Chinese company Dangbei has announced the global availability of the first of three novel projectors it showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show last month, starting with the Dangbei Atom.
The Dangbei Atom is said to be the company’s first-ever Google TV laser projector, and it was actually unveiled in December before being shown to audiences for the first time at CES. It has gone on sale globally via Amazon.
The company said the Dangbei Atom is powered by a laser light source that delivers an extremely decent brightness of 1,200 lumens – decent, because, after all, the Atom is supposed to be a portable model, with its compact 47.5mm thick frame and 1.28kg weight, which makes it lighter than most laptops.
For a portable projector, the Dangbei Atom therefore outputs a pretty reasonable level of brightness and it does so at a maximum resolution of 1080p. The ALPD laser light source enables it to create an image of up to 80-inches across, and those images support HDR10+. It comes with the Google TV platform pre-installed, so there’s no need to connect a dongle in order to access streamed content, as applications such as Netflix, YouTube and Disney+ are all pre-installed out-of-the-box.
To aid in the set up, Dangebi has added useful features such as autofocus, keystone correction, obstacle avoidance and screen fit to keep things simple. There’s also a Chromecast wireless screencasting capability, while the built-in 10-watt speakers support Dolby Atmos surround sound.
The Dangbei Atom is available to buy now through Amazon in a number of countries. In the U.S., buyers can find the projector on sale for just $749 thanks to a $150 discount that’s currently on offer to all buyers. Once that discount period expires, consumers will have to pay the full price of $899.
The projector is also on sale at a discount in European countries such as France and Germany, where it can currently be had for €849 instead of the usual €999. In addition, the Dangbei Atom is listed for sale in the U.K., but it remains unavailable there for now.
While Dangbei is clearly hoping to encourage people to snap up the Atom projector relatively soon with its enticing discounts, those who want something a bit more powerful might do well to wait for the launch of its two more premium models. They were also on show at CES and include the Dangbei Mars Pro 2, which is the company’s first 4K laser projector with HDR10+, scheduled to launch in the first half of the year. That model boasts brightness of up to 2,450 lumens and has more powerful, 12-watt speakers with support for DTS:X virtual sound.
Finally there’s the Dangbei X5 Ultra to look forward to, which is a 4K projector that combines a triple-colour laser and full-colour LED hybrid light source. That model is said to utilise ALPD 5.0 laser tech that enables it to achieve significant brightness and colour improvements over the Mars Pro 2, and reportedly covers 110% of the BT.2020 colour gamut.
