Instead of light running through a tiny LCD panel, think mirrors, lots of them. The Optoma Pico PK-101 and the Dell M109S use a Digital Light Processing (DLP) chip from Texas Instruments. The chip's surface has hundreds of thousands of microscopic mirrors that swing into and out of the beam of light to selectively reflect a pattern. Each micro-mirror corresponds to an individual pixel onscreen.

By contrast, 3M's MPro110 uses Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCOS) technology, which has no moving parts. Rather than tiny mirrors moving back and forth, LCOS uses a special reflective LCD panel where the pixels either reflect or absorb the LED's light. It's like a magical mirror that can control what's reflected off its surface.

Limitations

The downside is that these devices run the risk of looking more like flashlights than projectors. While conventional projectors put out between 2,000 and 3,000 lumens of illumination -- about what a car headlight produces -- the best pocket projectors produce less than 100 lumens.

They require darkened rooms and will fail to satisfy for a big meeting with dozens of participants. On the other hand, they should be fine for presenting to a small group and are perfect for impromptu gatherings. "It's just enough light now," says Insight Media's Brennesholtz, "but I expect that the technology will evolve and brightness will increase rapidly."