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Never mind its diminutive size: Proxima's UltraLight DX2 projector packs a powerful punch in the 5-pound category. The feature-rich DX2 is compact enough to go anywhere, and at $4600 it offers an excellent balance of performance and price.

Small and Sweet

Weighing in at 5.2 pounds, the DX2 is similar in dimensions to a large three-ring binder (8.25 by 10 by 3.2 inches, width by depth by height). Proxima includes a soft carrying case to make the unit easy for mobile professionals to tote around.

The unit's design is convenient. For example, if you want to connect a video source such as a VCR or a DVD player, you just snap the included video module on to the rear of the projector. Otherwise, you can save yourself a few ounces of weight and an inch of bulk by leaving the module off for computer use.

But we do have one complaint about the design: We would have liked a longer elevation foot in the front of the projector, which would have facilitated using the projector with a fixed-height screen. The foot is limited to raising the unit by only 1 inch; depending on the setting you're in, this may be an issue for you.

The projector, based on single-chip Digital Light Process technology, uses a 1000-ANSI lumens lamp with a projected life of 1500 hours. That's a fair lifespan for a projector this small, but many competing projectors in its size and weight class have a lamp rated at closer to 2000 hours.

Ready, Set, Project

We put the DX2 through its paces using several image sources. Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint slides, and a collection of digital photos were piped in from an Athlon-600 Compaq Presario 5868 desktop system equipped with a 3dfx Voodoo3 1000 graphics board, and from a Fujitsu S-series notebook with a Pentium III-400 CPU and a Trident Cyber9525DVD graphics chip.

To evaluate how well the DX2 handles composite video, we used a VCR with composite video-out, and a Philips TiVo personal TV recorder. We tested S-Video using Pioneer's DVL-919 combination LaserDisc/DVD player; composite and S-Video signals were routed through a Pioneer Elite VSX-24TX A/V receiver. Images were projected on a wall-mounted Stewart Filmscreen Videomatte 200 projection screen designed for use with LCD and DLP projectors.

Generally speaking, LCD projectors display richer, more saturated colors than DLP projectors do, although DLP projectors generate brighter images overall and are lighter in weight. For text and graphics, the DLP-enabled DX2 produced clear, easy to read images--even in a room with a good deal of ambient light. Color reproduction of JPEG images required us to tweak the contrast settings just a hair, but it was accurate overall.

Though it has a native XGA (1024-by-768) resolution, the DX2's scaling did an excellent job of projecting images ranging from low-resolution VGA (640 by 480) to SXGA (1280 by 1024) with no noticeable image or text distortion.

Proxima makes no claims that the unit is HDTV-compatible, so we were surprised to find that the DX2 cleanly rendered the HDTV signals delivered over a VGA connection between our RCA DTC-100 DirecTV set-top box and the DX2.

Unfortunately, the colors in most images transmitted through the VGA connector tended to display a slightly bluish tinge. The DX2 lacks the range necessary to adjust color temperature to compensate for the blue overcast.

However, the unit's color rendering was largely accurate when displaying composite and S-Video images. While we observed some minor color banding with all image sources, most people will barely notice the effect, especially from a distance.