Dell 2100MP DLP Projector

Editors' rating

Very good

7.8

out of 10

The good: Brighter than advertised; high contrast ratio; runs quietly; rugged carrying case.
The bad: Limited grayscale range; runs hot; short one-year warranty; no speaker, zoom lens, or laser pointer.
The bottom line: The Dell 2100MP is our favorite budget portable SVGA projector, but we'd like to see cooler performance and a longer warranty.

Reviewed by:
Rich Malloy
Review date: 9/8/03

Intro
Design
Features

Features of Dell 2100MP DLP Projector

The Dell 2100MP has everything you need, and almost everything you'd want, in a projector. You get all of the basic video connections, including VGA-in, composite-video, and S-Video. One unexpected plus is a VGA-out connector, so you can see the image on your monitor as well as on the projected screen. Another treat is a component-video cable for connecting video sources, such as a DVD player, to the projector's VGA-in port. Most projector manufacturers charge an extra $100 for the necessary cable. The 2100MP features a USB port, which you can use to connect a laptop, then you can control the laptop with the projector's remote control (to advance PowerPoint slides, for example). The only big omission is a speaker (and therefore, an audio connector).

The standard connector configuration includes a bonus: VGA-out.

We like the small, competent remote, although it lacks a laser pointer.

The included remote control is small but includes all of the basic functions, including keystoning, freeze, and digital zoom. Most importantly, the remote gives a prominent position to the two most-often used buttons: the ones that advance or reverse PowerPoint slides. As on most other projectors, digital zoom enlarges a particular part of an image to the exclusion of other areas--and enlarges any jaggies and other distortions in the zoomed area. We only wish the remote had a laser pointer.

Although this Dell projector works best with laptops set to its native SVGA resolution of 800x600, it can also accept input formatted in any of several other resolutions. These range from VGA (640x480) to the surprisingly high SXGA+ (1,400x1,050).

The 2100MP presents a couple of projection challenges. For one, it has no zoom lens. If you want the projected image to fit a particular screen size, you'll have to move the projector. Also, to project a standard, one-meter-diagonal screen, we had to place the projector 7.8 feet from the screen, more than a foot farther than the average for lightweight projectors.

Brightness diminishes with the age of the bulb, and Dell recommends a new bulb after 2,000 hours. Replacing the lamp entails loosening two screws for the lamp cover and three more for the bulb itself. A new bulb costs $299, the least expensive among the SVGA projectors we've tested.