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HOME > Projector Reviews > Samsung SP-H03 Pico Projector Review
Performance
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Intended Use:
Mobile Presentation
Samsung SP-H03
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Placement Flexibility: Pico projectors, including the SP-H03, typically do not have zoom lenses, so image size is directly proportional to the projector's distance from the screen. For example, a 48" image puts the SP-H03 at 66" from the screen, and if that is not a convenient spot to set the projector, then you will have to live with a different image size. Image Focus: Like most picos, the SP-H03 has a relatively simple optics system that does not deliver as sharp an image focus as larger projectors. Still, a slightly soft focus lends a bit of theater effect to movie viewing that is quite enjoyable. Focus is adjusted by a slider on the left side of the projector. Audio Quality: The SP-H03's 1-watt speaker may be enough for a very small audience seated close to the projector although the sound is all mid and high frequencies. However, there is an audio output for those times when you need external amplification. On-Screen Menus: While the menus are easy to get to via the backlit icons on the SP-H03's surface, getting to the function you are after is not particularly intuitive and some practice is needed. A clearer explanation in the included User Guide of how to navigate the menus would be a nice documentation upgrade. Rainbow Effects: Even though the SP-H03 uses LEDs for illumination and avoids the need for a color wheel, it still has some minor rainbow artifacts in certain fast moving video scenes. Not all viewers will see these artifacts, so a try-before-you-buy approach might be a good idea to see if you are susceptible to rainbow effects. No Digital Input: Several of its competitors offer a digital input, but the SP-H03 does not. This means that you won't be able to connect DVI or HDMI signals you may have on your computer or DVD player. If you are a mobile presenter that really likes to travel light or you want to watch movies while traveling with an image bigger than your laptop display, then Samsung's SP-H03 might be the answer. It is compact, light, and puts up a surprisingly good picture for its size. With only 480 lines of vertical resolution, it is more suited to movies and PowerPoint slides than detailed spreadsheets, but battery life is close to two hours, and many image formats can be displayed. Ambient light can be an issue and there is no digital input, but at $299.99, the SP-H03 is a serious contender in the pico projector market.
Reader Comments(64 comments)
good for you sir! Here in the Phils. They are charging me $292.00 to have the lens fixed...ouchhhh!!!!!!!!
I bought one of these in 2010. Awesome product! So hugely versatile and portable. I have used it a lot. I got white dots all over the screen while it was still under warranty last year. I sent it away to be repaired. The lens was replaced and it's good as new now. Quick turnaround on the repair too. I rate it as one of the best things i have bought.
I have this same problem and have not been able to resolve it. FN+F7 is not resolving. Any suggestions? FYI - Screen shows "No Signal" - through when I disconnect (or connect) the cable both the PC and projector recognize there is a connection change .
Kindly advice - i too purchased this wonderful product 2 years ago and then suddenly white spots have appeared all over the screen! To our friends at SAMSUNG kindly post here or comment what we should do...
This is a terrible product, don't buy it. I've owned it for 2 years and barely used it. I bought this Pico SP-H03 mini projector a few years ago. It wasn't long before the black spots began appearing on the screen. It's deteriorated to the point that the screen and menu are completely blocked by the spots and it does not project any images and the menu cannot be navigated. I've written several complaints to Samsung with absolutely no reply. This products sucks with it's poorly conceived corrupted operating system. I wasted $300+ !
Any luck finding a solution to the white spots on the screen issue? Only used twice and the white spots showed up mid-movie & spread all over the screen until we could barely see the end of the movie.
I have the white pixels to, big bummer, because for the rest I think it's fantastic! saving up to buy an asus P1 though...
I have the same problem as Rose Ane and Claron; pixels all over the screen. Do somone have à solution for this problem?
I have the same problem as Rose Anne. White pixels all over the projected image. I've written to Samsung. Hopefully they will offer advice or/and fix it.
hi.. i've got a samsung spho3. the first time i use it, its ok. but now, white spots are spreading all over the screen everytime i use it. what is the cause of this? can somebody help me know how to fix it. its urgent. thnx.
i read here some examples similar to my own experience, and in the problems with the pc, after i read the message (audio input is shared by both video and PC, then no signal..) i solved by pressing both Fn+F8. but for the tv probs i still have no solution...
lovely Projector....it just fits in my bed room as a home entertainement system. i can plug it out and carry where ever i want. I did a continouse operation of 5 hrs and realy worked well.
I bought this projector an it didn't work when I plugged it in the screen went blue. Do not buy this projector. It is the worst.
I am also having the same problem. Did you find any solution?
El proyector Pico de Samsung es o no compatible con mc?. Lo acabo de compra y no me queda claro.
