Portronics POR 315 Review

Portronics may not be a brand name that flies off one’s lips, rather often in terms of popularity. They do not have a big brand name as that of Dell, BenQ or Acer. The brand however, is quite popular with respect to their portable devices, such as their Scanny portable scanners and portable chargers. The brand recently launched the POR 315, a portable projector that boasts of some interesting features that will surely rival the competition. Read on to know more about this pico charger and if it warrants a purchase or not.

The well spaced controls

Design and Build Quality

The Portronics POR 315 is designed much like most pico projectors found in the market and due to its compact form factor, it can easily fit in a jacket pocket as well as a handbag to easily carry around. Measuring at just 126 x 73 x 35mm and weighing 225g, this makes it pretty small and lightweight as well.This projector is styled in glossy white with brown highlights, giving it a different look from most other projectors in the market that usually have a black finish.

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The buttons located at the top are finished in brown too and they feel quite sturdy and appear like they could survive the depreciation of everyday usage. The buttons located at the top panel, include controls for setup, source, return, blank, a four way navigational pad, power and for the focusing of the projector. Connectivity options lie at the back and they include inputs, such as USB, HDMI, VGA and AV. Apart from these, there is also a slot for an SD card as well as a port for a 3.5mm audio jack. Vents at the front and back help in the cooling of this device.

No wobble when it is placed on the stand

The brand bundles a stand as well with this projector that is really sturdy and can support the device really well. There was no wobble, whatsoever and the controls can be used without the fear of it tipping over and falling. The overall design of the projector may not be the best in terms of looks, but it is definitely not ugly. In terms of button placement and spacing, the brand has done well. The build quality of it is really good and we had nothing to complain about.

Features

The POR 315 is the brand’s only pico projector and Portronics have done well in adding a range of interesting features in it. Though it is loaded with features, the highlighted one is definitely the ability for it to be used without a power cable for a duration of up to two hours. This makes it convenient to be used on the go and it will be ideal for potential consumers who travel a lot and can display content easily on the fly. The brand have fitted LCoS technology in the projector which usually have great brightness levels. By using this technology one may also find content to appear smooth along with colours that are accurate. 

Comes with a remote control

Another interesting bit of this projector is that it features a variety of connectivity options, such as HDMI, VGA, USB and the support for SD card. Having the HDMI capability, one can easily sync it to a laptop or a Blu-ray player to display content instead of using a VGA connector, which by the way is also present on this projector. But with the case of an HDMI connector, the scope widens giving it easy access to a range of newer devices, such as gaming consoles, laptops and PCs.

Portronics rates the brightness level of this projector at 45 lumens by using a LED bulb and can project content to size ranging from 5 inches to 80 inches diagonally. The native resolution found here is 1024 x 600 and supports aspect ratios of 16:9 and 4:3. There are various file formats supported here that include JPEG, BMP, PNG, MP3, WMA, WAV, M4A, AVI, RMVB, MPG, MPEG, DIVX, MKV, along with support for 1080p HD video content.  A neat feature of this projector is that in the Picture settings one has the ability to adjust the values of primary colours, such as red, blue and green. This feat keeps it on par with many high end televisions that are present in the market.

Rear connectors

The interface of this projector is extremely easy to navigate through and one can get accustomed to it within a matter of minutes. This can be attributed to the layout of the controls and their easy labelling. There is a neat interface for SD cards and USB drives, which reminds us of entry level HDTVs that support flash drives. The options feature large widgets for photos, videos, etc. In these widgets, the content is lined up in a list format allowing one to quickly scroll through them using the navigational buttons. There is also a preview screen when a media file is highlighted.

Performance
The performance of the Portronics POR 315 was tested in a number of ways, which included running the DisplayMate test, playing content off an SD card, a memory card as well as syncing it to a Blu-ray player to test the video quality.

While running the DisplayMate test, we observed that in the Brightness and Contrast test, the projector in the standard picture mode was good and there was no need to adjust any of the settings. In the Intensity range check, we noticed that the darkest greys were well reproduced, but with the case of the whites, there was hardly any difference between the last two bars. The only thing that differentiated it was the seam in between. In the black level adjustment test, we did not have to alter any settings as most of the dark grey blocks were already visible, however there was a slight green tinge to them. Primary colours overall rendered well and most colours appeared accurate, except for green, which was a bit vibrant. From a distance of about three meters, viewing angles are quite bad and text cannot be read well, but this can be adjusted using the manual focus ring. One would need to sit in level with the projector to get the desired results. The black levels of the PORT-315 are overall good. In the colour intensity scales test there was bleeding visible across most bars.

Anomalies appearing on-screen

We connected a flash drive to the projector and we noticed that the interface was very smooth to navigate through and the drive was ready immediately. When we played videos, we observed that the load time was not that much and the overall playback was smooth.

To test the full HD video capabilities of this projector, we connected it to our in-house Philips Blu-ray player and ran the ‘The Dark Knight’ disc. While playing the movie, we noticed that the overall video quality was decent and nothing really special to write about. The colours were accurate and skin tones appeared natural, however in the bright scenes there were constant green and pink hues appearing across the content that was displayed. This was a bit putting off, but the overall video quality is better than most other projectors at this price range. The volume of the projector is really soft, unlike the recently reviewed 3M MP180 and one would do better by attaching some speakers to the 3.5mm audio jack. The brand has fitted with a 3,000mAh inbuilt rechargeable battery in this projector and they rate it at two hours. Rounding up the performance bit of the review, the projector is great for running presentations and for viewing casual photography or video clips.

The pocketable projector

Verdict
The Portronics POR 315 is available in India at an MOP of Rs.23,000. This projector is good where the design and build is concerned and has more than impressive features. When it comes to the performance of this device, it does well when viewing presentations or Microsoft Office files. However, if one wants to view videos, they may not want to consider this as their first option. Though it delivers decent video quality, there are anomalies occurring on the screen that are quite annoying, especially if it is a movie. If one needs a projector for basic office usage and not to play videos, then this would be a viable option as the brand has priced it competitively as well.