BenQ has announced their plans to release a very affordable 1080p projector sometime in the coming month. October 5th is a day that keeps getting thrown around but I seriously don’t know if I can wait that long. As I’ve stated before, I’m a little bit of a BenQ fanboy. The first product I bought from them, I didn’t expect much of, but if I turn my head to the right, I can look at my, still functioning perfectly, BenQ T705 monitor. I think BenQ chiseled out a great little niche by building dependable electronic hardware for a very fair price. Granted, they may not produce the at pinnacle of statistic availability, but they do what they do incredibly well.
All that being said, I look forward to this low-end 1080p projector more than any other this year. According to BenQ’s released statistics, it doesn’t quite measure up to the HD20’s contrast ratio, but as I’ve said many times before, and will say many times in the future, you simply can not trust manufacturer’s statistics. All three of the sub $1,000 DLP 1080p projectors sport the TI DLP chip so they are all very similar. Where they will differ though is in lenses and basically everything else that goes into making a projector.
I really can’t get enough of the case. Look at that faux leather texture on the silver part of the casing; it is stunning. The W1000 is by far my favorite of the cheap 1080p projectors aesthetically but we’ll have to wait to see if it outperforms the Optoma HD20 and Vivitek h3080FD. All three projectors should be on the market and shipping to happy households by the end of October but we should be able to compare the W1000 to the HD20 on October 5th. Be sure we’ll keep you posted.
We at Sounds Great A/V are one of the lucky few who got their hands on the first shipments of BenQ W1000 before they totally sold out. While, we haven’t had enough time to completely get to know the ins and outs of the projector, we’ve started a review blog which we hope to update on an experience by experience basis. For now, we can offer our first impressions of the BenQ W1000 out of the box with under 6 hours of total use. Thus our current review is somewhat lacking in tech details. We hope to calibrate the picture soon and test Nintendo Wii on the system. For now, you can find our humble opinions at: http://soundsgreatav.blogspot.com/