Google translation to English: The Samsung pico projector is compatible with mc?. I just bought and I am not clear.
Sr.requiero realizarle mantenimiento a mi equipo cuando comienzo aproyectar las imagenes se observa muchos muntos que dificulta la visualizacion de la imagenes proyectadas me pueden informar donde se le realiza este servicio de mantenimiento . Estoy ubicado en el Estado Zulia Ciudad Ojeda Venezuela.Si alguien puede compartir información yo estaría muy agradecido.
Google Translation: Sr.requiero perform maintenance on my computer when I start aproyectar images seen many buyers and sellers which makes visualization of the projected images can tell me where he is performing this service for maintenance. I am located in Zulia State Venezuela.Si Ciudad Ojeda someone can share information I'd be very grateful.
Hi again!
The aspect issue solved. With proper signal in the main menu (button low left) allows aspect adjustment choosing "size". DVD:s, computer asf handle well, even the inexpensive COBY pocket DVD with a 7" screen of its own is fine to show old classic 4:3-movies. A marginal issue was found with contrast adjustment; the picture bleaches when moving away from 50 either way and completely when reaching 80 and beyond or 20 and below.... Picture OK at 50.... So, I got what I wanted, GOOD SAMSUMG!!
Yes. If not just using the RCA "video out" (yellow, white and red for sound), connectors S-video-RCA video or scart-RCA video are available so the out from virtually any DVD player is no critical issue. Referring to my notes the aspect ratio might present a problem if the DVD film is in 4:3. Other aspect ratios have been no problem to me. E.g "Arabian Lawrence" and "Patton" play well. 4:3 distorts to 16:9 making everybody fat and wide. Hope to find a solution and asking for help here...Please comment if you know anything useful...
Further clarification to the picture distortion problem was found when watching "As Time Goes By" on TV last night. While a part stored onto the digibox hard disc shows the original 4:3 picture undistorted, direct viewing from the cable box using SP-H03 distorts the "on air" picture to 16:9 (video out from box), while the picture in the Panasonic TV screen is OK. Now also my old Philips aerial digibox produces a distorted picture (4:3 to 16:9) through the SP-H03. I sincerely hope to get something to solve the distortion problem. Did I say I could get no picture from film viewing on my 4:3 DELL, while at the same time the computer background picture was shown through the SP-H03, distorted to 16:9...i.e. the video window only was black, while the computer screen shows it all...
My SP-H03 works fine with a digibox, both out of a scart connector to AV and films stored onto the hard disc. DV cameras (Panasonic NV400, SD100 and TA1 in all picture aspect ratios) also work well (also the micro SD loaded in the TA1) and DVD films in 16:9 format played on my DVD players. Problems appear when playing films in the 4:3 format, both commercial old (ec. Jacques Tati "Les Vacances de Mr Hulot", Michail Barychnikovs ballet "Don Quixote/the Met asf) as well as my own snaps recorded onto DVD (at least the TA1). These are displayed as widened 16:9 (people become fat) and if I choose the 4:3 formats in the DVD player an additional vertical squeeze occurs distorting the picture further. Also using the SP-H03 Pico as a second screen on my old DELL computer with a 4:3 screen, the picture is widened to 16:9, that is distorted. But as a direct screen for TV replacement it is beautiful. I hope the product guarantee will help update firmware or something will sove the 4:3 to 16:9 distortion problem.
I would like to play an .avi file from the internal memory. Uploading goes fine, but then it wont play it. Only mp4 files. I am not satisfied with that resolution though. Can anybody help?
What do you think? Can i use this device whith a dvd player? Can I connect to it?
i have, and it's slowly just going away if i leave it on, it's weird, one dot at a time.
I connected my micro sd and it doesn't show the images or videos and show it's thumbnail as ? And keep giving file not supported
First i had nothing but praise 4 this fine piece of small hardware .. but now its a bit less. Battery life is not what i thought it should have ... Why? The files on the SDcard are not always recognized ,pop it out and back in and it works! weird ... playback is sometimes only 5 secs and later the whole movie!!?? weird ... ( and yes they are the supported format ) vga to rca does nt give me image, my iPad doesn't wanna show image through rca cables. Samsung support .. well there is nt any " thats odd it should work" ...shhhright!
Overall still like the darn thing but a bit more tips and tricks on how to connect this versatile hardware is very very welcome!!
New version of io5 for Iphone allows the video output to work with a vga cable, tested before the update and it didn't work but it does now.
Can't seem to be able to connect the projector to ipod or ipad. HELP
I've got a macbook air
I bought the Mini Display port to VGA Adapter, connected it to the PC adapter and...it doesn't work... is there anything I am doing wrong or is this simply not compatible! If so that should be clearly stated by Samsung!
