Elmo BOXi T200 Projector - Hardware Tour 2

Posted on January 6, 2014 by Art Feierman

ELMO BOXI T200 - HARDWARE TOUR PAGE 2: MENUS, REMOTE CONTROL, LENS THROW, SHIFT

BOXi T200 Projector - Menus

Once you figure out what some of the icons represent, the menu system of the BOXi T-200 is pretty straightforward. There's a main menu, that has on it multiple sub-menus, including the Picture quality and Settings ones, which have the most choices.

We'll look at how the 7 picture quality modes look compared to each other, in the Picture Quality page. The Settings menu shown offers a significant number of areas and options as well. The captions attached to the images cover the basics of each.

I had to check the manual to figure out several of the icons. You'll see what looks like a bar chart on the picture quality menu, turns out that one is the Presentation mode. On the Settings menu, the one on the far right really had me stumped. It looks like a factory? Well, it's the reset to set all the settings back to default. The image of the face with a speaking bubble had me going for a while too, but upon clicking on it the next level came up with English. It's the languages icon.

But the one that really stumped me most was an icon of what looks like the sun (same image as used for Brightness, but with a finger on it. Turns out, that's the button to control the brightness of the LED lights on the projector. Three brightness levels, or off. (Hint: Hi brightness is way too bright to use when watching content.

BOXi T-200 Menus

Main Menu

Access this menu from the top right corner of the remote control. BOXi T200 menus are icon driven

Picture Quality modes

Shown here, the six preset modes and User (highlighted). Modes are: User, Cinema, Photo, Normal, Game, Presentation, and MAX (brightest)

User Mode

One of the 7 picture modes is User. It is the only one that allows adjustment of Color Temp, Gamut, and Gamma

Color Temp

Color Temp offers 3 choices. Lo is the warmest, but per the manual is 5000K, very warm, suitable for old b&w movies. Mid, says 6000K which is still too warm, but looks about right. Hi is 9300K and just way too cold. Sports?

Gamma Control

Three presets - 1.9 which is generally best for TV. Officially 2.2 is ideal for movies, and 2.4 even further lowers mid range gain

Color Gamut

Standard should be fine for most situations.

Settings Menu

The Settings menu has a number of options shown next

Aspect Ratio

The Boxi is 16:10. Auto worked fine for everything I tried, but you can force 4:3 or 16:9

Projector Orientation

This is one of two Orientation icons. Between them, the Boxi supports front/rear projection with ceiling or table top placement

Multiple Language support

Like larger projectors the Boxi supports a number of languages

Audio Control

This is the volume control Note, if a headphone or speakers are plugged into the audio out, the internal 1 watt speaker deactivates

Menu Lighting

This was the icon hardest to figure out. I let my fingers do the walking - through the pdf user manual.

BOXi T-200 Remote Control

The T-200's remote control is a small "credit card" type remote, with those bubble type buttons. That's typical for pocket projectors, after all, who wants a remote as large as the projector.

The remote control's layout isn't great, but after a bunch of work with it, I learned where everything is. Range isn't bad. I routinely controlled the BOXi which was placed only about 2 feet from the screen for much of my work, from about 10 feet further back. However, it worked out as far as double that.

I credit the location of the projector's sensor at the back top of the projector for good range from a smaller remote. BTW just pull out the clear plastic strip from the remote, so that the battery makes contact and can start working.

Looking at the remote, Power is in the top left, and is the usual press once for on, twice for off. The Main Menu button is over in the top right corner.

Next comes a row of four buttons that provide direct access to four of the sub-menus (so you don't have to go through the Main menu.) Those four, from left to right:

Display
Keystone Correction
Brightness
Contrast

There's one more direct access, on the right below Contrast, which is clearly marked as ECO. Eco brings about approximately a 50% decrease in brightness, and a slight drop in fan noise.

Next row down comes the navigation, which consists of three buttons:

Left Arrow
Enter
Right Arrow

The lowest row has the Mask button which replaces your source signal with the BOXi Logo (very pretty with lots of color), rather than a true blanking of the screen. Audio mute is to the right.

And finally, just to the right of the Audio mute, are the volume Up and Down buttons.

That folks is it. Except to say that the remote runs on the usual "button" batteries. In this case, the BOXi remote uses a single, 3 volt, 2032 battery, a very common one that's easy to find when you need to replace it. (Radio Shack, Home Depot, Amazon, and my local grocery store…)

Overall, a pretty respectable remote for a "credit card" type. I do like that there's lots of space between the buttons.

Click Image to Enlarge

BOXi T-200 Lens Throw

The T-200 has a very short throw fixed lens. That's right, no zoom capability, but that's common for "very short throw" projectors.

I normally give you the distance from the screen for a 100" screen, but as this projector isn't bright enough to really be practical on a 100" screen (except in total darkness), let's use 50" diagonal. Because this is a 16:10 (1280x800) WXGA projector 50" diagonal at 16:10 works out to about 46 inches at 16:9 (HDTV, etc.)

From the manual:

Distance to fill a 50" diagonal 16:10 screen: 38.58 inches which is just a tiny bit less than 1 meter.

As is common, the manual indicates these are approximate.