Kodak Luma 350 Portable Smart Projector - Review 2022

The Kodak Luma 350 Portable Smart Projector ($349.99), the flagship of the company'southward Luma line of palmtop projectors, is brighter than the Kodak Luma 150 unit, only what really sets it apart from the Luma 150 and the Luma 75 is its integration of the Android six operating system, letting yous install and run Android apps. It projects a reasonably large usable paradigm for its brightness, is fine for coincidental moving-picture show viewing, and does well at projecting photos. It earns our Editors' Choice for a palmtop entertainment projector.

Kodak Luma 350 low angle

Anatomy of a Portable Projector

An LED-based projector that uses Texas Instruments' DLP technology, the Luma 350 has a rated brightness of 200 ANSI lumens and a claimed iii,500:ane contrast ratio. Its 854-past-480-pixel, a.thousand.a. FWVGA or 480p resolution, common among mini projectors, works out to a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio. As is typical of LED-based projectors, the light source has a very long rated lifetime, thirty,000 hours, which should more than outlive the life of the projector itself.

Kodak Luma 350 front view

White with gold trim, the Luma 350 has a simple but handsome pattern. It measures one.ane by 4.4 by 4.four inches (HWD)—including the 4 tiny feet it rests on, which add maybe an eighth of an inch to its height—and just fits into my outstretched palm. It is highly portable, weighing merely 12 ounces.

The Luma 350 has a typical form cistron for a palmtop projector, square with rounded corners when viewed from above. On the top of the projector are Kodak and DLP logos, and toward the back is a pocket-size, silvery circle.

Kodak Luma 350 top view

When y'all press the power button, on the right side when viewed from the back, the circle becomes illuminated, revealing itself as the central virtual button of a affect-sensitive iv-way controller. (Information technology is flanked by illuminated left, right, up, and downwards arrows.) The lighting goes out in about v seconds if you take no activeness, simply it reappears when yous press the center of the circle. That controller is duplicated on the thin white remote, which adds ability, home, render, volume-control, carte du jour, and mouse buttons. The remote requires two AAA batteries (non included).

Kodak Luma 350 remote

Navigating with the remote proved more constructive than with the projector's built-in controller: Without a home button on the projector itself, when using the projector'due south own controls it was possible to get stuck in some menu choices without being able to return to Dwelling house brusque of rebooting the device. An easy solution is to attach a mouse to the USB port (correct-clicking with it volition become you home). Merely if you're running content from a USB pollex drive, you don't have that option and had best stick with the remote, or use Kodak'south Luma app (for iOS or Android) to control the projector from your phone.

Kodak Luma 350 control app

The free Kodak Luma app lets you navigate with its own four-mode controller and virtual home, return, and power buttons; launch apps or buy them from the Google Play shop from within the Luma app; and use a touchpad to control a cursor.

Easy Focus Aligning

In back are an audio jack, a USB Type-A port that fits a thumb drive, an HDMI port, and a jack for the included wall-wart power supply, forth with a hole for a pin or paper clip should you need to reset the projector. On the left side, behind the lens, is a vertically oriented focus wheel that in my experience smoothly brought the projector to a fine focus. On the bottom of the projector, forth with the anxiety and a grille for the built-in iii-watt speaker, is a threaded hole for a tripod.

Kodak Luma 350 underside

Within the Luma 350 is a rechargeable 7,500mAh battery, which lasts more than 2 hours between charges and takes about four hours to fully charge.

Information technology's a Projector…and an Android Device

Dissimilar the Kodak Luma 150, the Luma 350 has Android half-dozen.0 built into it. It's not the first Android-based projector that has come through PC Labs, but it's ane of the all-time implementations I have seen, upwards there with the Anker Nebula Capsule II, which runs the Android Tv Bone.

Yous can run Android apps—it comes preinstalled with a scattering of common ones, similar Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Tubi, Redbox, and Twitch, and the app store itself, from which you can download your favorites.

Kodak Luma 350 apps

When you plough the Luma 350 on, yous are soon taken to the domicile screen, on which large radio buttons for the apps have center stage. At the upper right are battery-level and Wi-Fi indicators, likewise as a display of the electric current time. At tiptop left, to the right of a Kodak logo, are iii links, with the Dwelling house link highlighted. The others are Source and Settings. Under Source are buttons for HDMI, Screen Mirroring (Miracast for mirroring Android devices, AirPlay for Apple devices), and File Browser. From the latter y'all can run content from the projector's memory or from a USB cardinal.

Kodak Luma 350 source menu

From Settings, you can perform a variety of tasks, starting with connecting wirelessly via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or a mobile app. Connecting the Luma 350 to my Wi-Fi network was easy—I fastened a mouse to the projector'south USB port and used it to navigate a virtual keyboard where I entered my countersign, and it immediately continued. Y'all can access the projector's 8GB of internal memory (of which about 3.3GB were gratis on my unit).

One characteristic quibble: Kodak backs the Luma 350 with a meager one-twelvemonth warranty.

Kodak Luma 350 and accessories

Good Photos, And then-So Video

The Luma 350 projects a adept-size paradigm because its small-scale brightness. I tested it both in darkness and with varying amounts of ambience lite. In a night room, you lot can view images up to virtually 60 inches (measured diagonally) without significant degradation, with the optimal image size almost 48 inches. With the introduction of ambient lite, nigh 36 inches seemed the optimal size. (Run into how nosotros test projectors.)

In testing, I projected content from a USB thumb drive, too every bit over an HDMI connection from my calculator. I viewed a number of video clips from amid our normal selection. Prototype quality is typical of an LED-based DLP projector of small brightness—that is to say, fine for casual video watching, but not upwards to the standards of videophiles.

I noticed several issues, none of them severe in itself. There was a slight color imbalance, in which some white areas appeared with a dark-green tinge, and reds were oversaturated. There was a hint of posterization, precipitous changes in colour or tone where they should exist gradual. In some scenes, especially in bright areas confronting a night groundwork, I saw the rainbow artifacts that often announced in the images from unmarried-chip DLP projectors. In the instance of the Luma 350, many people wouldn't even discover them, only they could prove annoying to people sensitive to this effect.

Audio, meanwhile, from the 3-watt speaker is adequately loud, and is of decent quality. Photos in general looked skillful when projected with the Luma, with good color and a respectable amount of contrast.

Kodak Luma 350 and remote

A Prince Among Palmtops

In a market where many recent mini projectors seem as much speaker every bit projector—I am currently reviewing several of them—the Kodak Luma 350 retains the archetype palmtop wait, though with Android under the hood. The Luma 350 doesn't have the thumping-loud sound system of the Anker Nebula Sheathing II (though its own speaker is no slouch) merely it comes in at a much lower price. With the power to throw a skillful-size image in a dark room, and with a built-in battery you can recharge, the Luma 350 is a skillful companion for habitation utilize and travel alike. It becomes our latest Editors' Option palmtop projector.