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The front of the device should look familiar, featuring the cutout for the LED bulb and intake slots for the fan. On the back, you'll find a power port, one full-size HDMI port, one USB port, a 3.5mm audio jack, a coaxial input for the built-in TV tuner, and a power switch. Additionally, there is a speaker grill just towards the bottom to help pump out audio.
On top is the familiar LG logo, above which are a number of capacitive buttons for powering the device on, accessing the settings menu, and navigation. Flipping over to the bottom of the device, you'll find four angled rubber feet – allowing you to place the PH300 on a smooth surface with confidence – along with a tripod mount for keeping things sturdy.
Specs
The LG PH300 features an LED bulb that is rated at 300 lumens with an estimated lamp life of 30,000 hours, and can project in 720p with either a 16:9 (native) or 4:3 aspect ratio. While 300 lumens is a bit on the low side of the brightness scale and may leave you sticking to dark environments for your presentations, it easily beats out the ZTE SPro's 100 lumens.
Finally, the LG PH300 comes with decent file support that should work well for most professional users. You can load up PowerPoint, Word, and Excel files from a connected USB stick for example, in addition to HD DivX video files, JPEG images, and MP3 files. The HDMI input is MHL compatible, allowing you to easily mirror content from a connected Android device - though you'll need an adapter for iOS devices.
Below is the LG Minibeam PH300 configuration sent to TechRadar Pro:
- Projection system: LED RGB
- Resolutions: 1280 x 720
- Brightness: 300 Lumens
- Contrast ratio: 100,000:1
- Projection distance: 20" - 100"
- Video inputs: HDMI, USB, DTV Tuner
- Audio outputs: 3.5mm jack
- Dimensions:** 4.4"/4.0" (front/back), x 2.5"/2.1" (front/back) x 3.4"
Performance
As far as image quality is concerned, the LG PH300 performs pretty well for such a small device. The 720p resolution is good enough for projecting HD content, but a step up to 1080p would be preferable for those who are accustomed to higher resolution images from larger, more expensive projectors.
Straight out of the box, you may find that the color accuracy may need adjusting depending on what you're viewing. Thankfully, LG's setting menu is virtually identical to its TV sets, and allows for great control over different color profiles. Basically, if you've used an LG television before, going through the settings should be familiar fare.
After a bit of tinkering, I found the PH300 to perform pretty well on image quality. Documents and presentations were easy to read, and movies were enjoyable to watch without any nagging color issues. However, the 300 lumen bulb isn't going to hold up well in brightly-lit rooms. You'll definitely want to keep the lights dim for optimal performance.
One minor qualm that's worth pointing out revolves around the PH300's focus wheel. At times, it felt a little loose, making it hard to pin down a proper focus setting. It wasn't horrible for presentations where you can easily spot fuzzy text, but for movies and videos, I'd recommend pausing during opening credits to use the text as a guide.
Where the PH300 succeeds in image quality, however, it disappoints on sound. Perhaps this is one sacrifice that must be made for such a portable projector, but the two watt output comes off tinny and hollow. Combined with a somewhat loud fan, you may find yourself pulling your hair out. We'd definitely recommend putting that 3.5mm jack to use with an external speaker, though it'd be even better if the PH300 came with Bluetooth onboard so you could scrap the cables altogether.
While it sports only three inputs due to its small stature, the connectivity options offered by the PH300 work as advertised. Particularly interesting is the addition of a coaxial input and built-in TV tuner, which works remarkably well with over-the-air broadcasts.
Using the USB port to attach a thumb drive, we found that the PH300 handled all of the office documents we could throw at it. One addition we would like to see, however, is support for PDF files - though we're sure they'd get much less play than PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets.
The single, full-size HDMI port also works as you'd expect. Connected to a laptop, were able to mirror and extend our display. Similarly, display mirroring through Android devices is well supported and may come in handy if you prefer to use your phone or tablet as a presentation tool.
One area in which we really appreciated the HDMI port was that it supports streaming dongles like the Fire TV Stick and Chromecast. Not only will this let you use the PH300 to easily stream some YouTube videos and other content, but it could act as a great entry to using your mobile device as a wireless presentation tool if you're a Google Drive user. Simply plug in the Chromecast, fire up Google Drive on your mobile device, and cast away.
Finally, LG estimates the the Minibeam PH300 will last about 2.5 hours on a charge, and that seems to be about right. In testing the device, it lasted around 2 hours and 15 minutes while playing video, and we squeezed a tiny bit more out of it when browsing Office files.
