Portronics Beem 100 review: Tag along a big screen

If you are a marketing executive, or a person who requires giving lectures and demos, you would definitely need a projector for your presentations to a small audience. Most offices do have a projector, but what if you end up in a place which has none? Well, tagging along a projector with you is definitely not a good idea — they are bulky and heavy too. Opting for a portable projector that fits into your pocket could be a great option; however, they are likely to be expensive and cannot project on larger screens. Portronics comes to the rescue here with a lightweight and almost portable projector that can help you when travelling.

Not pocketable, but definitely portable — the Portronics Beem 100 is about the size of a smartphone box and weighs less than your lunch at just 950 grams. The projector is light to carry in your bag or suitcase, and very easy and quick to install and deploy. It measures just 76mm in height, and 186mm in width.

The Beem 100 is a 100 lumen LED projector which can project on a screen as large as 130 inches with a resolution of 800 x 480. It has multiple input sources and can also play multimedia content directly from a USB port or an SD card, and can support video content from media players, set-top-boxes, DVD players and smartphones. The Beem 100 can support full HD to 2K content, but can only produce or downscale them to 800 x 480 pixels.

The projector has a hard and rugged plastic body, and is available in an all-black matte finished exterior. The front has the projector’s lens, which also sports a dust cap for protecting the lens from fingerprints, dirt and damage. Apart from the lens, the front also sports the IR sensor for use with a remote control that comes bundled with the projector. On the rear end is a VGA (D-Sub) port for connecting a laptop or desktop PC. The right side has a 2-pin power cord connector, while the left houses the SD card slot AV input/ audio output ports, two USB ports (one with an active 5V output) and an HDMI port. On the same side is the exhaust venting channel to let out the heat during operation. This heat is vented using an active fan that helps prolong the life of the LED lamp within. The top features a D-pad control for all settings and controlling the media input and outputs. The top also has the zoom/focus and optical tilt adjustment spindles. Lastly, the bottom has two tiny speakers, rubber feet and an adjustable stand which also doubles for a roof mount.

Installation is pretty simple and hassle-free. Simply plug in the power, your input cables and power on the projector. Within a few seconds, you will be greeted with the opening menu to choose the input source. While the HDMI, VGA and AV inputs are plain straightforward, the multimedia controls on the projector or the remote need to be used when opting for media using the USB or SD cards. Lay your projector on a flat surface on a table with around 3-5 ft in height and keep it at a distance depending on how large you need your screen to be produced.

Once started, you will be able to browse through your menus with ease. The menu system or the user interface is very easy, with almost no need for help from any tech-expert. Simply choose the medium and start your presentation.

The Beem 100 has a life span of about 30,000 hours for the lamp. It produces images using a built-in TFT LCD panel that has a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels. Sadly, this is barely HD format, and you won’t be able to enjoy true full HD on your wall. The colour reproduction is fair, but you won’t be able to enjoy high-quality movies and photos using this projector. The Beem 100 is great for text and standard presentations, but not as worthy for enjoying movies. The contrast and brightness is average, and you will definitely need a dark room to enjoy crisper projections.

The projection is above average though. The image produced on larger screens is sharp. However, due to the low resolution LCD panel, the pixels on a larger produced screen are highly visible. Also the colours seem to be a bit washed out when using it in movie mode. So if you are planning to enjoy a movie on this, don’t be as surprised. The projector can natively support video file formats such as AVI, MP4, MPG, RMVB, RM, MKV and WMV apart from PNG and JPG for photos and TXT for text files.

As for presentations, text and standard images this projector is a great device — text is sharp and easily visible from a distance. Using the focus wheel, you can ensure that you get sharp images in a flash.

The onboard audio speakers are too tiny to produce sound enough for a large room. In short, you have to be pretty close to hear the sound clearly, since though they are loud, they cannot produce enough frequencies. The speaker is good enough for testing the projector initially or to have some ambient music playback during your presentations. Use an external audio speaker for best results.

To sum up the experience, the Beem 100 is a good option for those seeking a projector for work. Priced at just around Rs 9,500, this compact and portable projector is good enough for quick gatherings.