BenQ W100 review

If you want to watch movies, play games or even just surf the internet on a huge screen, then you have two options.

You can either spend a small fortune on a big screen TV or you can spend a lot less on an entry-level projector. The BenQ costs a very reasonable £468 and can transform your lounge into a home cinema.

The BenQ W100 projects a widescreen image at native resolution of 854 x 480. That's definitely not high definition, but the BenQ can still accept 480p, 720p and 1080i high-definition signals and downscale them, accordingly. The DVI output is ready for HDCP-protected content too, so when high-definition players and movies finally arrive, you can rest assured that you'll be able to play them.

Considering the low native resolution of the BenQ, we were stunned by its image quality. Detail and contrast was very good with standard DVDs, but our selection of high-definition movie trailers were even better, with the W100 giving a high contrast image with vivid and realistic-looking colours. You'd expect high definition material to be wasted on such a low resolution display, but despite the BenQ's limited number of pixels, it still looked better than even our best looking DVDs. Even just projecting onto a white wall gave great results too. The only time its low resolution was really noticeable was when surfing the internet where its native resolution was a little too low to give enough desktop space and downscaling higher resolutions like 1280 x 720 left text a little fuzzy. The W100's peformance with games and movies more than makes up for this, though.

BenQ claims a brightness rating of 1300 lumens for the W100. That's pretty bright for a home projector, so while it will struggle to project presentations in a brightly lit office, you can have a couple of lamps on if you want to watch the footie on the big screen without risking losing your beer in the pitch black. The first time we turned it on the curtains were open and despite the fairly bright evening, the BenQ still provided a watchable picture, if a little washed out. With a claimed life of 3,000 hours even in its brightest mode, the supplied lamp will last some time before it needs replacing.

Author: Sasha Muller