BenQ W1210ST Gaming Projector - Review
This is a Hexus competition, member review of the BenQ W1210ST Gaming Projector as provided by Hexus & BenQ…………thank you.
So a little bit of background on my part, I’m not new to projectors but have not owned one for a number of years due to family/life reasons. My last one was a Sharp that was sub HD, if memory serves me correctly its maximum resolution 568P but when fed an HD source the picture was still impressive. However it had its drawbacks, it was noisy, the picture looked washed out in all but the darkest room and the pixels were quite noticeable when the picture was blown up large. So I was very interested to see how this high definition 1080P BenQ would fair against the memory of my old Sharp
The BenQ arrived well protected in its box, always a worry when you have an expensive lamp inside the projector and comes complete with a handy carry bag and backlit remote. The bag is a real bonus as it will make transporting the projector to friends’ houses a real doddle. And as this projector seems to be being positioned as portable gaming projection device this is a nice bonus, as is the decision to build in a pair of 10W speakers to the unit.
The projector is a fairly bog standard affair with large, unfiltered cooling vents on one side, a lens cap and cover over the zoom & focus controls on top, however it looks nice, well made and finished. One nice touch was the integrated leg to raise & lower the front of the projector so no propping up on books etc. is required. At the back there are two adjustable legs on dials at each side to level the unit. Again all of this adds to the portability of the projector and helps make set up in less than ideal conditions easier.
As we can see round the back are the input connectors; 2x HDMI (one being MHL enabled), a 12v trigger (useful for motorised screens) 2x USB connectors, type A & mini B, but who uses Mini B these days? I presume these are for playing content off USB sticks etc. , 1xVGA D-Sub input and audio in & out connectors. Once again all these seem like sensible choices for playback of portable content bar the mini connector, surely USB type C or Micro USB would have been a better decision.
So onto the setup itself and here I encountered what I thought would be a problem, our house has very few suitable walls on which to project an image. The only one that was readily available was in my eldest son’s bedroom; however his walls are a pale blue! Now I’ve seen in the past that some folks have off white screens in order to increase gain or brightness of the image (I’m sure someone will chip in and correct me on this) but I had real concerns how the image/colour would be affected projected on to a pale blue wall. Still needs must and all that.
The actual set up itself was simplicity itself, the projector was placed onto a bedside table that was moved to about 6 or 7 foot from the projection wall. It was hooked up to Xbox One via HDMI and everything was then switched on. You are immediately taken to a 5 step setup process that walks you through how the unit is positioned, keystone adjustment, focus etc.
And after about 5 mins we got this, a superb 112” image!
Too say that my 15yr old boy was blown away would be an understatement, he was immediately snaptchatting images to his mates and I have no doubt we’ll be having a full house tomorrow! As for me well I was really taken aback at how well image turned out considering it was being thrown up onto a blue wall. The colours didn’t really seem to be affected by this, whites were white and yellows weren’t green!!. I have no doubt that things will be even better when projected on to a white wall which will happen in the near future once I can convince the wife that we need to do this. It’s also worth mentioning that in both of these fast paced games lag was simply not an issue, neither me nor my son could detect any
The next thing we tried was playing a Blu-ray and seeing how the projector coped as movie playing machine. So in went Star Wars – The Force Awakens. To quote the lad “OMG”! My camera really can’t do justice to what we were actually seeing. Star Wars in Hi Def on a 112” screen from the comfort of his bed. The dark bits were dark but with very little loss of detail, the picture itself was very sharp and life like, a real joy to watch.
Whether gaming or watching a film the image size and quality really does draw you in and you just lose yourself in what’s going on in front of you. The only downside to this, and it really tells when watching a movie, is the Achilles Heel of the projector and that’s the sound. With only two relatively puny speakers spitting out the sound when there’s lots of action on screen in front of your eyes, your ears really do miss out on what is going on. This is a projector that cries out to be hooked up to a 5.1 Dolby Digital sound system, luckily I have one. Unluckily it will require a significant rejig of our playroom to integrate the projector and consign the old 768p Panasonic plasma to the history bin. However what I’ve shown of what the BenQ is capable of to the wife has meant I’ve already got the green light to purchase a drop down screen and ceiling mount the projector in the playroom……Happy days!!!!
The only things to mention are fan noise, heat and rainbow effect. When compared to my old Sharp projector this thing could be called silent but in reality it’s not. The fan is quite audible when up close but to be honest this is easily drowned out by the internal speakers when more than a couple of feet away. However it does chuck out a lot of heat which I’m sure is true of any lamp based projector; it wasn’t long before we needed to have the bedroom window wide open to cool the room down. In larger rooms I suspect this wouldn’t be so much of a problem. Finally an old bug bear of mine, the dreaded rainbow effect. As soon as I had the projector switched on and setup I started seeing rainbows every time I moved my head. This used to be a real problem for me with single chip DLP projectors, as this one is. However I’m happy to report that once I was viewing head-on and playing games or watching a film it was no longer an issue nor distracting. Your mileage may vary but for me once I was no longer looking for it my brain simply didn’t see it.
So to conclude, what BenQ have here with the W1210ST is a highly portable hi-def gaming/movie night projection machine. Most of the connections suit this purpose very well and I’ve already got requests to bring it round friends’ houses to share things like our group holiday snaps and movies with it. The only real downside are the weak speakers but honestly, for the purpose of the device , this is a minor niggle and can be got round by using the audio output to hook up to something more substantial if required.
My thanks go out to Hexus & BenQ for giving me the opportunity to review the device…….Now I just need get the thing out of boy’s bedroom before he claims it as his own!!!