ViewSonic M1 Portable LED Projector with Auto Keystone, Dual Harman Kardon Speakers, HDMI, USB C, Stream Netflix with Dongle

LOVE IT. LOVE IT. Perfect for the non-videophile. Great for parties or gatherings or having fun. Do not buy this if you are going to nitpick it. Sure it doesn’t have the brightest bulb or best resolution. But that’s not what it’s designed for. It’s designed for fun. With the built in speakers and battery you just plug up and have a night of fun. Couple photos are from a 185 inch view. It’s pretty dang good picture quality this huge! My remote works really well so not sure other reviewers comments on that. It just is super portable and fun. Grab if that’s what you want. If you’re not going to move your projector get a brighter and better resolution one. But if you want portability and ease grab this. The audio is so loud too. I’m moving up as this was my jump into projectors to see if I would like and I bring it out for my kid to have fun and watch a family movie. I move mine all the time so it was a perfect purchase. Just make sure you have the HDMI cable and if you need maybe a USB C TO HDMI cable if hooking to your computer or iPad.

I feel compelled to write a review about this projector, because I had extremely high expectations for it. It has mostly lived up to them, but there are some issues, for those who might like some more information. Some of this could be chalked up to "operator error" -- I'm not a visual-spatial person, so my tweaking of the projection angles are kind of sub-par, but it really should be easier to make this work. First, the good -- this projector is beautifully designed. It's sharp and looks better than anything out there. Also, the speaker is excellent IF you compare it to most projectors -- not using a cable to connect it to a better speaker with more bass. In comparison to my JBL, it sounds tinny, even with the bass turned up. However, again, it's far superior to many projection speakers standing on its own. The good news, is it does have an output to plug in a better speaker, if you want. I love interface and the corrective possibilities -- lots of controls to optimize screen settings and experience and they are easy to use. It doesn't seem bright, on paper, but I was watching a show with my curtains open and a light on. However, it was a bright show -- when I tried to watch a space movie, or something with darker colors, it was not quite bright enough. I bought a screen for it, so I imagine that could have something to do with the projection. Here are my pet peeves: it projects a barely perceptible border around the actual picture that doesn't move when you do the keystone correction, so you end up having diagonal lines that could bother someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder were that person (a friend?) trying to project a perfect picture inside a screen. It doesn't affect the picture -- it doesn't go over the picture -- but it's a little annoying. However, you can forget about it -- if you can. One other thing is, my particular camera tends to lengthen the top left corner when pointed upward. Again -- I don't know about angles, but it's not just like "totally easy," to get a straight picture. And the WORST thing about the camera, which caused me to dock the star is that the smart stand, on my camera, is not level. So, when you sit it there -- it just doesn't give you a level picture. This can be clandestinely corrected with some stacked pieces of electrical tape or a piece of paper, because it is slight -- but it's annoying. It should be level for $300. The panel for hook-ups is great, but I agree with the reviewer that said the USBC does NOT charge and carry information at the same time -- unless I misunderstand what that means. I had the camera's USBC hooked up to a USBC port on a Macbook Pro, and the computer was plugged in. No power flowed. Is it supposed to go in reverse? Should the camera have been plugged in to power the laptop? Not sure. Overall, I think it's a good buy. Much, much easier to deal with than my Pico, which is a beautiful thing, but older -- I wanted an upgrade and this works. It's not perfect, but it is slick, which counts for something, as long as it works. I think it works well, aside from getting the picture straight.

What a fantastic little unit. Please note: It's not high def, it's not super bright... if that's what you're looking for, you need a bigger unit. Where this one shines is it's ease in setup, portable size, and great (really great) sound. I bought this when I saw it used by someone else in a demo. Companies a, b, and c were giving their presentations. The lull while each vendor set up their projector, ran a power wire, and spent a few minutes correcting the focus and keystone - not to mention the clunkiness of these big projectors, detracted from the products they were presenting, in a negative way. Put simply - in the time it took for setup, we got bored. But one of the presenters whipped out this little thing. Had his presentation already loaded on a usb stick. Simply sat it on the table, and off we went. No power plug, no clunkiness. Aesthetically, this thing perked us all up. The lights needed to be dimmed in order to see it decently.. And sure there are larger units that can give the same features but with brighter light, and less portability- but not at this cost. Before I left the room I was already checking out what this thing was, on Amazon. No regrets. Had the chance to use it this recently for an impromptu showing of Its the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, to entertain the kids at a family party. Picture and more importantly sound quality were excellent. Sound was loud and clear even with chatty kids in a room. Setup was instant, and the kids were enthralled and we were able to set it up tucked out of the way in a room not normally used for movies/etc.. If we had to instead dig out the big projector, stretch an extension cord, find speakers, play around with settings... we wouldn't have bothered, and just would have done something else instead with them. So to be clear - this is NOT a home theater projector. It's not intended to be either. It's a fantastic takealong and great for casual or quick setup use. I liken it to cameras. You've got your DSLR, right? Big, clunky, but takes great pictures. But you don't always want to lug it around. So they make some pretty fantastic pocket-able cameras, too - that take better quality pictures than your phone, but don't require much effort to bring along.

