I always laugh at these types of posts, they must come in once every week or two over at Projector Central...
"Hi, my name is Bob. I have no real budget, and can only afford the cheapest projectors on the market, but I demand flawless quality with all the options in the world, and I won't be providing anything near a good space to project in, so the projector must deal with that. Can you tell me which of the multitude of choices I should choose from?"
Answer: "Ha-ha-ha"
The Qumi is bright enough to give you a 2' diagonal image in a normally lit room, and it will have a average to poor image quality. This is in line with ALL micro/pocket projectors on the market. Their resolution is low, their color quality is generally poor, and their lenses are cheap.
A 'real' business projector is designed to give a kick arse PowerPoint presentation. It is not color calibrated, and the cheap ones have poor contrast and average, at best, image uniformity and focus.
USB is of course not a video transport stream and requires a processor of some sort to decode the video to create an image. The reason better projectors don't feature this is because it is just really f'n stupid. Period.
If you want a good image, then get a good projector. If you want a donkey show, then go to Mexico. A quality projector manufacturer is going to focus on making a quality projector, not giving you glitter. Every penny you spend will go into ensuring the projector is going to deliver that quality. People serious about getting the most quality, then go into the darkest room possible, which is never painted white or has 'some ambient light' to deal with. Those who can't, look for models with higher brightness, better lenses, and good color.
Unfortunately, every single one of those items has a price associated with it, and none of them start at $500.
At $500 you should get the brightest widescreen projector, with the highest resolution you can afford, and if you need a USB port, buy a laptop with an HDMI output on it.
