ViewSonic M2 Review - Special Features: LED Light Source, Harman Kardon Speakers, Smart Features, Media Player, Eye Protection
The M2 relies on an LED RGBB light source designed to deliver a bright color image from a compact package. Due to its light source, the M2 can deliver 500 ANSI Lumens of brightness and reproduce 125% of the Rec.709 color gamut.
There is a theory the LED light sources also make images look brighter than measured ANSI Lumen brightness. ViewSonic states projector can output "1,200 LED lumens" because it should look as bright as a 1200 lumens lamp-based projector.
The light source also makes the projector essentially maintenance-free, and offers over 30,000 hours of use. That is the equivalent of almost 3.5 years of 24/7 use, so it should be very sufficient for the average user. Along with minimal maintenance, lamp-free projection is more environmentally friendly than other options, as there is no mercury used in the manufacturing process, and the projector will consume less power than a typical LCD TV.
The M2 features dual 3 watt Harman Kardon speakers, capable of producing strong enough audio to fill a small conference or classroom as well as most living rooms. Harman Kardon is known for their high quality audio components, and those on the M2 are no exception. They don’t offer much in the way of deep bass, but mids and highs are impressively clear, and comparable to a small to mid-sized mobile Bluetooth speaker.
The ViewSonic M2 is a smart projector so that you can download popular streaming apps like Netflix and YouTube from the Aptoide app store. The ViewSonic M2 also supports voice control using either Alexa or Google Assistant. The remote control has a built-in microphone so you can use your voice to power the projector on and off, adjust volume, change sources, and even autofocus. The M2 is equipped with Wi-Fi (via dongle) as well, which makes it easy to move the projector from room to room while still accessing the unit’s internal apps and services.
In addition to the huge selections of available apps, there is also a built-in media player. This means you can either download your content in a variety of formats directly to the internal storage and play directly from there or use an external hard drive or thumb drive with your content already stored.
The M2 has 16GB of internal storage, and 10GB available for user storage. While this number isn’t super impressive by todays standards, it is plenty of space for a couple movies, several hours of music, or multiple powerpoint presentations or word documents. The media player supports the following document types: doc, docx, xls, slsx, ppt, pptx, and pdf. It also supports over 10 different types of multimedia formats.
The ViewSonic M2 offers a setting within the Menus list for “Eye Protection.” This is a safety feature designed to protect people (especially young kids) and pets who wander into the beam and look into the dazzling light emitted from the lens. This feature temporarily turns off the light source if a person or object gets too close; a distance of approximately 1 ft within 30 degrees of the center of the beam.
While it doesn’t seem necessary for this feature on a typical tabletop, shelf mounted or ceiling mounted projector, it makes perfect sense for one that would likely sit on the conference table or the coffee table, where it’s easy to accidentally look into the light.
