BenQ W1400 review

The single DLP chip inside the W1400 produces colours using a 6-segment colour wheel and 2,200 ANSI lumens lamp, which is just about bright enough to use in daylight, but only for brightly-lit content such as sport and cartoons. For everything else you’ll still want to turn off the lights to retain as much of the claimed 10,000:1 contrast ratio as possible. In practice, doubling the number of colours in the wheel helps reduce rainbow effects slightly, but not completely. If you’re susceptible to the effect you’ll definitely notice it here when watching dark scenes or black and white content.

At least the W1400 stayed reasonably quiet in Normal mode, even after several hours of use. Switching to Eco mode will reduce the noise even further, but it also dims the picture. We preferred a brighter image with slightly more fan noise in the background of our films. Curiously, it gets much louder when watching 3D video, which can prove a little distracting.

3D video itself was a major let-down on the W1400. Images are overly saturated with red shades, and this seems to be a side effect seen in many DLP projectors, but the single pair of 3D glasses bundled with the projector didn’t remove it completely. Images looked sharp and colours were vibrant, even with the slight red tint, but throughout our testing the glasses often failed to synchronise with the projector. This is incredibly frustrating if you’re engrossed in a film and the glasses mid-way through.

The W1500 looked expensive when compared to other home cinema projectors, but BenQ has managed to reduce the price significantly by removing the wireless video feature. At around £1,000, it’s difficult to find a competing LCD model that supports Full HD resolutions, so you’ll have to spend significantly more to get better picture quality or eliminate the rainbow effect. The relatively basic image processing won’t challenge a high-end TV, but if you want the biggest display possible for your cash, the W1400 is a worthy contender.