Optoma PlayTime PT105 LED DLP Projector Review (Hardware)

The PlayTime PT105 from Optoma is almost being marketed as a smaller projector for children who game. In fact, on the box there are two children, one of whom is holding a game controller. To me, it seems this projector is sort of hit or miss. It says it can throw an 80" image up at 12 feet away. How many children have 12-feet of clear space in their rooms and gaming consoles in that same space? Not to mention parents that would be able to manage all of this for their kids.

The Optoma Playtime PT105 is definitely not a living room, home theater projector because it’s only got a resolution of 854x480, a 75 Lumen LED brightness and a 1000:1 contrast ratio. All of that adds up to one big question of, who and what is the target market for this projector?

I can’t see many parents deciding that their children need a projector in their bedroom and at $200 it is comparable in price to a 22- to 24-inch LED HDTV which will have less viewing restrictions in terms of brightness. Plus, it would have TV capabilities built in and be able to connect to everything else.

I did find a use for the projector in the bi-weekly Dungeons and Dragons game. It was a nice addition to the gaming table when there were large maps or images to be shown to the players. A big problem I ran into though, is the absence of keystone controls and the low lumen value. Keystone is used to correct the image when the projector is on a surface that is angled in regards to the lens. Almost every projector has it. The Optoma Playtime PT105 is lacking it and that makes the uses for this projector very limited. Unless we mounted it directly over or under the table, it could not be used to project maps onto the surface. So that limited it to a secondary resource up on a wall to be used sparingly which was a real shame.

However, if I were to build a surface type table where I could put a projector below it and project onto the surface as a map for games, etc, this would be an ideal option there. Since it’s an LED light source it throws off little heat. The problem is that, say a standard table is about 3 feet in height, it would only produce a diagonal image of around 20 inches. At four feet it would be just 26 inches diagonally. In a standard one inch = 5 foot map scale for the use of miniatures, that would be just 13 squares wide and 23 squares long when my playmat is 23 by 34 squares and sometimes isn’t big enough. At six feet it’s still just 20 by 36 which would mean that you would have to mount the projector above the table and arms and miniatures would cast shadows on the play area. Plus, many of the ambient lighting would have to be dimmed and when you’re playing a pen and paper game, light is important.

The Optoma PlayTime PT105 Projector does have a good amount of inputs including S-video, VGA and RCA jacks. It’s also got an HDMI port on the side (not shown).

Overall, I am not all that impressed with the Optoma PlayTime PT 105 projector. While it does have a low price point, it also has limited functionality and at 75 lumens requires dark areas in order to be clearly visible. On a sunlit day in the office it was all but washed out while on an overcast day it was fine. For the size of the picture and the limited functionality, I would rather invest in a flat panel display that could also get TV or connect to the Internet.