Fancy some big screen projection?
Projectors have become a more established technology within living rooms over these last few years, as we’ve seen from some of the examples we’ve reviewed in the past. What’s more, some offer far better audio and visual technology than the business models that most of us are probably more familiar with.
The BenQ W1350 Projector is a prime example of one such living room, home entertainment projector. This reasonably compact DLP projector has some interesting features, such as a native resolution of 1920 x 1080, a contrast ratio of 1000:1, 2500 ANSI lumens, and 3D playback – with a single pair of active 3D glasses included in the box.
The 260W lamp is rated with a lifespan of around 2000 hours under normal operation, there are other eco modes that further extend its life to 3500 and 4000 hours, though. Lamp replacement is relatively easy, a 10-step process that’s thankfully detailed with diagrams in the manual.
Connectivity is good on the W1350, with a pair of HDMI ports (of which one is MHL labelled) VGA, and component video. There are also two USB ports (type-A and type-B) an RS232 port, composite video, and stereo audio input.
The W1350 includes a fairly good set of 10W speakers builtin to the chassis itself. Most projector speakers tend to be worse than the built-in speakers on a monitor or TV, however, by using a resonant chamber, the W1350 actually manages to reproduce a decent level of bass along with a powerful audio performance. Naturally it won’t replace your dedicated soundbar and sub any time soon, but for the sake of less cabling it does an okay job.
Finally, and speaking of a lack of cabling, the W1350 has on offer an optional HD wireless kit, that will give you the ability to stream content from a single source to the projector up to thirty, line of sight, metres away. The projector has four antennas within the chassis, so there’s a pretty good chance that the signal can be received without interruption through the thin wooden doors of an AV cabinet. Unfortunately, we were unable to test this theory in this instance.
Setting up the W1350 was certainly easy enough, and when connected via HDMI the image quality was really quite good. The 100" screen size, projected from a mere three meters away was remarkably sharp; probably on a par with a Philips Screeneo. The sound was okay too, although it did feel a little disjointed being positioned to one side and to the back of where the screen was being displayed. A quick switch to a surround sound setup soon fixed that issue. The only major issue we had was a rather poor 3D image, which didn’t project any real depth and seemed either a little too washed out or over saturated with red. Motion in 3D didn’t seem right as well, there was some ghosting effect, which induced a seasickness feeling from those watching.
Lastly, the noise levels were a little more than what we had hoped for. There’s not a huge amount you can do about ambient noise when using a projector, other than to turn up the volume of what you’re watching, but we’ve had quieter models in the past.
Nevertheless, the BenQ W1350 is a reasonabe projector. The HD picture is good, clear and sharp enough despite the poor 3D image. Perhaps it was just that the model we had has done the review rounds and is now starting to show some wear and tear. For a home prohector, though, this is not bad. David Hayward
An decent projector, with a clear and sharp image.