I got a Pico Projector a couple of months ago as a present and I've used it a couple of times. The last time I turned it on, some white dots appeared on the top right of the projected image. After a while, the whole image looked like a starry night; dots spread all over it and I wonder what is going on. I've read some forums but none of the explanations there have helped me. Can anybody help me out? Thanks a bunch!
I am also getting the same problem. When AV IN is connected I get a meesage saying " AUDIO is shared between both PC and AV. Please check cables". Then No Signal. I am using the SCART to AV converter as input to SP-H03. Can anyone suggest what could be the issue?
I'm using the VGA converter between my iPad the projector, it just shows "audio input is shared by both video and PC, then no signal. How to solve that?
I can't get a picture from my PC with VGA. message comes up 'audio input is shared by both video and PC. please check audio cable'. Then it comes up with 'non optimum mode'. This thing is pissing me off. Why not keep it simple Samsung, unless I have a problem with my projector??
@Ramesh: try deleting from your PC (using it as a disk). The projector stores the files it "deletes" in a seperate folders, so they remain on the disk.
@Delno Tromp: there is a VGA adapter, and then you need a VGA-minidsiplay adapter, as always with VGA stuff.
try pushing a bit, it clicks and comes out.
Same here, i have white noise at the projector!
Running this one for a long time,
What did not work so far, and how i solved it -Component, tried several cables (component to vga) to connect my ps3 or wii with high quality. Does not work, ended up buying a component to vga box, what cost me about 80 bucks. called samsung, and they didn't know. They should call me back like 6 months ago. - connecting to a mac with vga, Use displayconfigX and set the resolution to 800x480 with 60hz (for movies ok, but for osx itself it's not nice to work with). That should do the job. with windows no problems @ 800x600 trough vga. Rest work fine
I have just bought my pico and I am really impressed. This is my second Samsung projector. I have never experienced any major problem with the first one. It is portable also, but this pico is the best
I just bought the Samsung SP-H03 LED PICO Projector last month. My problem is i have inserted a micro SD Card in the SD Card slot, and i would like to ask how to remove the micro SD Card?
Noriel
Can anyone tell me how to navigate this projector in power point presentation, I only use it for presentation. For example, a presentation of 20 slides, does it allow me to navigate between different pages? Or simply has a fixed time for each slide!
Hi, i got mine on december. till this past week it worked excellent with home entertainment. now i have white noise in my projection (like snow), from the moment i turn it on. has anyone experienced this?
I'm trying to get my projector to work from a jump drive...instead of having to travel with a bulky cable to my laptop. I want to be able to show presentations by simply linking it to a jump drive...it says it can be done, but I can't get it to work...suggestions?
See Google Translation below: hola, estaba viendo el comentario de chris, dice que le funciona perfectamente en una habitacion con luz, pero a mi no me funciona bien, se ve muy claro, he tratado de mejorarlo con el brillo y contraste pero igual, hay alguna manera de mejorarlo ? gracias espero su respuesta
hello, I was watching the commentary chris, says he works perfectly in a room with light, but I do not work well, is very clear, I tried to improve the brightness and contrast, but equally, there is a way to make ? I hope your answer thanks
hi!
I've tried to use this pico on a macbook pro when I first connected the projector to the mac the internal memory was recognized but not the SD card. I tried to put somme video files on the internal memory Then I tried to use the projector alone but when I browse the menus the folders are empty... now when I connect the projector to the mac i still can't see the SD card, but I can't put files on the internal memory either... am I missing something?
I have connected my IPad to the pico and it says check cabels - is the pico incompatible with the IPad ?
Dear spho3 owners and potential buyers,
having recently purchased one of these projectors from SAMSUNG, myself & friends are highly impressed!!! so far the projector is without fault.....except for two. 1: the manual focus "slider" is vauge and difficult at times to sharpen the image. 2: the limitation of projecting a 4mp image in jpeg form is very restricting. most modern digital cameras are greater than 5 and often 10mp. does any one know of software that can reconfigure a 10mega pixel jpeg to "trick the projector" into thinking it is only 4mp. ......or is there another way around this sad restirction that makes a fantastic projector only great??? i hope that someone reading this can post an answer?? brenden
Hi guys,
anybody has an answer for the above question: How to access-copy-remove files from internal memory and microSD? running on Linux here... Otherwise really nice device!
Attempting to transfer a Motorola DroidX Gallery picture to the SPHO3's Photo File. Have connected micro/mini USB's but no transfer? Are additional drivers required...thanks!
I just bought one of these used and it didn't come with the d-sub cable. Does anyone know where I can buy one? I am also having a hell of a time to figure out what to call this cable, so that I can even search for it.
