When you invest a lot of time and effort in your presentation, you don’t want to take chances with your equipment. The projectors you use contribute a lot to the overall impression your presentation makes, so a quality product is a sound investment. To help you choose one that’s right for you, these end users share what they like about these top models.

Toshiba projects better presentations

The TLP 411u projector helps Beverly Stahliman make herself clear

Before she bought Toshiba’s TLP 411u data projector with document imaging camera, Beverly Stahliman had to tote an LCD panel to each of her presentations, then rent a projector to use with it. As the manager of strategic support for telecommunications equipment supplier Ericsson Inc., Stahliman makes sales and informational presentations to consultants who advise their telecommunications equipment buyers on the merits of different companies. Now, she says the quality of her presentations is better than ever. “The clarity and color of the presentations are much nicer with this – it’s a brighter light. As a matter of fact we just did a presentation in Dallas where everyone who saw the projector, including the consultants we were presenting to, was impressed with how nice it was and wanted to know where we got it. It’s well worth the price.” Stahliman likes the fact that she can use the projector’s movable arm to zoom in for closeups, and that she can easily use overheads for a backup without going to search for an overhead projector if her laptop fails. “You can also do camera and video stuff on it,” Stahliman adds. “It’s really neat.”

The Davis difference

Popular demand makes Davis’ MK5 the projector of choice for Octel

As the facilities engineer for Milpitas, California-based Octel, Jack Jones knows a good projector when he sees one. When he made the switch to Davis, he started with just one MK5. Within six months, the projectors were in such demand by Octel employees that Jones had bought 12 additional units. “What the customers really like about them,” Jones says, “is that they’re quiet, they’re multifunctional and they’re easy to use, and the picture and tools that come with them are superior. For example, when you use the remote control, you can be standing in front or in back of the machine or you can bounce it off the wall. Plus, it has the pointer built in so the remote is much more functional.” Jones uses the projectors in two applications, loaning them out to employees who need them and installing them in 10 classrooms where customers view presentations.

CTX makes great presentations EZ

For picture-perfect presentations, Christian Tate opts for CTX Opto

Christian Tate of Gigalabs in Sunnyvale, California, loves his CTX EzPro 550 personal LCD projector. Gigalabs is a manufacturer of network switches for LAN systems providing consultation and product solutions for Fortune 500 companies in the Silicon Valley and to the nation. At Gigalabs, 95 percent of the presentations were done off site, on laptop computers and used high resolution graphics. The salespeople required a projector that was portable and showed great images. Tate looked at all the brands of LCD projectors but found that CTX Opto EzPro 550 was the best, by far, in portability and resolution quality. It was definitely the lightest he could find that showed the true SVGA 800 x 600 resolution that his presentations needed.

Now, all presentations given to prospective buyers for sales meetings or for training at Gigalabs are shown from the CTX Opto EzPro 550. “It’s so user friendly and portable. All you have to do is unplug it from one laptop to another and it’s ready to go.” The company plans to purchase more units in the future for their growing needs.

Innovations for better presentations

AVI’s Model Viewpoint 100 helps Cosmic Web trap more sales

The business of selling Web creation, development and hosting services often takes Nancy Siedlecki on the road. Fortunately, AVI’s Model Viewpoint 100 LCD projector goes right along with her. When the presentation environment is unfamiliar, Siedlecki knows she can always count on the Viewpoint 100’s versatility and ease of use to pull her through. “This projector has several features that allow you to project images at different angles,” Siedlecki says. She also enjoys the security of knowing that a burnt-out bulb won’t cost her a sale. “If the light bulb should blow right away,” she says, “this projector makes it easy to just pop out and replace it with another one. It actually has the spare bulb built right into the projector. It just has a lot of features that make it very easy to use.” Adds Siedlecki, “It enhances presentations outside of your own environment where sometimes you might not have the best facilities available.”

Presentations with a View

Dukane’s ImagePro 8020 is Randy Badsky’s best teacher’s aide

To train Wal-Mart construction department employees on how to use their laptops, Systems Training Support Coordinator Randy Badsky needed a projector that would allow him to work in a variety of different environments – many of which didn’t have projector-friendly lighting conditions. “I tried quite a few different brands,” Badsky says, “but the clarity of the ImagePro was much better, it had the features we needed and it would work in a wide variety of settings. Sometimes I’m not in a structured classroom environment – I might go out in the field, and it’s hard to find a projector that’s bright enough to work in a room where you have no control over the lighting, but this product gave me that option.” Badsky also liked being able to hook up a VCR to the ImagePro and being able to conduct his presentations by remote control. Despite the ImagePro’s many other great features, however, for Badsky, brightness was a top priority. “What sold me on it the most, what I really needed the most,” Badsky says, “was to be able to operate it in different lighting environments. Plus the portability.”

A model of reliability

Sony helps State Farm trainees get the picture

Since 1978, State Farm’s corporate headquarters in Bloomington, Illinois, has relied on Sony projectors to improve their presentations with consistent reliability. The BPHD 50Q and BPHD 70Q CRT projectors they’re using now, says Bob Graczyck, audio/visual supervisor, are the perfect fit for State Farm’s training program for 28 area offices plus their corporate headquarters. “We feed video and computer into them for our training needs,” Graczyck says, “and we’ve been very satisfied with the product because they’ve been very reliable, with minimum down time.” Graczyck cites the projector’s easy-to-operate remote control, its superior registration and image quality and its reliability as some of its strongest features. “We’ve been using them for a number of years now,” Graczyck says, “and in all those years I can count on one hand the number of problems we’ve had. They’re very high quality and very reliable.”