Hi all!
It’s a been over a month since I got my Moto Mods projector and I LOVE it. To get these out of the way, let me begin with
CONS:
1 - Brightness
The 50-lumen projector is not bright by any stretch of the term (but you should have known this from the 50-lumen rating). In a fully lit room, it gets washed out. Here is a comparison pic to a 3200-lumen projector in a fully lit room:
And here is that same comparison with the lights off:
As you can see, you shouldn’t expect this to be a replacement for a display in a normally lit room, but it’s quite nice in the dark. This is in my bedroom at night (previous two were in the day with ambient light entering the room through windows):
2 - Battery Life
It’s awesome that the projector has a 1000 mAh battery built in, especially for the form factor of the whole setup, but that keeps the projector going for about 1.3 hours of watching. At that point it will automatically switch from the projector’s internal power to the phone’s battery, which keeps you going for another ~1.5 hours if you started with a full charge. So, untethered, you’ve got just short of three hours of watch time.
##PROS:
###1 - It’s a projector on your phone
It’s almost impossible to overstate how cool this is. In most bars and clubs it’s dark enough to share things with lots of people. I’ve gotten it out intending to show a few people some pictures and wound up doing a full-on demo for a crowd of people that just walked up many times. It’s really impressive. The mod is small enough to fit in my pocket (it makes it a pretty bulky phone, but hey it’s also a projector!) Here’s a shot of the whole assembly next to an uncased ipad pro, about the same thickness as the iPhone 6s:
###2 - Auto-keystone
I work with projectors every day. Auto-keystoning is really good in higher end models these days, and I was skeptical they could fit it into this tiny form factor, but they did very well. It makes it very easy to get up and watching quickly almost anywhere. Here’s a demo:
Unfortunately, there is no auto focus, but there’s a turn wheel on the side to cover that. it takes only 3-4 seconds to get it right.
###3 - The Stand
The projector comes with a sturdy, flexible built-in stand. It can go from flat to vertical, allowing you to watch on a wall or, better yet, on the ceiling while lying down in bed. This is actually my preferred way to Netflix now - laying in bed staring at the ceiling. I recently bought a 49" UHD TV and I spend more time watching this little projector. Go figure. Here’s what the stand looks like:
###4 - Integration with ANKER!
This is now my go-to home theatre set up, complete with excellent sound from the SoundCore Boost, which makes action sequences amazing. It also allows me to extend the viewing capacity of the projector to about 5-6 hours by adding power from the Boost’s charging output:
###5 - Notifications
The projector mod is good about notifications - it gives a quick notification when your mod battery reaches 15%, then another when you are out of battery on the mod itself. It does this all without interrupting the playback, letting you choose when and if you want to pause to get your charger.
We had a scary incident while watching Netflix on Halloween actually. This happens when your phone is totally out of battery - the moto mod pauses the playback and displays this message:
Fortunately, I had a spookily large-and-charged ANKER power bank near at hand, and I crept in to save the day:
###6 - LAMP LIFE
Like I said, I work with projectors. 10,000 hours is a LONG time for lamp life. I doubt I would be able to replace the bulb when it goes out, but I almost certainly will have a new phone by then. I don’t know if it will make it to 10,000 but only time will tell…
##Summary
I paid $300 for the Moto z2 force edition (flagship) phone and got the projector for free through Verizon. As far as I’m concerned, this was an absolute steal. The projector mod comes with a soft-sided case to carry it around when you don’t want it on your phone.
Altogether, I love both this phone and this projector. I’d recommend it to anyone that enjoys novelty, can use android, and wants to be able to watch video or share photos or whatever on the go. The projector simply projects whatever is on the screen, and as long as the app has no external display blocking software (I’m looking at you, NFL) you can throw it right up to a huge display. If you’re in the market for a new phone (or have any of the z series motos already), this projector is worth the money.