Thanks
I am simply amazed by this pico projector! I bought it from Best buy after reading their reviews. The only people who hated it were Mac owners. Did you buy a Mac because they are so versatile and compatible? I hope not. It is still a PC world. Anyway, This projector prompted me to take back a 22-inch LED tV that I bought the same day. Yes, I know the resolution of the pico is nowhere near the same, but for movies, I'd rather have a soft-detailed 60-inch display than a finely detailed 22-inch tv across the room. In a dark room with the right screen, this projector is amazing! I'm going to show it off at work tomorrow.
{see English below} peut-on brancher un iphone 4 sur le pico samsung sp-h03
Google tranlation: you can connect an iphone 4 on the pico samsung sp-h03
I'm not sure what the issue is about .avi files. A friend of mine just demo'd one to me and it played .avi files back fine as well as .mp4s.
Just bought this projector last week. Very nice portable projector for the price. However, can this projector really output Y/Pb/Pr (component video) through the DSub (VGA)? Several websites, including this article and the Samsung product page for the SP-H03 indicate that it does, but I've tried a known working VGA to component cable with my PS3 and iPad, but so far, the projector refuses to detect a signal. Hope the author or someone else can post a clarification to this issue.
Translated below: pese a cargar la bateria por muchas horas, cuando uso proyectando fotos o video, la bateria se descarga rapidamente y no dura como dicen 2 hras, porque?
despite charging the battery for several hours, when projecting photos or video use, the battery is discharged quickly and does not last as they say 2 hrs, why?
I've been using this for a few days. Image quality is excellent such a small device.
The only thing to look out for is that image resolution is limitted to 4MP any more and you will get an error message saying that the image format is not recognised. JPEGs work fine but you must respect this limitation. There is a similar issue concerning video file size. I'm not sure exactly what the limitation is for the moment but under 1.5GB works fine and 2.5 does not. For info, MP4 at 852x480 resolution works fine (I'm using cloneDVDmobile from Slysoft) There is a downloadable manuel from the Samsung site that is worth a look. If anyone can share other information I'd be grateful ;-) Cheers
the projector is just fine, it reads pdf, ppt, doc, docx, xls, xlsx, avi, mp3, jpg, bmp, gif... It reads and sub files with the movies... If you have trouble with the internal memory you can always format it! :) I did it, it's working... :) Good luck
Hi,
I have a macbook pro and was wondering if the samsung SP-H03 is compatible with it? Kind regards Adrian Riddell
Hello everyone,Recently i bought this projector thinking that it can play all video/image formats as mentioned in many reviews and websites , but i got disappointed to notice that it does not even support avi for video and JPEG for image , when i connected my pen drive , except wmv , it says all other files JPEG / avi etc as invalid format.
Am i missing something , please can somebody clarify whether it can really play avi and jpeg ?
Greetings! I just bought yesterday a SP-H03 but to my surprise when I tried to connect this to my MacBook there was no cable to do this? Please help. Thank you
do you mean your audio out is not working or in the input mode AV/PC is not working.
please explain abt this problem thanks Suman
I have just bought one of these - truly brilliant device - i was worried that it might be too feint in a light room but it is no different from a normal projector. Have a problem with the speaker OUT not working though which is very annoying.
Hello Everyone,I bought this pico projector 2 weeks ago..it was working fine..now i am having some problem in it.I cannot add nor delete any files from its internal memory.it says delete completed,but the file is still there.And whenever i want to insert any file inside internal memory,it didn't copy....whats the problem guys.....i reseted it,but it didn't work...i think i have to update the firmware..but i didn't find it yet.is there any factory setting options......help me out...
Amazing performance for a small projector. Fits in your pocket with the soft cover. Buy a 16 gig Micro SD card and you have a on the move entertainment and does not require power (1.5Hrs for sure)
I am dealing with the best handheld projector which can be connected to laptop, computer,DVD player, set top box, wifi, playstation and ipod.its costing just 23,800(fixed including all taxes). [edit note - about $508 US]
This is best suitable for presentations, personal and official use. 20000 hrs lamp life 10 hours continuous usage nonstop consumes very less power inter memory of 1GB ..extended upto 32 GB 1 year of total replacement warranty Very good picture quality 800/600 resolution Screen size is 5/4 feet and can be extended till 7/6 feet Arif-9390005030/20 Post a commentCommenting on this article is easy and does not require any registration. Your email address is necessary for you to activate your comment once it has been submitted. It will not be shown to other site viewers. ProjectorCentral reserves the right to remove any comment at any time for any reason. Foul language is not permitted, nor are personal attacks. All comments should remain on topic.
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Posted Jun 5, 2013 10:06:54 AM
By Hale
The number I used was 01932454358
I hope they manage to sort it out for you, these projectors are brilliant.
Best of luck.