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Overview

The Miroir d'Argentine isn't a real summit. It's more of a face between the summit of the Cheval Blanc 2323 m (West) and the Haute Corde 2325 m (East). I use the name 'Miroir d'Argentine' because it is far more common and well known.

The Miroir d'Argentine is located in the Swiss canton Vaud, which is part of Romandy (French-speaking Switzerland). The mountain belongs to the Vaud Alps, which lies in the western part of the Bernese Alps. The most famous nearby peak is probably Les Diablerets 3210 m. The mountain consist of limestone, of overall good quality.
The name of the mountain refers to the Northwest Face, which is smooth like a 'mirror'. The face is about 400 meters high. This face is well known by (sport)climbers because it has a lot of beautiful climbing routes of all grades. On weekends and during summer it can be busy, which can cause rockfall. So, be sure to take your helmet. The view from Solalex, which is a very idyllic alp, is unique. The Solalex alp is also perfect for hiking and bouldering. Lots of people from Villars are spending time here, probably because of the relaxing and beautiful surroundings.

First ascent of the Miroir d'Argentine: F.Delisle, Ch. Rathgeb 1926

Getting There

To Solalex
Solalex is located near the Swiss ski resort Villars, which is very easy to reach either by car or by public transport.
By Car: Take exit St - Triphon or Bex on Highway A9. Then head in direction Villars/Gryon. Between these two villages you've La Gryonne, where the road to Solalex begins (Route de Solalex). Follow this until you reach the alp. About 20-25 kilometers from the highway exit to Solalex.

By Public Transport: Take the Transports Publics du Chablais (TPC) train to station La Barboleuse. Then take the bus to Solalex. Attention: this bus only goes a few times a day!
To the Miroir d'Argentine
You'll have a clear view of the Miroir d'Argentine as soon as you arrive at Solalex. The best approach route for the climb runs up the slopes beneath the face. This small path is not very hard to find.
Solalex - Miroir d'Argentine: about 1.15 hours.

Routes

Most people will choose a (sport)climbing route on the Northwest Face. But, there is also a possibility to scramble your way up the mountain. The view is fantastic (towards Les Diablerets and Lac Leman). The summit ridge is quiet exposed and grassy, so it isn't very pleasant when raining. Take the normal route to descent the Miroir d'Argentine. Do not rappel down the face, especially when there are more climbers!
Normal route of the Haute Corde 2325 m
1. From the Refuge Giacomini: Head in the direction of the Col de la Poreyrette and pass the Cabana Barraud (1956 m). From the col you need to climb the path up the grassy slopes to point 2139 m. From this point you can either follow the ridge, or (less exposed) go just south of the ridge. The summit has a small cross. About 1.5 hours.
2. From Solalex: cross the L'Avancon d'Anzeindez just behind the Restaurant and follow a small, very steep path wich leads you to the Col de la Poreyrette (2044 m). Here the route joins with the route from the Refuge Giacomini. About 2 - 3 hours.
Routes on the Miroir d'Argentine:

• Bal des mutants, Northwest Face, 400m, 6b+/A0

• Bel Hasard, NW, 400m, 6c+/A0

• Divine Martine, NW, 450m, 7a+

• Lyre, NW, 500m, 7a/A0

• Mamba, NW, 500m, 6c

• Papageno, NW, 400m, 5c+

• Remix, NW, 500m, 5c

• Succès Flou, NW, 450m, 6b+

• Voie Directe, NW, 400m, 5a

• Zygofolis (starts with the 'Directe'), NW, 450m, 6a+

Maps and Guidebooks

Map 1:25 000:

• SAC Map: 1285 Les Diablerets

Map 1:50 000:

• SAC Map: 272 St-Maurice

Online Maps:

• http://www.mapplus.ch / www.swissgeo.ch/

Guidebook:

• Topoguide Band 1, Nicole Luzar & Volker Roth, ISBN 3-00-016204-6

• Escalades Vaud Chablais, Bas Valais, Sanetsch, C. & Y. Remy, New edition 2004

• Plaisir WEST, Jürg von Känel, ISBN 3-906087-19-0

To order SAC Maps: www.toposhop.ch
To order Plaisir WEST: www.filidor.ch

External Links

Refuge Giacomini 1876 m
Anny Berra
CH-1882 Gryon
Phone (hut): +41 (0)24 498 22 95
Homepage:www.anzeindaz.com
Solalex 1469 m
Famille Jaggi
CH-1882 Solalex
Phone (hut): +41 (0)24 498 14 46
Homepage:www.solalex.ch

• Performance
  
• Features
  

• Ease of Use
  
• Value
  

• 1080p native resolution with support for 4K input at up to 30 Hz
• Supremely easy to use; there are no menus, and the only controls are for focus, volume, source, power level, and inverting the image for a ceiling mount
• Highly portable, at 2 pounds; includes two HDMI ports and one USB-C

• Just a single color preset and no menus available for color, contrast, or any other adjustments
• Lacks HDCP 2.2 copyright management for 4K signals

The Miroir M631 delivers handsomely on its promise to deliver a decent-quality, 1080p image in a highly portable package, but its defining strength is that it's supremely easy to use.

