ViewSonic PLED-W200 Portable Business Projector

Summary: There’s plenty to like about the ViewSonic PLED-W200. For the purposes of displaying text or showing business presentations, the projector offers a large, bright, mostly crisp image with more than adequate contrast, even in relatively bright rooms. It’s eminently portable at just under a pound and about 5 inches square by 1.3 inches deep, yet the projector offers a satisfactory array of connectivity options. On the downside, the brightness level doesn’t translate especially well to movie-watching, and there are some issues of blur and color consistency that impact the quality of the projected image.


Some of the hardware we test here at HH is over the top and may offer extreme performance, but the ViewSonic PLED-W200 is not one of those products. To be sure, there are some features that the PLED-W200 lacks, such as the ability to display directly from wireless devices, or perhaps some better specifications such as higher brightness and a wider contrast ratio, but ViewSonic had to strike a balance to keep the price down and ensure optimal portability. (If you can’t live without those additional specs and features, opt for the PLED-W200’s big brother, the PLED-W500.)

If we can be a little pragmatic for a moment, though, consider that the PLED-W200 does offer everything that a business traveler will actually need, from performance to portability. Further, although the selection of ports isn’t overly impressive, the PLED-W200 does offer a decent variety of options, including the SD card slot that allows for PC-less operation.

ViewSonic lists the PLED-W200 at $540, which puts it right in line with its main competition. You can easily drop upwards of $1,000 on a portable projector or pay very little for one that’s basically junk. That $500-ish price point seems to be the sweet spot of the market currently, and it's exactly where the PLED-W200 falls. Please note, however, that street prices for the PLED-W200 can be somewhat lower, so do some shopping first before plunking down your hard earned cash.

Although you should look elsewhere for a projector for your home theater, we found the PLED-W200 to be more than adequate for what a traveling professional needs, some color inconsistency and a touch of edge blurriness notwithstanding.