it up and show those snaps to your friends at a decent size.

The projector is ideal if you need to make an informal work or college presentation for two or three people and don't want the fuss of a big-screen session.

Alternatively you can have some fun– for example, baffle passers-by as you project moving pictures on the back of someone walking ahead of you.

The Pico can, as Optoma says, project a 60in image, but at that size the quality is poor. Place it closer to your screen and the results are much better.

However, the Pico's tiny size inevitably results in some compromises. The picture is not particularly bright even at the higher of the two settings. A full charge is meant to last up to two hours but my battery ran out in less than an hour at the higher brightness setting. However a spare battery is supplied.

And the built-in speaker is so small you can hardly hear what's being said – an example of how making things smaller is not always a good idea.

You can regard the Dh1,470 Pico in one of two ways – as either a novelty or a bold and ground-breaking innovation. In truth, it's a bit of both.

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