When shopping for a portable projector, keep in mind where you’ll be doing the portability. As a mobile device, that portable projector may go with you on camping trips or become the center of an outdoor movie night. That means there’s a chance it’ll get rained on or have drinks spilled on it and so forth. That calls for some kind of water resistance to become part of the original product design and the testing process at the factory.
Good portable projectors pass formal liquid resistance testing, conforming to IP standards. IP stands for Ingress Protection, and covers a series of standards that address dust and fluid resistance in electronic devices. These standards have been formulated by the IEC, or the International Electrotechnical Commission. IPXX refers to Ingress Protection for dust and water, in that order. The higher the numbers following “IP”, the better the protection. When you see an IP rating in the specs for a portable projector, you know it’ll be easier to keep that projector safer when moving about. Those specs mean the engineers took actual outdoors conditions into account when designing the portable projector to perform at peak condition long term.