Miroir's website touts the $649.95 Miroir M631 Ultra Pro projector as being designed for iPhone, iPad, MacBook, and Apple TV. That explains why Apple sells it on its website as an iPhone accessory, but it doesn't mean you should ignore it just because you're solidly in the Android or Windows camp. No matter the driving force behind the design, the M631 is a highly portable, native-1080p projector with two HDMI ports and a USB C port, which means you can connect it to just about anything—as well as use it for anything from watching movies, to showing off photos, to giving presentations.

As is typical for projectors in its 2-pound weight class, the M631 is built around a DLP chip and LED light source. It also falls solidly in the lifestyle projector category, which means it's all about ease of use and is aimed at consumers and road warriors who care more about convenience than the usual enthusiast concerns like precise color accuracy, contrast, and black levels. In that context, it succeeds notably well.

Miroir M631 Features/Advantages

• Rated as the LED equivalent to 700 ANSI lumens for lamp-based projectors, which matches our subjective observation
• Measured at 298 ANSI lumens in its brightest mode
• LED light source rated at 20,000 hours
• 1080p native resolution using DLP chip with square, rather than diamond-shaped, pixels
• Two HDMI 1.4 ports
• Accepts a 4K UHD (3840 x 2160) signal, downsampling it to the projector's native 1080p (4K UHD support limited by copyright management and to both 30 Hz maximum and 8-bit color)
• Powered manual focus
• Attractive piano-black case
• Both remote and case have buttons for all controls: focus, power level, volume, source, and inverting the image for a ceiling mount
• Built-in lithium-ion rechargeable battery rated at two-hour life when fully charged
• USB-C port for video input and both power in and out: when operating on AC, it can charge a cell phone while doing a presentation; you can also use it with a MacBook Pro charger to charge the projector's battery
• Two on-board 3-watt speakers; 3.5mm analog audio-out jack
• 1.98 pounds, 1.5 x 9.5 x 5.4 inches (HWD)
• 1-year warranty

Miroir M631 Limitations

• The M631 showed an exceedingly slight green shift, although not enough to notice without a reference image to compare to
• Can't turn off auto keystone
• No 3D support
• No zoom
• UHD support is limited to input with a maximum 30 Hz and maximum 8-bit color, and it lacks the HDCP 2.2 copyright management required for UHD Blu-ray and major U.S. streaming services
• Fan noise is high enough in both volume and pitch that it may be a problem for those who are particularly sensitive to noise

Placement. The M631 is designed for either a tabletop or a ceiling mount. When sitting on a table, the bottom of the image is at the same height as centerline of the lens. There is a screw receptacle on the bottom for a tripod mount.

Screen size. Based strictly on our brightness measurements, the M631's brightest mode would be suitable for a 90-inch diagonal, 16:9, 1.0 gain screen in a dark room or a 55-inch screen in a family room at night with the lights on. As with many LED projectors, however, its perceived brightness is higher than you would expect from the measurement. I found it easily bright enough for an 80-inch 1.0-gain screen in a family room at night with lights on and usable, if a little dim, at the 80-inch size in the same room on a heavily overcast day with light streaming through the windows. It was also quite watchable in a dark room at 120-inch size, although contrast and color saturation were both enough better at 100 inches that I preferred staying with the smaller size.

Resolution and 4K UHD Support. The M631's support for 4K UHD (3840 x 2160) works with sources like PCs, but its lack of compliance with the current HDCP 2.2 copyright management protocol used by almost all 4K content means that 4K source components will most likely send 1080p to the projector.

Based on my tests with a Murideo Six-G signal generator, and as confirmed by a Miroir representative, the M631 will accept 2160p video at 30 Hz or 24 Hz and 8-bit color depth with or without HDCP version 1.4 active and with or without an HDR10 flag added. With any of these variations, it will display the image at its native 1080p resolution after internal downscaling. However, it will not accept UHD signals at 60 Hz or with 10-bit color depth or with HDCP 2.2, which is used to protect all UHD Blu-ray content as well as streamed UHD from the major internet services. That leaves little to no way to take advantage of HDR in today's UHD content, which is why Miroir doesn't tout HDR as a feature.

As a practical matter, if you connect the M631 to a source that's capable of sending a 4K signal the projector can't handle, it will usually automatically negotiate the connection, instructing the source to send it a 1080p signal instead—downscaling before sending if necessary—so the image will play without problems at the projector's native 1080p.

