Benq’s newest camcorder comes with a pico projector built in, and a 5 megapixel CMOS sensor that, at 1/3.2 inch, has been the middle-of-the road consumer standard for years.

Nevertheless, off the small sensor come 1080p videos. And to go even a little further down the consumer road of compromise, there are no actual individual settings for shutter speed and apertures and the like, but rather 10 shooting modes to cover most of the situations a user might encounter.

The DV S11, which is what Benq named this gadget, looks more like a photo camera than a camcorder. In truth, it’s both, as it’s meant to capture all sorts of media for display through its internal pico projector.

A projection size of 50 inch can be reached, but keep in mind, that will require at least a reasonably dark room for any kind of easy viewing. Other ways of getting video off the device are HDMI and AV ports, and SD/SDHC cards.

Sales are currently restricted to Hong Kong, and the cost hovers around the $300 mark.

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The Cinemin Slice iPad and iPhone dock from Wowwee is not content with being an also ran, and we are thankful for that. It’s maybe the first dock to feature a pico projector, and by the looks of it, it’s about average as pico-projectors go.

But it’s not just a projector. You can put an iPhone into the dock section, or pull on it, and it retracts to accommodate the iPad. The dock’s speaker’s are smallish, 2×6 Watt, but there’s a headphone jack that will let you tie it into a bigger sound system.

Mini-HDMI and AV ports will let you hook up a laptop or media player, to take full advantage of the projector’s 854 x 470 resolution, whose 16:9 aspect ratio is wider than both the iPhone’s and the iPad’s. The image can be projected from 10 feet away, and enlarges to as much as 60 inches, with a power of 16 ANSI lumens. Contrast is 1000:1, but as with most any pico-projector, you’ll need to keep the room on the dark side.

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While I hardly think the LG GW820 eXpo will sell like gang busters, it versatile and wide ranging feature set is certainly something to write about.  The Windows Mobile 6.5 smartphone will not only sport a slide out QWERTY keyboard and 1Ghz processor, but will offer an optional add-on Pico projector that can produce an image up to 40-inches in size.  Outside of that you can expect a 3.2-inch 800×400 touchscreen, 3G connectivity, 5 megapixel camera, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, FM radio, WiFi and accelerometer.  There’s no official word on when the eXpo will be available, but I’m hearing December 7th for $200 after a 2-year and mail-in-rebate.

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In what appears to be a product I’ve never seen the likes of, the Sparkz Projector Dock is a fresh and pricey new addition to aftermarket iPhone accessories.  The built-in pico projector accepts a variety of A/V and VGA inputs and is capable of displaying 640 x 480 resolutions at up to 60 inches.  Snaps.

There’s also some little stereo speakers attached but I can’t imagine them doing much banging.  The dock also charges your iPhone and it comes with a tri-pod.  At a $495 price tag, early adopters will want to make sure this is a quality product.  Maybe the video below will help.

[via Ubergizmo]

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I was under the impression that Pico Projectors were cool.  I guess it takes a lot these days for the big blogs to be impressed.  The Forever Plus Pico Projector might just do that.  For five minutes at least.  The first Pico Projector to display at 720p, the Forever Plus has a native 1,280 x 768 native resolution, a HDMI output and a “projected” lamp life of 30,000 hours.  Seems cool to me.  No word yet on pricing or availability.

[Engadget]