BenQ W1200 HD DLP Home Theater Projector

August 22, 2011 by

Back when BenQ released the BenQ W1000, it turned out to be one of the few 1080p projectors out there that you could get for less than $1000.  There’s more great news from BenQ as it is now giving another 1080p projector for a reasonable price with the BenQ W1200 home theater projector. Only this time, at $1500 you get better specs which definitely show from the improved performance. It may have a few issues here and there, but the goods outweigh them. So read on this review to learn more.

Design
The BenQ W1200 is a small projector as it measures in at only 139 x 339 x 260 mm and it’s also very lightweight as it tips the scales at just 3.6 kg. Some may like that it’s so small and light, but this is a home theater projector that would probably not see so much travel in its days and as such makes it feel rather plasticky and fragile if you ask us. Put that aside and look at the connections it has to offer, you instantly forget that and get excited again. There are a couple of HDMI connection options which is what you can expect for at this price range but the IR port and USB port are some great inclusions to the BenQ W1200.  The RS 232 port is also included which allows you to control the projector from the comfort of your computer or laptop. Finally, the 12V screen trigger which is common in projectors now is also there.

 This home theater projector comes with two decent built in 10W speakers which should be able to be a great backup if you don’t have an audio system to plug in to. Sadly though the fan is a cause for concern as it is quite loud even with normal light settings and it also shifted many times during our testing. The BenQ W1200 home theater projector also comes with a remote control and it is great for use in a dark place as the controls light up when pressed. It’s also a complete remote as it gives you almost all the controls you are going to need and even buttons to change between picture modes.

Features
The BenQ W1200 home theater projector is also great in the brightness department as it provides 1800 ANSI Lumens of brightness. This means the projector is bright and is capable of providing you with clear picture even with ambient light in play.The fact that it also has a contrast ration of 5000:1 should also bring more smiles as it will almost surely give you some amazing image. We are also impressed that this home theater projector also comes with 10 bit color processing instead of the 8 but color processing we would come to expect from a projector in this price option. This means you are going to get a lot of natural tones and the color blends will also appear smoother.

The projector also offers Frame Interpolation technology. In laymen’s terms what this system brings to your viewing experience is smoother pictures with less judder. It is a pretty sophisticated technology for a $1500 projector. There is also a 4x speed color which has six segments (RGBRGB) and turns at 7200RPM. This is BenQ’s solution to the rainbow effect and we feel that it’s a pretty good one too as we did not notice any rainbow effects from our tests. We mentioned a little about the dual 10W speakers this projector offers and we like it as it has the SRS WOW HD system. It is obviously no comparison to stand alone audio systems but it does offer some good bass performance when you compare it other low end projectors.

Setting up the Optoma PT100 Personal Entertainment Projector
Setting up the home theater projector has to be done manually much like other projectors in this price range as there is no physical lens shift. In other words, you only get to play with the keystone option so you have to align the projector properly to the screen to avoid loss in image quality as using keystone digitally manipulates the image proportions. This results in you losing pixel by pixel purity. However, there are many menus to be found in this projector that should help you set it up to your liking. For instance, there are many options for picture adjustments and what’s even more impressive is that you can store these image settings in the three memory banks provided for use in the future. Some of the things you can set up that caught our attention are the gamma adjustment, full primary and secondary color management system, flesh tone adjustment as well as the various intensity levels you can set for the frame interpolation system. The tools are so great that the Imaging Science Foundation (ISF) has approved the BenQ W1200 and if you need some help to set it up, these guys will come over and do it for you for a fee.

Video Quality
What we liked about the BenQ W1200 is its ability to give you great colors that are really vibrant. This makes it standout from all the competition in the same price region as it offers something so special that a normal video looks better than usual making it more dynamic. Needless to say, this means watching animation movies that are obviously color rich turned out brilliant. Although sometimes a rich red or yellow hue is present, but you will tend to forget that as it’s such a minor thing given what it has to offer.

Just when we thought impressive color was this home theater’s biggest point, we were even more elated when we came to realize the BenQ W1200 gives amazing detail and you also don’t see any kind of video noise. If you don’t get how great this is, let us tell you that it is actually hard to get these two things to go together so brilliantly even with DLP projectors on the higher price region.

Pros and Cons
This is a great DLP home theater projector for its price as we have mentioned already so many times in this review. It can go up to 1800 Lumens at maximum brightness settings and the fact that it also provides Frame Interpolation System is amazing as there is almost no video judder. There is a long list of calibration options in this Full HD resolution projector plus it also gives you the option of saving your customized viewing options. We love the video quality on the BenQ W1200 with its amazing colors and impressive image detail.

We would like to see vertical image shift on this projector as that would have made it almost perfect. This home theater projector also has some issues with fan noise at it can be a little distractive at times. Another thing that could have been better is the black levels as it is not as deep as we had wished for.

Conclusion
So there were some negatives, but can you still remember them? It’s really little issues that shouldn’t pose a problem for users looking for some amazing picture quality at a very affordable price. The BenQ W1200 is a projector that we would recommend for those with a tight budget as it gives you the very best for its price.

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