Buying a projector for the classroom

Been tasked with finding the right projector for your school's classrooms? Here’s a crib sheet on what to look for when buying a projector for education.

A note on brightness

Do you find sometimes that your pupils can be too bright for their own good? Well, the same can be said of projectors!

It’s natural to think that brighter is better. True, projectors with a higher ANSI lumens rating will cope better with the onslaught of ambient light coming in through your windows and electric lights on the ceiling. So what are the problems with projectors being too bright?

Firstly, a projector can be damaging to the eyes if you look directly into the beam. The brighter the projector, then higher the chances of this being an issue. So we’d recommend no more than 3500 lumens for a typical classroom installation.

Secondly, looking at a very bright image in a darkened environment can result in eye strain and resulting head aches, so if you will be darkening the room when you use your projector then it’s best to keep the projector's brightness to a reasonable level.

And lastly, if you’re using an interactive whiteboard with the projector then you may find it’s kitted out with quite a shiny screen. If this is the case, some light from the projector will reflect back at the audience, producing a glare effect,

Try and get a short throw lens

A 'short throw lens' means you get a large image even if the projector’s near the front of the classroom. If you're not planning on mounting it on the ceiling then this puts the projector within the teacher’s reach, so she can turn it on or blank the screen when the remote control’s gone truant.

More to the point, having it within the teacher’s reach means it’s out of the reach of inquisitive hands, and there is less potential for pupils or objects to block out the projected image by getting in the way.

Dedicated short throw projectors from the likes of BenQ, Epson, Hitachi, NEC and ViewSonic offer great specification models at prices to suit all budgets.

Running costs

Chances are your projector will be in use for much of the day. So it’s worth thinking about running costs now.

The main cost will be replacement lamps. Replacement lamp costs are normally shown in the ‘related accessories’ box on our projector detail pages. Also look for projectors with a longer lamp life.

At the time of writing BenQ,and ViewSonic offer affordable replacement lamps. And don’t forget you can get a new lamp at a discount from us if you buy it with your projector. As well as saving you money, it means you’re back up and running quickly when your lamp blows.

Another cost you may not have considered is how much it costs to replace the remote control. They do have a habit of sneaking off when you take your eye off them.

Fortunately there are universal remote controls available now that are easy to set up to work with a broad range of projectors. That said, if your projector is from a popular one, there’s a better chance that it will work easily with a universal remote control.

Security features

Your new projector will look great in your classroom. But a thief will think it will also look great in his front room, projecting his pirated copy of South Park in high definition!

There’s a lot you can do to protect yourself against projector theft. Some projector models are made with education in mind, and have built-in anti-theft devices.

PIN code security and built in movement alarms are features to look out for.

If you’re mounting your projector on the ceiling then you can get secure mounts and cages that prevent the projector from being removed.

Resolution

Resolution is the number of dots on the screen that make up the image. The more dots there are, the sharper the image is, so small text will be more readable.

There are four main resolutions – they’re called SVGA, XGA and WXGA and 1080p.

SVGA is the lowest resolution and is gradually becoming extinct in projectors. It does generally save you money, but the significantly better XGA models aren’t at much of a price premium any more. So we strongly recommend XGA as a minimum .

1080p resolution is ultra-sharp. It’s normally only used for specialist applications, eg architecture, graphic design, and medical imagery but becomming increasingly popular.

LCD or DLP?

LCD and DLP are the two main technologies that make up a projector’s image. The nitty gritty on this makes quite dull reading, so we’re not going to go into it much here.

In summary, we think LCD is more comfortable to look at over longer periods because it doesn’t suffer from the ‘rainbow effect’ that DLP projectors sometimes do. The rainbow effect is getting less noticeable as DLP technology improves though. If you do go for a DLP model, the more expensive ones will often have measures in place to reduce the rainbow effect.

Visualisers (aka document cameras)

We think visualisers are great. With a visualiser attached to your projector, you get all the benefits of a whiteboard, an overhead projector and a video camera, so you can show stuff that you just can’t show with Powerpoint.

A visualiser is essentially a video camera that’s mounted pointing down, and is all set up to plug straight into your projector. The projector then displays what the camera sees in real time.

You can put anything you like under the camera. Here’s some ideas;

An open textbook or magazine article. No more photocopying pages that will only get looked at once.

Write notes and draw sketches on paper, and project them at the same time. You can then photocopy your notes later for distributing to the class (unlike a whiteboard).

Science teachers can show experiments close up, and the whole class can watch at once - not just the keen ones that push to the front!

Primary school teachers can show writing close up, and show creative techniques.

Please let us know if you’ve found an ingenious use for a visualiser in your school, and we’ll post it here.

Some projectors from Toshiba include built-in visualisers which tuck into the side of the projector casing when not in use. You can also buy visualisers separately.

Warranty

Like all electronics, projectors sometimes break down. And when they get heavy use and are used in the classroom environment, the chances of this happening get greater.

If your projector’s out of action then it could really affect your lesson plans. You want it up and running again quickly, so take into account the type of warranty, not just the length.

Some manufacturers do swap-out and on site warranties. If you’re ceiling mounting your projector, look for models that include a de-install and re-install warranty – it could save you a lot of hassle if you need a repair.

Lastly, don’t forget to look at the warranty on the lamp as well as the warranty on the projector – they’re generally covered separately with a much shorter lamp warranty.