The picture quality and sound quality are good, especially for the compact size of the projector. The responsiveness to the the remote control is not great. Despite mild use (cumulative 4 hours per week since purchase), the device suddenly stopped working. No one was available to speak to through their customer service hotline - I could only leave a message on a mailbox and my have not yet received a return phone call. I had specifically invested into this model expecting better quality compared to the other brands, and availability of customer service. For such a short shelf life, one can go with a cheaper projector.

I bought the M1 as a very portable projector to showcase quick slideshows and project books/videos to my daughter before bed. I wasn't expecting an impressive product, but something portable and quick to assemble and store. As soon as I tried it for the first time I was amazed! For its size, it offers an impressive bright image (not full HD, but that I knew) that is pleasant to see. The projector is quick to mount and it offers HDMI and USB-C as main connections (it also has a USB for stickers, but I didn't try that one). The menu is easy to navigate and quick to jump into the image. The speakers are fine, the quality (for Harman Kardon) is not mindblowing, but one can't fit great speakers in such a small case. And they do their job and provide way better sound than laptop speakers. Overall, this is a mini-projector that I totally recommend and that surpassed by far what I expected from it. If there is something that has a lot of room for improvement is the controller... clumsy and it has a terrible range. So usually I end up using mostly the buttons on the projector, as I'm close enough to manipulate them.

My remote quit working after the first day. I happen to have another compatible remote though. Also this projector is not too bright, in a low light room it is very good. WHY FIVE STARS THEN? In a world where cheap, toy projectors exist, this little projector is well made, and the speakers are much louder than expected. The sound will fill a room, and while the resolution is not high, I watch TV, DVD, internet, etc... from about 15 feet away and cannot really tell. Up close the resolution is not good. Why 5 Stars? I use it 8hrs per day for months... this is no toy! Used within it's limits it is great. Of course, if you do not need a battery powered, portable projector with decent connectivity, then get something else.

We got both the the ViewSonic M1 and the LG PH550 to see which one would meet our needs better. We ended up going with the LG, but I wanted to leave a quick review about the M1 because it was still a good projector. The M1 fits nicely in the hand. It is a very portable size. It has a nice short throw, meaning a big screen even when close to a wall. It has a lot of automatic features, so you don't have to worry about clicking through a ton of menus to do everything. Auto on/off when the stand is opened/closed, auto image adjust as you change the projector orientation, auto input selection, etc. The speakers are one of the standout features on the M1. They have really good sound that fills the room. No need for a separate speaker unless you want to feel the thunder of a powerful system. The stand is well designed and really makes it easy to position the projector how you want it. So why did we go with the LG? In the end, the LG had better brightness and resolution than the M1, although at $100 more it should right?! We figured that we could make up for lower quality speakers with other solutions, but we couldn't make up for the image difference. We needed to be able to make out finer details, like little words and such, so the LG was a better fit, but we were impressed with the M1 so much that we wanted to give it a shout-out as a good projector at a good price. You will just need a darker room to bring out the best in it.

I recently returned this product and picked up something else instead. Here are some thoughts: -This projector looks great. It has an elegant design that gives this projector a look that echoes Dieter Rams designed Braun products. -Movies look really great even though it’s native resolution is only 480p. -Its shortcomingings are apparent when text comes into play. Text is a blurry mess and sometimes unreadable depending on the screen size you are projecting. -The speaker sounds incredible. Here are my main issues: -The ports are on the opposite side of the arm/stand that holds the projector up. Once you begin plugging stuff in (hdmi cable, power supply, etc) to those ports, it becomes a balance issue. Because the weight of the projector is balancing on this lightweight aluminum arm/stand the gravity or tension of the cords that are plugged in end up knocking the projector over quite easily. And because there’s no OS where native apps such as Netflix or YouTube installed, something needs to be plugged in at all times to use this thing. -While the swivel arm/stand gives this impression that there’s an infinite amount of ways you can position this thing, the weight of the actual projector limits this notion. Sure, it can project a picture on the wall or even ceiling straight up with very little issue. But let’s say you want to position the projector at a one o’clock position or two o’clock position. You know, almost straight up at the ceiling but slightly tilted forward or back. The projector will simply fall forward or backward simply bc it’s too heavy for the stand to support it in that manner. Thus the projector is really limited to being positioned at 12 o’clock or 3 o’clock with only a few degrees of leeway. -And while the stand certainly held the projector in those specific positions I just mentioned, I was concerned with how well the mechanism that swivels the stand would hold up over time. The stand doesn’t lock; you simply position the projector and it holds it in that position. Over time and frequent use, I was afraid that it would loosen up and the stand would become useless and flop around. -The nail in the coffin was the auto lamp off/sleep feature when something covers the lens. While it worked as advertised, there was an instance where the lens was blocked and the lamp shut off as it was supposed to. It’s then supposed to turn back on if the lens is no longer blocked. However, when the lens was quickly unblocked, the lamp never turned back on. I had to reboot the projector to get it to work again. I think my expectations for using this thing might have been unrealistic. I was using it for movies and video games around the house. If you were simply to use this projector where it would basically sit on desks and table tops and limited to a single connection like a laptop for presentations in work or school, then this might be a very useful projector.