For example, faced with a UHD Blu-ray player set to 2160p, the projector reported No Signal even without a disc playing. But with the player resolution set to Auto, the projector reported receiving a 1080p signal. As expected, everything worked without problems when I played a 1080p Blu-ray disc with the older copyright protection. Switching to a UHD Blu-ray disc resulted in the player showing a message that the projector didn't support 4K UHD. However, it still let me play the UHD disc, with the player downsampling to 1080p, and also using the older copyright protection and ignoring the HDR encoding.

Image Quality. The M631's lack of menus translates to it offering only one color mode, and no way to tweak it. That makes it the only mode for both presentations and video.

Miroir Sur Mesure

The test unit had an ever-so-slight green bias, but it showed only in subtle ways. Yellows in business graphics showed a slightly different hue compared with the yellow on my laptop LCD, reds in both graphics and photo realistic images were shifted to being just a touch orange-red, and a test photo I use because its skin tones turn green with even slight green shifts showed just a hint of green in comparison to what I know the image should look like. Even after a couple of evenings of using the projector to watch TV and movies, however, the test photo was the only instance I saw where memory colors were outside of a realistic range. Most people should be happy with this level of color accuracy. Changing brightness from Normal to Eco has no effect on color.

For presentations, colors were vibrant and eye-catching. For film and video, colors were nicely saturated, and contrast and three-dimensionality were good for a projector in this price range. In a dark room, the black level looked suitably dark, the projector lost little to no shadow detail, and contrast was good enough to add a sense of three dimensionality. Much the same is true in a room with low ambient light, at an appropriately smaller screen size.

The focus was typically a little soft, primarily because the lack of fine control for the powered manual focus adjustment makes it difficult to stop at precisely the right place. Even so, I didn't find it hard to get close to sharp focus across the entire image. The trick was to keep alternating between focusing in one direction and then the other, until the lens stops close enough to well focused as you need it, or, if you're lucky, actually stops at the point of ideal focus.

Rainbow artifacts. I didn't see any rainbow artifacts with the M631, even in a black-and-white graphic designed to bring them out or in my go-to contrasty black-and-white movie test clip that tends to make them show. And since I see them fairly easily, there are likely few people, if any, who will consider them a problem. That said, any projector that uses sequential colors and a DLP chip can theoretically show these artifacts. So if you see them easily, or don't know if you do, it's still best to buy from a source that allows easy returns, so you can test it out for yourself.

Audio. The onboard 3-watt stereo speakers delivered good audio quality for a small projector and enough volume to fill a small room.

Conclusion

For anyone who wants an easy-to-use projector as a companion to their phone, tablet, or laptop, for portable home theater or for presentations or educational use, the Miroir M631 Ultra Pro is hard to beat. It's also a solid choice for applications like a small conference room or small classroom projector, and can serve for budget home theater or casual gaming. Serious enthusiasts and gamers can easily find lamp-based projectors in this price range with shorter lag times, brighter images, better contrast and color accuracy, and the ability to tweak image quality. But if you care more about ease of use, portability, and maintenance-free operation—with a light source that will last the life of the projector—the Miroir M631 is a top contender.

Connections

• HDMI 1.4 (x2)
• USB-C (video, charging)
• USB (charging)
• Audio Out (3.5 mm)

Measurements

Brightness. The M631 offers only one color mode. The measured brightness for Normal and Eco modes using AC power and its built-in rechargeable battery is as follows:

Miroir M631 ANSI Lumens

With only one mode, this is also the brightest video mode for ambient light.

Note that as with many LED projectors, the 700 lumen rating for the M631 is based not on measured brightness, but the brightness of a lamp-based projector with the same perceived brightness. Subjectively, I found it bright enough in low level ambient light for an 80-inch diagonal image with a 1.0-gain screen, which is what you would expect at 700 ANSI lumens.

Brightness Uniformity: 86%

Lowest Measured Input Lag (1080p): 42 ms

Fan noise. Miror rates the fan noise for the M631 at 30 dB. There's no noticeable difference in fan noise between the two brightness modes. The almost raspy whoosh of air is audible in quiet moments from anywhere in a small room, but less noticeable from behind the projector than from the front or either side. If you're particularly bothered by fan noise, it may be enough to be an issue, but for most people the sound is steady enough to quickly fade into the background, particularly in a room with ambient noise. There is no high altitude mode.

For more detailed specifications and connections, check out our miroir M631 projector page.

To buy this projector, use Where to Buy online, or get a price quote by email direct from Projector Central authorized dealers using our E-Z Quote tool.

Miroir Rond

• Resolution1920x1080
• Lumens700

• Performance
  
• Features
  
• Ease of Use
  
• Value
  

Miroir Design

• Price
  $710