That is changing. A new miniature-chip technology from Texas Instruments (TXN) called pico is making digital projectors truly portable, instead of merely luggable. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been using two of the first pico-based projectors on the market, Dell’s M109S and Optoma’s Pico PK-101.

The products are designed for different customers with different needs. Dell (DELL) positions the 13-ounce M109S as a notebook companion, best suited for work presentations. The four-ounce Optoma projector is designed more as an iPod or digital-camera accessory for watching movies and slide shows on the go.

The Dell M109S

Their portability requires compromises, most obviously in brightness and image resolution. The Dell and Optoma projectors, respectively, support 11 and 50 lumens — a standard measure of projector brightness. That’s far dimmer than top-notch projectors that offer several thousand lumens. So neither product excels in well-lighted rooms, where overhead and ambient lighting overpower their images. You can compensate somewhat for this weakness by placing the devices closer to the surfaces onto which they’re projecting — for example, a wall. But the darker the room you use, the better.

At about the size of a candy bar, the $399 Optoma device is the smaller of the two projectors and the one with the most intriguing possibilities for expanding the tiny screen sizes of mobile devices like the iPod.

It’s powered by a rechargeable battery that Optoma says lasts for an hour on full brightness or two hours on a power-saving setting (the projector comes with two batteries). The projector has a tiny speaker, but people who want decent sound will need to use headphones or external speakers.

In theory, the Optoma device is small enough to bring along on a camping trip to show a film on the side of a tent, or to a restaurant, where you could inflict a vacation slide show on dinner mates by projecting onto a napkin or tablecloth.

I tested it on a recent airplane flight by projecting an episode of “Mad Men” from an iPod touch onto the back of the seat in front of me. The seat was a dark blue with embossing on it, so it didn’t work very well. It’s best to project onto an unmarked, light-colored surface. The quality of the image was better when I lay in bed one night, projecting a video onto a white ceiling.

Even under the most favorable circumstances, however, I found the images from the Optoma projector very dark, muddling the outlines of characters and action on screen. Although Optoma says you can get up to a 60-inch image from the projector, 45 inches was about as big as I could make the image before it got too fuzzy.

Optoma says the projector will ship with an iPod-compatible connector cable when it goes on sale in the U.S. on Dec. 15, though the unit I tested didn’t come with one. I connected the device to my iPod touch using a $50 cable from Apple (AAPL).

Compared with the Optoma device, the $449 Dell M109S is a behemoth, yet it’s still only about the size of a short stack of drink coasters. Most projectors weigh at least a few pounds, if not more, which is big enough to make them a hassle to carry around. I barely noticed the Dell projector inside my laptop bag.

Unlike the Optoma projector, the Dell M109S has to be plugged into an electrical outlet to work. It comes with an unsightly set of connectors for plugging the projector into a video source, such as the VGA port found on most laptops and a composite video plug that is standard on DVD players. I was, however, able to plug my iPod touch into the Dell projector using the $50 Apple cable.

And unlike the Optoma, the Dell doesn’t have speakers. To get sound for a movie, you’ll need headphones or speakers, like those on a laptop.

Despite its extra bulk, the Dell M109S literally outshines the Optoma projector. It produces a bright image that I found very watchable, even if it wasn’t high-definition. I projected the movie “James and the Giant Peach” onto an interior wall of my house, creating an image that was about 7 feet, measured diagonally.

The Dell M109S includes a capability called keystone correction, a standard feature in most projectors that adjusts a projected image to give it the proper dimensions, rather than the trapezoidal shape that results when a projector is angled upward. The Optoma projector doesn’t have this feature. To get a normal rectangular movie image, I had to hold the projector level, toward the projection surface.

For business travelers who do presentations or for people who want to create a theater-like experience in a hotel room, vacation house or against a sheet in the backyard, the Dell projector would be a good fit. For now, the Optoma projector is a good idea that needs refinement.

• Email Nick.Wingfield@wsj.com. Walt Mossberg is on vacation.

