Lumenlabs Projector: 144-Inch Picture for $500 October 14, 2006

Read more Peripherals

Those Lumenlabs guys are smart. First, they gave us DIY instructions for making projectors that looked like baby carriages made out of LCDs and cheap lightbulbs. Of course, who the hell has time to muss around in their basement like that? And baby carriages are for babies, like CRT TVs.

That's why they've come out with a $500, premade projector based on a 7-inch lcd panel, and 150 watt high intensity discharge light source. That bulb only costs $30, and will last 6,000 hours—that's far cheaper and longer lasting than professional projector bulbs. It has standard video inputs, but surprisingly, it has component and VGA connections. Then there's the 15-degrees of keystone correction for projecting at an angle. There's even a TV tuner and speakers inside.

Of course, for $500, you can't have everything. It's not...

small, at about 15 inches at its widest side. And they're not light, at 10 pounds. It's rated at 1000 lumens, with a low contrast ratio of 600:1. And is only a 854×480 native res ( but supporting 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768 via the VGA input).

All those stats pale next to any modern setup, but how else are you going to get a 12-foot video image across your wall for this kind of money? –Brian Lam

Lumenlabs premade projector [via Retrothing]