CES: RIM's new BlackBerry projector gadget

Who isn't intimately familiar with BlackBerry these days?  Although the success of its latest Storm 2 and Curve 8520 handsets might leave you thinking that RIM had the consumer market firmly in its signets, RIM's real speciality is producing professional handsets.  Its new Presenter has just that market in mind.

Whether it's at work or at school, most of us have had to use a projector at one time or another to give a PowerPoint presentation, and it isn't always particularly straightforward.  Technical problems like forgetting the right sort of cable can quickly turn any meeting or lecture into an absolute nightmare.


RIM has decided to make things much easier: its handsets have been able to open Microsoft Office documents for a long time.  If you can see a presentation on the screen of the phone, why shouldn't you be able to plug it into a projector, or even connect wirelessly?  That's exactly what the Presenter does …

Using Bluetooth from the phone, it's powered by a micro-USB port, meaning you can use the charger you already have for your phone, and has VGA and S-Video outputs.  It's a shame that there's not a mini HDMI option, even if that isn't yet a common standard on professional level projectors.

The presenter is compatible with both NTSC and PAL, and resolutions of 640 x 480, 800 x 600 and 1024 x 768,  but we don't yet know much about how presentations will be transferred to it, so it's unclear with only .ppt(x) files will be supported, or other Office documents too.  That said, between wiring up a full-sized laptop and this little box of tricks, which measures just 86 x 60 x 23 mm, there's a huge amount of space to be saved.

There's no news yet on the pricing for Europe, but the Presenter will go on sale in the US for $199.

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