Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Both the Sony MP-CL1 and the similar Celluon PicoPro projector display an always-in-focus image even on irregular surfaces through the use of laser beams reflected off of a tiny pivoting mirror. Like all projectors, the projected images look best in the dark. I like to project an image that is about 8 feet or 3 meters in diagonal in the evening. In either projector, the brightness is not adjustable other than moving the projector closer to a wall to make the image smaller and brighter or moving the projector farther away from a wall to make the image larger and dimmer. Both projectors require a separately sold Lightning Digital AV adapter if you want to use them with an iPhone. Both projectors are roughly the same size. The footprint of the Sony MP-CL1 is slightly larger than the PicoPro. The Sony MP-CL1 is slightly thinner. The Sony MP-CL1 uses a metal case with two plastic ends while the PicoPro uses a totally plastic case. The Sony MP-CL1 will blink an LED in a corner of the front plastic portion a number of times when you briefly press the power button to indicate the remaining battery life. The PicoPro will light up a row of LEDs to indicate the remaining battery life when you press a dedicated battery life button. When the PicoPro is low on battery life, it displays this large and annoying text message in the center of the projected image, periodically interrupting your viewing by displaying words to the effect of: "The battery life is low. Please charge the battery." There is no option to turn off this warning message. I would prefer that the projector just continue operating and suddenly die when the battery life is exhausted, which is what the Sony MP-CL1 does. The PicoPro is lighter and easier to use with a Bestek flexible clamp, which I bought separately. The Sony MP-CL1 tends to cause the Bestek flexible clamp to bend and the projected image to tilt due to the greater weight of the Sony MP-CL1. The images that both projectors display are about the same size and brightness. As far as I am aware, both projectors contain the same MicroVision laser module. Both projectors support the Miracast wireless screen mirroring protocol and HDMI cable input. The Miracast function is called different things on different computers. Miracast works with the $60 Digiland DL701Q Android tablet. On the Digiland DL701Q tablet, the Cast Screen function in Settings / Display corresponds to Miracast. The HDMI / MHL type C port on the Sony MP-CL1 is larger than the HDMI / MHL type D port on the PicoPro. The Sony MP-CL1 comes with an HDMI type A to type C adapter. The Type A connector is the larger size connector used on HDTV sets. My PicoPro came with an MHL cable but no HDMI adapter. The Sony MP-CL1 comes with a USB charging cable, but no wall power adapter. The PicoPro comes with both a USB charging cable and a wall power adapter. The Sony MP-CL1 supports charging an external device, such as a cell phone, via a USB port. The PicoPro does not have such a USB charging port. I do not know if you can use the MHL cable that came with the PicoPro to charge a cell phone. The PicoPro supports the DLNA wireless protocol while the Sony MP-CL1 does not. You don't really need the DLNA protocol if you can use the Miracast wireless protocol, which works with most Android 4.2 or later devices and Windows 8.1 or later computers. The proprietary Apple AirPlay protocol is not supported by either the Sony MP-CL1 or Celluon PicoPro. The Sony MP-CL1 has adjustments for contrast, hue, and saturation, which the PicoPro does not. The Sony MP-CL1 supports rear projection by optionally flipping the image horizontally, while the PicoPro does not. I wonder what materials Sony recommends for using the rear projection feature. The material would have to be translucent and scatter the laser light, such as a plastic panel, frosted glass, paper, cloth, a curtain, or a window shade, because directly beaming the Class 3R lasers into human eyes is inadvisable. I have had that accidentally happen to me twice with the PicoPro, and it's like having the sun briefly shine in your eyes before you blink and look away, with an afterimage that lingers for a few minutes. I still have my vision. The Sony MP-CL1 has a self-centering lever/button, which some people call a jog dial, which is easier to use than the capacitive buttons on the PicoPro to adjust the volume or navigate through the menus. When I connect a Windows 7 computer to the Sony MP-CL1 with an HDMI cable, then I can set the resolution on the computer up to 1920x1080 pixels. Text will appear slightly blurry when projected at 1920x1080 pixels and down sampled to the 1920x720 pixel resolution of the Sony MP-CL1. When I connect to the PicoPro with an HDMI cable, the maximum resolution that I can set on the computer is 1280x720 pixels. The Sony MP-CL1 comes with a tiny plastic clip stand which you can use to hold up the Sony MP-CL1 at a fixed angle. The clip can slide along the length of any edge of the Sony MP-CL1 to hold the projector at a mostly horizontal or mostly vertical angle. There is a small hole in the clip which you can apparently use to thread a string and attach to the Sony MP-CL1, which has a port with a metal rod in it for a wrist strap or string, which is not included. If you use the Sony plastic clip stand on a smooth surface while having an HDMI cable