Review Acer K330 Projector

By Branko Miletic

Projectors come in many sizes – from commercial behemoths and domestic shoebox-sized models, though to the palm-top variety, and the Pico projectors, which are super small compared to some of their contemporaries.

However Acer has managed to fill or is that find a new niche – the laptop projector into which the K330 falls with ease and grace.

A laptop projector is one that is both portable, light and has a half-decent lamp; it’s also perfect for business users who need to travel light but need a decent picture in their sales presentations, but at the same time would also like to use it at home with the kids for games and YouTube clips.

Weighing it at about 1.36 kg, the Acer K330 laptop projector comes with a soft carrying case that's large enough to hold the projector as well as its cables and a small remote control unit.

Setup is more or less plug ‘n’ play with the K330 featuring a VGA port for a computer or component video, an HDMI port and a composite video port. Also there is a mini-plug jacks for AV inputs and audio in/out and a mini USB port for connecting to a computer along with a healthy 2GB of internal memory.

Acer says the K330 can read PowerPoint, Word, Excel , PDF, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, image files  like BMP and JPG and even WAV sound formats.

Getting back to the setup, as mentioned  the K330 was plug ‘n’ play with a little fiddling required to get the sound and resolutions just how I want them to work.

It didn’t make much noise – being  5cm x 21cm x 17cm in size it would have been a surprise if it was loud – regardless, its lack of what I call ‘projector hum’ was nice to see.

I used it for playing YouTube videos, a feat that the K330 performed with ease and then tried it with my camcorder, which was also no problem for this little marvel.

Other features include a Contrast Ratio of 4000:1 and has a Brightness of 500 lumens. Now for some, a brightness figure of 500 may sound a bit limp when compared to some desktop projectors (another sub category gaining traction) that pump out a brightness of around 3000 lumens. Yet, since the brightness increases in logarithms and not multiples, the 500 lumens is good for what this unit is designed to do.

I ran it in my kitchen and 3.5 m away from the projection wall, and it managed to provide an almost 2 m screen size with decent resolution and clarity. Not bad considering the size of the unit.

Sure it wasn’t the same performance as say some high-end $7,000 unit, but when you are paying around the $1,000 mark or less, depending on where you buy it from, then of course you can expect to have to make some compromises.

This projector was never designed to be used for the mass screening of the limited director’s European cut of Blade Runner or the watching of the latest David Attenborough nature doco, but rather as an easy-to-use, light, small and functional business tool. This, the K330 achieves easily.

The only thing the K330 was not good at was sound output. If you do want to watch anything on this unit that requires listening to some dialogue, I suggest plugging it into a half-decent set of speakers or an external sound system.

Apart from that, I only had two other minor gripes; a sticky remote control, which may or may not be a one-off; and the fact the K330 didn’t come with its own HDMI cable. In my opinion, if you provide the ports, then don’t just ship some of the cables with the unit, ship them all.

All in all, the Acer K330 laptop projector is a wonderful little unit that if you are looking for a portable, reliable and easy-to-use projector, then it should certainly be on your short list.

Pros: light, easy to use and relatively quiet
Cons: mediocre sound, sticky controls and no HDMI cable

3 Shacks Out of 5