Piqo Mini Projector

Doesn’t live up to it’s promise – I had high hopes for this device; 1080p HD picture, 240” image, HDMI connection, WIFI, Bluetooth, USB, Auto-Keystone correction, Touchscreen and Remote control, 5 hour battery life, watch while charging with included power supply. Or so the marketing blurb says. The reality; Straight off the bat: the picture is not bright enough - even at a throw of 5 feet. I’m not sure if that’s the cause, but I don’t believe for a minute it’s producing a 1080p image: the image is just not bright enough - even in a pitch black room at midnight. And at 240” image size, darkly lit scenes in movies can be quite annoying to watch, as it’s a struggle to actually see what’s going on. Viewing a movie on a big screen is what you buy a projector for: sure PIQO can give you a big image! But it’s far from 1080p HD and difficult to make out details. Point in case: there’s a scene in ‘The Conjuring‘, where there’s a ghoul in an upstairs window:- if you hadn’t seen the film before and knew where to look, you wouldn’t have known it was there. The picture’s just not bright enough. Set up: the Touch-Pad and Remote control are infuriating. The ‘Touch’ part of the Pad works only when it feels like it, and the remote control literally only works if it’s pointed directly at the PIQO’s tiny receiver hole at the back - and even then - the fastest way to get anything done is to use both at the same time: Pad to move the mouse - remote to press OK. It’s mind numbing. Once you’ve managed to navigate to the settings & input your WIFI password, you can then use an app on your phone or pad. Which actually works quite well thankfully (better on phone). But then, having at last connected PIQO to your WIFI, don’t think you can beam your iTunes purchased movies to it from your iPhone or iPad - you can’t. In fact - you can’t even hook up your iPhone or iPad to PIQO via HDMI plus adaptors! The only way we could play our iTunes movies thru PIQO was via HDMI connected to an AppleTV; which at first had picture but no sound: the AppleTV’s Audio Settings needed to be switched from Dolby5.1 to Stereo - none of which is mentioned anywhere, even in the FAQ’s! Oh, and when you use HDMI to connect, you have to connect the PIQO’s 3.5mm jack to a stereo for sound, as the Bluetooth gets disconnected. Unfortunately, the audio in this configuration is fuzzy, crackles and pops. Which isn’t the case if you use it without an HDMI connection - thankfully. The PIQO has Android 7 built in: because that’s the most stable, they reckon. It comes with YouTube, Netflix and Google Chrome pre loaded. And after hours of fiddling around trying to make it work nicely, I realised that using PIQO as an integrated, stand alone device, is really the best way to go. PIQO is basically a projector for YouTube and Netflix: and can access other apps in the Google Play Store. Using it like this is better than using it via HDMI connected to anything. This was not what I was looking for when I purchased the device. And there was absolutely no mention of any difficulties playing movies purchased from iTunes thru Apple devices on their website or in their FAQ’s. Even though they’re aware of it, as I discovered via email, when I contacted their ‘support’. Even with a dvd player hooked up via HDMI - the picture is still dim and of poor quality. The best way to use the PIQO is via itself, hooked up to your wifi. The PIQO’s Auto-Keystone correction works great - as long as the device is on a relatively flat surface!??! We tried to put it on a tripod to angle the picture upwards to the wall, so it could be positioned in front of us, but then the keystone won’t auto-correct. There is a manual override, but it’s as dumb to operate as the touch-pad. So we have to put the PIQO behind us mounted above our heads: which means you either watch a big image with poor definition and light, or watch a not-as-bad-but-still-less-than-pleasant, much smaller, poor definition image seated 5½ft from the wall. Which is still dark! The PIQO doesn’t have a mounting (f) point for a tripod, so the purchase of a phone cradle is necessary if you do wish to use a tripod. They’ll sell you a Gorilla mini tripod - which is risky at best for a AU$650inc delivery device. We use a modified sheet music stand - it’s the only thing we could find to go high enough and keep it level! Oh - and the price: US$410 - “On SPECIAL!” Buy Now! “Offer expires in 5:00:00 hours!” I’ve been back and forth to the site since I got the thing. Trust me: it’s not “On Special!” The included power supply is American. A USB cable is provided: which is fine, assuming you have a suitable usb charger for it’s power requirements. An iPhone charger didn’t cut it - so we had to get a usb charger that did. (5V3A) Honestly... I could go on. This ‘review’ has already gone on long enough: In summary: Don’t do it! There must be much, much better devices out there.

(The image below: I had to fiddle with the exposure to get it that bright. Big - Yes. Nice - No.)