Best Pico Projector

The Aaxa P4-X Pico Projector is a portable, handheld projector that lets you project a screen size up to 48 inches. Its picture quality, ease of use, and relatively long battery life make it superior to other projectors, which often feature clunky user interfaces and produce a subpar image.
Karim Lahlou
Updated October 12, 2016

The Aaxa P4-X Pico Projector is a portable, handheld projector that lets you project a screen size up to 48 inches. Its picture quality, ease of use, and relatively long battery life make it superior to other projectors, which often feature clunky user interfaces and produce a subpar image.

PC Magazine’s review of the Aaxa P4-X highlights just how good it is: “It’s both highly portable and highly capable, with a bright image, good image quality, lots of connection options and the ability to read files from memory.” A PC Magazine member echoes the review, saying that “it is a great alternative for a TV in our bedroom.” It’s no wonder the Aaxa P4-X earned accolades from numerous tech publications, which helps explain why it earned the coveted ‘Editor’s Choice’ accolade from PC Magazine.

Laptop Mag largely shared PC Magazine’s verdict, and went on to praise the Aaxa P4-X for having intuitive controls. PC World went further to describe the various goodies that you would get right out of the box, and why it’s superior to its predecessor: “The P4-X comes with a small infrared remote control, as well as a tripod that’s sturdier and less prone to buckling than the one that accompanied the P4.” Projector Reviews agrees on the remote, saying that “the small credit card style remote works very well.”

One pain point shared by most Aaxa P4-X reviews was its fan noise, which some reviewers, such as Laptop Mag, described as “so loud as to drown out any audio coming from the P4X’s 1-watt speaker.” PC Magazine also noted on the loud fan noise, detailing the experience as such: “if you’re sitting close enough to the projector to hear sound from the speakers, the whine of the P4-X fan, rated at 30db, is hard to ignore.” While the Aaxa P4-X was shunned for its loud fan noise, most reviewers pointed out that users could plug in external speakers to get decent sound—sound that would be able to drown out the persistent fan noise.

The Aaxa P4-X has a few competitors, though most of them lack the wide range of connectivity options on the Aaxa P4-X, or its relatively high brightness level. The Acer C120, for example, costs $80 less than the Aaxa P4-X and has a slightly higher brightness rating; however it only provides a USB port for connectivity, which means that you won’t have much luck using other devices with it. Similarly, the Optoma Pica Pk120, which has a lower brightness setting and doesn’t come with a remote, is less expensive than the Aaxa P4-X, but is the $80 saved worth the compromise?

We think so, especially when considering the versatility of functions you’d be giving up. Having the ability to decide between a miniUSB port, a microSD slot, a miniHDMI port or a VGA port means that you won’t have limit yourself to a single device, making the Aaxa P4-X Pico projector a great choice when considering its value. As PC Magazine concludes, “the Aaxa P4-X Pico Projector is impressive for the price.”

While monitors and high-definition televisions have plummeted in price in recent years, there is no product category like the pico projector that can produce huge projections from a hand-held form factor. If you’re interested in a pico projector, you can’t go wrong with the Aaxa P4-X Pico Projector.