I can still remember when in 2009 Nikon unveiled the world’s first digital compact camera with a built in projector. What seemed to me at first glance the peak of James Bond like gadgetry, did not in the end quite meet my expectations. It was an ok camera with an ok projector, which was more a novelty item than a professional means of presentation, not to mention a substitute for a real projector. Also some years ago 3M attempted to stuff their Pico Projectors into Smartphones. An interesting endeavour, which did not prove practical in the real world, and therefore did not exceed concept stage.
It was just a matter of time until someone made proper use of that technology and finally create a device, which seems to cater to every need in the matter of professional presentation projectors. Picking up on the growing use of tablet PCs, Smart Devices introduced its SmartQ u7 Android tablet, which unites the mobility and light weight of a tablet PC and the display power of conventional projectors. The tablet features a 7 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display, 1GB of RAM, and a TI OMAP4 dual core processor, enabling it to project a 50 inch, 854 x 480 pixel image on a wall or screen about 6 feet away. In addition the tablet appears to come with an HDMI port, audio jack, and microSD card slot. There will be two models available: 1 GHz OMAP 4430 CPU and 8GB of storage for $315; 1.5 GHz OMAP 4460 CPU and 16GB of storage for $400. Considering a projector alone starts at about $200 these prices seem more than reasonable.