By Andrew Liszewski

If you’re a home theater snob who only considers projectors from companies like Christie or Barco worthy of your time, then please move on. But if you’re a financially restricted gaming enthusiast who would like to play on something bigger than the 19″ CRT in your living room, this might be of interest. The Olens XPJ projector doesn’t pretend to be the top of the line in any department, but with a price tag of just 9 there’s no way it can be. It has a resolution of just 640×480, so you won’t be playing anything in HD, but depending on how far you place the projector from a wall or screen you can get an image that’s anywhere between 40 to 70 inches in size. Apparently if you try and push it larger than 70 inches, the image starts to noticeably degrade.

The XPJ uses a proprietary 270 watt lamp which is rated for about 300 hours. For some reason the Olens Technology website seems to think that’s enough for 300 movies, so maybe they only watch Steven Seagal’s more recent one-hour action masterpieces. Fortunately the replacement bulbs cost a reasonable .99, and the projector even comes with a spare right out of the box. As for connections you get VGA, S-Video and composite video, and it also features a set of built-in stereo speakers since there’s a good chance that anyone buying this projector probably doesn’t have a surround sound setup at home.

[ Olens Technology XPJ Projector ] VIA [ PC World ]