attached to the Sony MP-CL1, then the tension or springiness of the cable will tend to cause the Sony MP-CL1 to move out of position. You could attach a rubber pad to the bottom of the Sony clip or lay the clip and projector down on a carpeted floor to make unwanted movement less likely. The PicoPro has no port for a wrist strap. The PicoPro comes with a larger stand which gives you the freedom to project at more angles, including straight up. The hexagonal portion of the PicoPro stand can be unscrewed to reveal a threaded opening which is compatible with most tripods. There are two preset keystone correction settings in the Sony MP-CL1 that correspond to the use of the clip. The preset keystone settings correct the trapezoidal image distortion that occurs from projecting at a wall or ceiling from an angle. The keystone correction makes the trapezoidal image look rectangular. The use of the preset keystone correction settings does not result in a noticeable loss of image resolution. Text remains readable with keystone correction activated. You can also enter a custom horizontal / vertical keystone correction setting. The PicoPro does not have a keystone correction feature. The Sony MP-CL1 contains a fan, which the PicoPro does not. The fan is quiet and unnoticeable with an ambient temperature around 70 degrees Fahrenheit, 21 degrees Celsius. The Sony documentation warns that the fan noise might become loud with high ambient temperatures. The Sony MP-CL1 uses an Android kernel and some other free software, which is evident from various GNU copyleft notices. I find it interesting that the Sony MP-CL1 has all of the hardware and software necessary to work as a portable music player but does not implement that feature. The PicoPro could probably also function as a portable music player. Both devices would need more internal flash memory to store music and a software update. Both projectors are capable of having their software / firmware updated. Both the PicoPro and Sony MP-CL1 follow the audio industry convention of not setting the speaker volume to 100%, but the little 1 Watt speaker is not going to damage anyone's hearing even at full volume, so the volume should be set to 100% by default rather than requiring the user to set the volume to 100% every time that they want to use the built-in speaker. The speaker volume settings get reset every time that you turn on the projectors. If I have a Windows laptop computer attached to either of these projectors, then I go into the Control Panel window and select the Sound icon and set the speakers of the laptop computer as the default sound device to get louder audio output as I project video. If you have Bluetooth speakers paired with a Windows laptop computer, then you probably can set the Bluetooth speakers as the default audio device as well. My understanding is that some cell phone applications let you specify an external Bluetooth speaker as the sound output prior to projecting a video. The battery life of each projector will vary depending on the percentage of the time that each laser is used. I recommend using a high contrast color scheme in Windows with a black background in order to maximize the battery life of a laser projector. I had the impression that the PicoPro had a larger capacity battery in it than the Sony MP-CL1, but I have not timed them by projecting identical videos until their batteries are drained. Because the lasers are completely shut off when projecting black, the color black is truly black in a dark room with a laser beam-steering projector like the PicoPro or Sony MP-CL1. Black appears as a dark gray with DLP and LCOS projectors, with some amount of light that always leaks onto the black portions of the projected image. The Sony documentation warns to keep credit cards away from the Sony MP-CL1. The Sony MP-CL1 contains a magnet, so you should keep the Sony MP-CL1 away from magnetic storage media and not lay the Sony MP-CL1 on top of a laptop computer that has a magnetic hard drive. You should not store the Sony MP-CL1 and a laptop computer that has a hard drive in the same bag. The Sony MP-CL1 and PicoPro projectors are roughly equivalent to each other. Which you choose depends on your needs. If you want a focus-free laser projector that can function as a USB charger with keystone correction, rear projection, high resolution, or if you live in a hot environment and need a cooling fan, then the Sony MP-CL1 might be for you. For my needs, I prefer the PicoPro for its light weight and its usability with my Bestek clamp. The PicoPro does not have keystone correction, but the Bestek clamp compensates for that by allowing me to elevate the PicoPro projector to be perpendicular to a wall. Both projectors could use brighter lasers in the future, and I look forward to future iterations of this laser projection technology. I own stock in both Sony and MicroVision, the designer of the laser module. I own a SHOWWX, PicoAir, PicoPro, and now a Sony MP-CL1 laser projector. I have essentially received all of my laser projectors for free as a result of stock price appreciation. No one has paid me to write this review. I think that I can remain objective even though I have a financial interest in these companies. (It's nice that Amazon delivers on a Sunday. I received the Sony MP-CL1 on a Sunday. I am not aware of any other organization which does that. Thanks, Amazon.)