Portability is quite an important design criteria for today's electronic products, as quite a lot of users spend most of their working hours on the move. For this reason, Hitachi has released, back in the second half of 2007, their CP-X417 projector, a device that works very well as either a portable or a fixed projector.



The projector uses three 0.63-inch P-Si TFT panels with micro lenses, which help it attain a maximum resolution of around 1024 x 768 pixels and diagonal sizes of up to 300 inches. The contrast ratio is surprisingly low for a device of this type (just 400:1), but the projector provides a good light output, namely 3000 ANSI lumens, attained with the help of the 220W UHB lamp, which boasts an overall functioning life of around 2000 hours. It's also important to note the fact that the device's standard lens F=1.6~1.8 (f=18.9~22.6 mm) provides a throw distance ratio of 1.5~1.8:1, a zoom ratio of x 1.2 (manual zoom), as well as 16.7 million colors.



As expected from a multipurpose projector, the CP-X417 comes packed with quite a wide array of connectivity options, including here HDMI, 15-pin Mini D-sub, Component video, S-Video, various RCA and stereo mini jacks, as well as an RJ-45 interface for connecting to a network, among other.



And since we're on the subject of connectivity, it's also quite important to note the fact that the projector can be used for making presentations even in the absence of a PC, as it sports an USB slot for connecting flash drives and a slot for SD memory cards. Moreover, the device can connect to IEEE 802.11b/g wireless networks, but it requires a special SD Wireless LAN module for this purpose.



The projector is compatible with a wide array of resolutions, including here VGA, SVGA, XGA, SXGA, SXGA+, UXGA Capability, MAC 16-inch (for PCs), as well as SDTV: 525i(480i), 525p(480p), 625i(576i) and HDTV: 750p (720p@60Hz), 1125i(1080i@50/60Hz) video resolutions. Furthermore, it works with the most common video systems around, namely NTSC/PAL/SECAM/PAL-M,N/NTSC4.43,



The Hitachi CP-X417 projector can be found at several retailers for as low as 1,500 US dollars, which makes it a very affordable product, taking into account the features and specs it can provide.