Kodak’s flagship palmtop offers 1080p
At $549.99, the Kodak Luma 450 is the flagship model in Kodak’s Luma line, a set of similar-looking projectors that includes the Luma 75, our Editors‘ Choice pick for a pocket projector, and the Luma 350, our top pick among 854-by-480-pixel palmtops. All the Luma models share the same flat, rectangular palmtop shape, differing primarily in size and features. The 450 is tied for biggest in the group, while still being small enough to sit comfortably on a palm, and it offers the highest native resolution. It doesn’t earn an Editors‘ Choice slot, but it delivers more than enough to be worth considering. At 1.2 pounds, it’s the smallest, lightest 1080p projector we’ve seen to date. Small, Light, and Packed With Features
Size, of course, is a relative term. The Luma 450 is a lot bigger than the Luma 75, for example, but it’s also small enough to fit in a coat pocket, at 1.3 by 5 by 5 inches (HWD). Like most small projectors than can be battery-powered, it’s built around an LED light source and a diamond-array DLP chip, which offers a lower power draw compared with TI’s rectangular chips to increase battery life. For the Luma 450, the rated runtime on a charge (along with the image brightness) varies with the three power modes, at 1.5 hours for High power mode, 2 hours for Normal, and 2.5 hours for Eco. The diamond-array chip can also introduce artifacts to the projected image, but these show up only in images with small, repeating patterns. They can be a potential problem for presentations that use patterned fills, but they’re not much of an issue for other graphics, or for watching film and video. As with many projectors today (though uncommon among palmtops), the Luma 450 includes built-in streaming, using Android OS 9 in this case as opposed to Android TV. Wi-Fi is the only connection choice to your internet-connected network. After you’ve completed the initial setup routine, you’ll find apps for a number of popular streaming sites installed (including Netflix, YouTube, and Hulu), as well as an app for downloading more. Note, though, that at least the ones I tested require installing Kodak’s Luma app on your phone or tablet, and connecting the mobile device to the same network as the projector, to actually use them.
