Lenovo (IBM) ThinkVision C400 Wireless

After taking over the IBM projector line, Lenovo has expanded it with the company’s first wireless model. At 7.5 pounds, the new C400 Wireless projector is a bit heavier than the previous wireless units we have tested, but it’s light enough for occasional travel.

The C400 Wireless has a rectangular shape with rounded edges and corners. Its color scheme, of course, is the trademark IBM charcoal gray made popular by ThinkPad laptops. On the right side of the front panel, the lens projects prominently (perhaps a bit too prominently for its own protection). The top panel offers an adequate array of control buttons, including a pair for volume. The Power button is easy to identify, but surprisingly hard to push. The rear panel is adorned with an impressive array of connectors, including such rarities as a VGA-out port for desktop users, an audio-out jack, and a USB connector. To complement all of these connectors, Lenovo includes an extensive set of cables, including those for USB, video, S-Video, and audio.

This model’s remote control is relatively large, but very nicely equipped. Our favorite feature is a well-marked Laser Pointer button, but we also loved the Page Up and Page Down buttons for navigating through a PowerPoint slide show. As if these were not enough, there’s a large pointing button for positioning a laptop’s mouse pointer, complemented by Left and Right mouse buttons. The buttons are well positioned, with the most useful ones in the most easily accessible places. Occasionally, the buttons seemed too sensitive; a single press being interpreted as a string of button pushes. This is in contrast to the Power button on the projector’s top panel, which required considerable force to activate.

Perhaps the most outstanding feature of this model is its brightness. Lenovo claims an impressive 2650 lumens, but our tests showed an even more amazing 3047 lumens, which is a pleasant surprise in this industry of over-promising and under-delivering projectors. In our contrast-ratio test, this DLP projector delivered a result of 513:1. This is well below the claimed value of 1200:1, but was nevertheless one of the best contrast ratios we have seen, and certainly the best among wireless models.

In our more subjective tests, we were impressed with this model’s rock-steady images, noticing only the barest hint of flicker. At its native XGA resolution, PowerPoint slides were quite sharp, and individual pixels were generally well shaped without much halo or comet tails.

Despite its impressive image quality, the most interesting feature of this projector is its wireless connectivity. The C400 is one of the first models compatible with 802.11b/g wireless LANs, thus promising significantly faster response times than slower 802.11b projectors. To connect with the projector wirelessly, you must first load a program onto your laptop. Installation was easy, but connecting to the projector was harder than it needed to be. To get the software to work, we first had to use our laptop’s wireless LAN software to access the projector’s WLAN connection. Then we could use the Lenovo software to connect to the projector.

Once fully connected, our laptop’s screen was relayed instantly to the projector. Compared to a wired link, the wireless connection showed a slight delay. New PowerPoint slides took about 0.5 seconds to appear on the projector’s screen. Full-motion video is not possible, but PowerPoint animation and slide transitions were much more tolerable than with 802.11b projectors.

Many users will feel quite comfortable displaying simple business presentations wirelessly on this projector, but we would not recommend it for anyone not well experienced with the challenges of wireless networking.

The C400 Wireless supports USB flash memory drives. Theoretically, all you need to do is insert a USB key into the socket on the rear panel and you could display any image files on that drive. In practice, the USB feature is too awkward for general use. Selecting an image file requires some deft handling of the remote control’s mouse emulator, and once selected, large images required three to four seconds to display on the screen, which forces an audience to spend a considerable amount of time looking at a blank blue screen.

At press time, the ThinkVision C400 Wireless was selling for only $1,874 on Lenovo’s Web site, an amazing price for such a bright, high-quality projector covered by a three-year warranty. As with some other wireless projectors, however, its wireless features are not as refined as they should be. We expect Lenovo’s next wireless model to be a considerable improvement. Until then, we suggest that users take a serious look at this model’s non-wireless twin, the C400, which was $1,499 at press time and regularly goes for $1,999.