Now, Wi-Fi is making its way into your car. A small California company, Autonet Mobile, has teamed up with Chrysler and others to sell a service that floods any brand or model of car or truck with Wi-Fi Internet connectivity that can be used by multiple passengers and devices simultaneously. It’s a dealer-installed option on Chrysler vehicles, but Chrysler dealers, and some independent auto electronic shops, will install it on any brand of car for a fee.

The system works via a special wireless router, mounted in the trunk or rear cargo area, that draws Internet connectivity from cellphone towers and then converts it into an in-car Wi-Fi signal with a range of 100 feet. This router looks like a military device, because it is ruggedized to survive jolts and vibrations, and is shielded to avoid interference with the car’s electronics or with cellphone calls.

As long as they have built-in Wi-Fi, the laptops and smart phones used in the car don’t need any add-on hardware or software to use Autonet. To them, it looks like any other Wi-Fi signal. And no special car antenna is needed; the router uses its own large antennas.

I’ve been testing Autonet Mobile in a rented Saturn Vue SUV in Washington, D.C., and its suburbs, and found it worked well for most basic Internet tasks like email and Web surfing. The router turns on when the car does, and the Wi-Fi signal shows up about 30 seconds later. However, Autonet is relatively pokey. It’s too slow to be reliable for streaming video longer than brief YouTube clips, or for smooth video chatting.

Perhaps the biggest downside of in-car Wi-Fi is that it provides one more potential distraction for drivers. The company says the service is only for passengers, not drivers, but there’s no technical barrier to a driver using it.

The Autonet Mobile router

Of course, drivers already can court danger this way by using cellphone wireless connectivity on a laptop, iPhone, BlackBerry or other connected device. And that raises another question: Since you can already connect to the Internet from a car with a smart phone or a cellular data card for a laptop, why would you want Autonet?

There are three reasons. First, cellular Internet access is typically tied to a single device at a time. But Autonet’s Wi-Fi service works just like Wi-Fi in your house: Multiple people with multiple devices can use it at the same time. In fact, the company envisions that the service’s primary use will be to allow children in the back seat to use laptops for social networking, online games or homework; and multiple adult passengers to conduct online business or research routes and destinations.

Second, the monthly fees can be lower, at least for laptops. A typical cellular data card for a single laptop costs $60 a month. But Autonet’s service starts at $29 a month for the entire car, regardless of how many devices are being used. A premium plan costs $59. The plans differ by how much data you are allowed to consume monthly. And Autonet requires no special laptop cards or software.

Lastly, the company claims that it has invented a technology that keeps the connection steadier while moving than the typical direct cellular connection. Although some videos froze on me, I never lost Autonet’s Internet connection, whether moving slowly through downtown D.C. or moving faster on suburban highways and streets.

In my tests, with a laptop and an iPhone, Autonet’s speeds ranged from around 100 kilobits per second to around 500 kbps — far slower than a typical cable Internet service in a home. My average speed was between 400 kbps and 450 kbps.

There are some other drawbacks. First, the router costs $499, though that will soon drop to $399 in a holiday price promotion. Second, you have to sign at least a one-year contract, even if you pay monthly. Third, your Internet usage is limited. The $29 plan gets you just 1 gigabyte of data a month, while the $59 plan gets you 5 gigabytes. That should be plenty for most typical users, but not for those with large appetites for data.

These service fees are all-inclusive. You don’t have to pay anything to any cellphone carrier. But there is also a $35 “activation fee,” whose justification is murky, and installation costs are estimated at $50 to $75.

For security, you can set Autonet up with a password, but it doesn’t yet use the most advanced version of Wi-Fi security. The company says that, while it can track and manage your Internet connection, it cannot determine the content of what you are doing online.

Finally, because the router is hard-mounted, you can’t remove it for use in, say, a hotel room or second car.

If you’re willing to invest in the router and can tolerate the slow speeds, Autonet might be what you want — as long as you can resist using it while driving.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

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