COCOPICO N1 portable cinema experience: playing projection like a mobile phone is no longer a dream

Perhaps it is the inflated housing prices that have made young people, who are the main consumers, no longer have extravagant expectations for home. Products like televisions that require a large space in the living room have long lost their so-called rigid demand. However, people's yearning for big-screen enjoyment has not changed. This has provided excellent development opportunities for projection products that use smaller device size in exchange for a larger "screen".

The rise of micro-projection products in China has led people to constantly try to make projections more functional while making them smaller and more portable. There are more and more "pocket projectors", such as the recently launched COCOPICO N1 portable cinema, which makes the projector feel almost the same as a mobile phone.

A projector that is lighter than a TV box

The first impression of the COCOPICO N1 portable cinema is that it looks more like a TV box. With its square design, the machine itself occupies an area roughly equivalent to that of a 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus.

The remote control that comes with the device is pure white, and the key layout follows the style of an Android smart TV. The words "CIBN Internet TV" are also printed on the surface of the COCOPICO N1 portable theater shell, which shows that the product is also aimed at the positioning of "screenless TV".

COCOPICO N1 portable cinema weighs 315g and is 19mm thick, making it the thinnest projector we have ever seen. It is not easy to make full use of functions in such a thin body. COCOPICO N1 portable cinema has a large number of heat dissipation openings on the sides and bottom of the machine, and the speaker, power and volume buttons are placed on one side of the body, similar to a smartphone. Of course, with its small body, you can't ask for more in terms of sound quality.

Projection effects that meet daily use

Frankly speaking, the biggest problem with micro-projection products is that the projection effect has always been at a disadvantage compared to traditional projectors, and the COCOPICO N1 portable theater is so slim that it is inevitable that people will worry before using it.

COCOPICO N1 portable cinema can project 854*480WVGA resolution, 120 ANSI lumens brightness, and a maximum display screen of 150 inches. The parameters are not eye-catching. Compared with mainstream micro-projection products, the actual effect can obviously feel the difference in brightness in daytime scenes, but the overall effect is still within an acceptable range.

In a low-light environment, the effect of the COCOPICO N1 portable theater is more ideal, which is also the main usage environment of micro-projection products. The COCOPICO N1 portable theater uses Texas Instruments DLP technology. The 5000:1 picture contrast is no different from most micro-projection products, and the 7500K color temperature adjustment is more in line with Asian viewing habits.

COCOPICO N1 portable theater uses manual focusing, and the focusing knob is set on the top of the machine near the projection window.

It is worth mentioning that in order to be truly portable, the COCOPICO N1 portable theater has a built-in 3600mAh capacity battery. However, as a projector, you cannot use the battery life standards of a mobile phone to require it. When using the battery in a lower brightness mode, it can continue to work for about 1.5 hours.

However, the ultra-thin design makes the machine somewhat inconvenient to use in terms of interfaces. First, the DC round-port power design forces you to carry an extra power adapter in your bag that is different from your phone, which means that a power bank cannot power the COCOPICO N1 portable theater. Second, the machine only provides one MicroUSB interface, and an OTG adapter is required to connect to USB flash drives and other devices. The OTG cable that comes with the portable product is also essential. Fortunately, the HDMI/MHL interface still retains the standard specifications, so it is not difficult for external image input devices to use the COCOPICO N1 portable theater as a display output terminal.

Excellent hardware configuration & simple and clear system

From the perspective of smart terminals, the COCOPICO N1 portable cinema has a built-in Amlogic S812 ARM Cortex-A9 quad-core 2.0GHz processor, Mali 450 MP8 octa-core GPU, 2GB+8GB memory combination, supports dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. The hardware configuration is quite eye-catching. The operating system developed based on Android 4.4 is also simple and clear, ensuring smooth operation.

Although the system of COCOPICO N1 portable cinema has not been overly developed and customized, its simple and clear interface still has some innovative features. For example, the multi-tasking interface to the left of the main interface integrates multiple functions such as video source selection, projection mode adjustment, and background application clearing.

It is a bit regrettable that the COCOPICO N1 portable cinema does not seem to support the self-installation of APK third-party programs. The system's built-in CIBN Internet TV is currently the only online video source. Fortunately, this source is quite powerful, with rich resources of genuine movies and TV series. For example, the recently popular "Mr. Good" with a screen full of long legs can be watched directly on the Internet.

For office scenarios, the COCOPICO N1 portable theater comes pre-installed with WPS Office software, which can meet the productivity needs of document and PPT presentations to a certain extent.

With excellent chip performance, video decoding is undoubtedly the forte of COCOPICO N1 portable theater. After perfectly playing 4K and eating roast duck, we feel that the player interface that comes with the system really needs to be well designed.

For the price of an entry-level mobile phone, would you choose a portable cinema?

The COCOPICO N1 portable cinema, which is still in the crowdfunding stage, is priced at around 1,300 yuan, which is equivalent to an entry-level smartphone.

Unlike smartphones, the COCOPICO N1 portable cinema is a device that presents you with a large screen. You can think of it as an Internet TV, and you can also connect it to game consoles and other audio and video playback devices to transform it into an extra-large screen.

It is undeniable that in order to reduce the size of the body as much as possible, the resolution, brightness and other indicators of the COCOPICO N1 portable cinema have not yet reached the standards expected by everyone. Considering the renters in first-tier cities who do not have sufficient living space and the travel enthusiasts who love to go out, the emergence of the COCOPICO N1 portable cinema provides them with a large-screen solution that does not take up much space and is convenient and movable.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.