Californian startup Nomvdic is turning on the retro charm for the launch of a portable Bluetooth speaker with Harman Kardon sound that features a pop-up top which directs Full HD projected visuals to a nearby wall or screen.
Currently raising production funds on Indiegogo, the X300 has the funky look of a stylized desktop guitar amp, measures 276 x 165 x 157 mm (10.8 x 6.5 x 6.2 in), tips the scales at 2.8 kg (6 lb) and stands on three metal spikes and shoes – two to the front and one at the back.
The copper-colored panel up top is home to a pop-up mirror that directs the image thrown from the DLP projector inside the unit to the wall or screen opposite, or can get out of the way to project visuals on the ceiling. The Nomvdic team says that users can look forward to 100-diagonal-inch visuals at 1,920 x 1,080-pixel resolution, with support for 125 percent of the Rec.709 color gamut and dynamic contrast of 3,000,000:1.
The RGB LED light source is reckoned good for 30,000 hours of use but the X300's 700 ANSI lumens of brightness means that the projection unit won't be able to compete with bright ambient lighting, so setup in shaded areas will yield the best results. And in a nice touch, the interface panel in the top plate sports sizable control knobs and switches for making focus, horizontal/vertical keystone and four-corner adjustments.
The unit comes with 16 GB of internal storage, but there's no mention of an operating system such as Android TV here, so users will need to feed the entertainment in themselves. There's a single HDMI 1.4 port for cabling to media devices, plus a USB Type A port that can supply power to streaming sticks from the likes of Amazon and Roku or provide a direct connection to the Nintendo Switch for big-screen gaming in the yard or at camp. And unusually for such smart projectors, the design team has also included a microSD card slot.
Wireless casting or screen mirroring is possible via cooked-in 802.11ac Wi-Fi, there's Bluetooth 4.2 for streaming music to the unit, or for wireless output to a pair of BT headphones, and a companion mobile app will also allow control of the projector/speaker from a paired smartphone.
As we discovered ourselves recently, having a Harman Kardon sound system installed in the projector can really make movie nights pop, and the X300 comes packing two 8-W speaker cubes driven by a 30-W Class D amplifier that each rock a tweeter and woofer plus passive radiators. There's also a 3.5-mm audio jack for cabled headphone listening.
And rather than having to seek out a nearby wall socket to power the porch party, the X300 comes with a generous 10,000-mAh battery pack for up to 2 hours of per-charge video watching at volume or 3 hours in battery saving mode. If the unit is just being used as a speaker, listeners can look forward to up to 6 hours of music before needing a top up.
Indiegogo pledges for the already funded campaign currently start at US$749, rising to $899 when early bird units have been snapped up. If all goes to plan, shipping is estimated to start in September.