Dell 2400MP Physical Tour

Dell 2400MP Physical Tour

The Dell is a smaller than average portable projector, suitable for airplane and local travel. Although there are significantly smaller projectors, I am not aware of any that are any of those that are more powerful.

The 2400MP comes with a heavily padded carry case. Unlike the usual soft shoulder cases that come with most small projectors, the Dell's case is larger, and almost rigid. As such, it should provide excellent projection, but is a larger case solution that found with most other projectors. If you are traveling a lot, this may be a minor issue for you.

Starting from the front, the Dell 2400MP sports a relatively short throw zoom lens with a 1.2:1 zoom ratio, and a an Infra-red sensor. The focus ring is located on the lens. The 2400MP has a tethered lens cap. Very handy, just pop it off when using, but you can't lose it.

Moving to the top, there is a recessed zoom ring, to adjust the zoom ratio, with it's 20% (1.2:1 zoom). Also on the top is the Dell 2400MP's control panel.

The control panel is fairly basic, featuring a power button on the left (once for on, hit it twice for off.

There is the traditional four arrow keys for navigating, with an Enter button in the center. To complete the control panel, the menu button is on the right. Interestingly the 2400MP only offers a power light indicater, whereas most portables have separate small led lights for lamp and temperature.

Moving to the back of the Dell projector, you'll find a second Infra-red sensor, an analog computer input, and a monitor (computer) output as well. The computer out is normally needed for those with desktop computers, if they wish to also see the same image projected on the screen, also on their computer's monitor. This is not an issue with laptop computers.

There is also the usual low resolution video inputs - composite and S-video. The 2400MP has a stereo mini jack for inputing sound to its speaker, and it also, unlike most small projectors, has audio output as well. If you feed the audio output into external amplified speakers, you can use the controls on the Dell to adjust the volume of those speakers.

There is also a USB remote port and an RS-232 for computer control, and possibly for downloading updated firmware. Finally, there is the power cord socket.

All in all, fairly basic. A number of competitors today offer digital inputs as well, either DVI or HDMI (they are essentially compatible with each other). If you want to use the best possible analog video input (component video), that can be brought in though the HD15 connector that is the computer input. That means the 2400MP cannot have both component input and a computer hooked up at the same time. That's probably not a problem for the vast majority of users, but worth noting.