Projectors like this can make even the A/V guy look cool.

If your daily routine involves making presentations on the road, you'll like the PowerLite 76c, a lightweight, compact portable projector that's affordable - by projector standards, that is.

It takes barely five minutes to set up the 5.7-pound 76c - connect your 'Book or desktop Mac to the 76c's Computer (Component Video) port (which uses VGA), plug in the 76c, power it up, start your Mac, and the projector works. Epson includes a VGA cable, but you'll have to supply your own video adapter or cable if you want to connect to the 76c's S-Video or composite video ports. You manually focus or adjust the 1024-by-768-pixel image size using the rings on the projector and the zoom function on the remote. Speaking of the remote, it's not backlit - we found it hard to use in a dark room.

Epson rates the 76c's brightness at a respectable 2,000 ANSI lumens; we found the brightness to be quite adequate in both a darkened and normally lit room. Photos looked good and had accurate tones, but we did see some minor banding in business-presentation slides. DVD movies were acceptable, but some areas lacked contrast and sharpness.

The 76c has a pair of RCA jacks for audio. The one-watt monaural speaker is fine for a small-to-medium-size conference room, but you'll want to use different speakers for a stage or large conference room. Epson also includes
a black nylon carrying case.

The bottom line. For the traveling business presenter or multimedia performance artist, Epson's PowerLite 76c is a cost-effective projector.

COMPANY: Epson
CONTACT: 800-463-7766, www.epson.com
PRICE: $999
REQUIREMENTS: Video-out port
Lightweight and compact. Bright. Lots of connectors.
Only includes VGA cable. Remote control is not backlit.