BenQ W2000 home cinema projector review

Enjoy life-like colours and strikingly sharp details with the BenQ W2000 Home Cinema Projector. Ideal for the home and garden with a short-throw lens, built-in speaker, bright 2,000-lumen lamp and superb connectivity.

 

As the No.1 Best selling DLP Projector Brand, BenQ delivers excellent units which are designed to provide you with professional cinema-quality picture for an affordable price. The long-lasting lamps provide years of use while keeping maintenance cost to a minimum.

 

The BenQ W2000 uses CinematicColor™ technology which ensures incredible image performances and delivers detailed, sharp and crisp visuals to accompany your home cinema enjoyment.

 

As an ISF certified projector, the W2000 delivers optimum colour performance in both Day and Night modes. Regardless of the room’s ambient light levels, the unit easily adapts thanks to its excellent contrast ratio of 15,000:1 and 2,000 lumens of brightness.

 

Displaying images in 1080p Full HD resolution, it’s ideal for watching Blu-rays, catching up on TV and gaming. You’re viewing experience is enhanced with subtle details and a new level of image depth. Watching content at 1080p is far more impressive on a projector than a TV.

 

Offering a range of connectivity options and a built-in 20-watt speaker, the BenQ W2000 offers a complete cinema experience within one unit and with a hassle-free set-up. The onboard speakers use BenQ Audio Enhancer’s breakthrough algorithms, which create a dramatically sound.

 

Maximise the big-screen experience even in minimum space with the short-throw BenQ W2000. It comfortably fills a 100-inch screen at a distance of 2.5 metres.

 

As one of the best projector under £1,000, the BenQ W2000 is highly recommended. 9/10

 

 

 

 

 

Design

Available in a white and gold combination finish as well as a black finish, the BenQ W2000 measures a compact 38 cm (w) by 12 cm (h) by 28 cm (d) and weighs 3.6 Kg.

 

Looking at the unit front on, you’ll see the lens, an attached lens cover, and an air vent as well as an IR remote sensor. There’s a further air vent on the right-hand-side panel.

 

The rear contains the two speakers, power input and a connection panel. This panel is made up of 2 HDMI ports, 2 USB ports, PC input, RS-232 port and 2 Component Video inputs. There are also mini-jack audio input and output, and an IR trigger output.

 

On top of the unit, is a zoom control and focus ring, a lens cover and basic controls. This panel includes buttons for power, sources, volume and basis menu control.

 

Finally, flipping the unit over reveals 3 feet, 2 of which are adjustable as well as mounting holes, allowing the unit to be easily affixed to the ceiling.

 

The W2000 remote covers the basic controls such as on/off, volume and track controls. There are buttons for 3D mode, picture mode and picture quality adjustment keys. You can easily adjust the projector’s settings with the remote while the controls on the unit make for simple operation.

 

 

 

 

Features

As a featured-packed DLP projector, the BenQ W2000 offers many innovative specifications and produces a remarkable picture quality regardless of the content.

 

Designed around a short-throw lens, the W2000 can produce a large picture over a short distance and also has a range of settings to correct for the room including vertical and horizontal keystone adjustments.

 

Compatible with a range of resolutions including 480p, 720p, and 1080i/p which provides a true 1:1 image reproduction. The 6X Speed RGBRGB Colour Wheel and 15,000:1 contrast ratio recreates realistic colour depth and range unattainable with lesser segment colour wheels.

 

Based on the worldwide HDTV standard, Rec. 709 mode faithfully reproduces accurate colour and deepest contrast at lower brightness levels. The automatic gamma control provides excellent grey-scale display enhancing shadows and dark scenes.

 

To reach a higher standard of performance, the projector incorporates ISF Night and ISF Day mode settings in its OSD menus, which requires professional calibration service from authorized ISF installers.

 

A 3D function on this BenQ home cinema projector allows you to enjoy 3D movies, videos, and sporting events with realistic colours and depth.

 

The lamp offers 2000 ANSI Lumens‎ of brightness and offers 3 power modes. Normal mode offers 3,500 hours of lamp life or around a movie per day per 7 years! Turning on SmartEco™ mode increases this figure to 7,000 hours and reduce power consumption by up to 70%.

 

Offering two OSD menus, in the Basic OSD the BenQ W2000 is is intuitive and easy to use. Switch to the Advanced OSD to unlock a full range of advanced adjustments.

 

The built-in CinemaMaster™ sound system uses audio-enhancing technology to create a complete sound across all frequencies. The 20-watt stereo speakers are housed in resonant sound chambers and are driven by BenQ Audio Enhancer’s algorithms for serious stereo sound.

 

 

Set-up

Setting up the BenQ W2000 is easy thanks to its ability to project from 4 different positions, the built-in zoom and multiple correction setting.

 

Projection position

It can handle front and rear projection from a table or ceiling. The adjustable feet make setting the right projection angle from a table pain-free. Pre-drilled mounting holes, on the other hand, allow for quick attachment to the best projector ceiling mount for your room.

 

As a short-throw projector, you can create a sizeable image at a short distance. At a lens to screen distance of 2.5 m, the W200 can easily fill a 100-inch screen.

 

Overall, the BenQ W2000 is flexible and easily slots into any set-up whether you’re using it in the living room, garden or a dedicated cinema room. Plus the built-in speakers allow you to easily enjoy sports or movies outdoors in the summer without needing a lot of additional equipment.

 

Connecting the projector

After correctly positioning the unit for your set-up, next, it’s time to connect devices. Thankfully, the BenQ W2000 provides plenty of inputs for a range of devices including Blu-ray players, streaming dongles (such as Amazon Fire TV), PCs and game console.

 

That said, you might feed the W2000 from an AV receiver such as the Onkyo TX-NR696. Also, the mini-jack audio output on the rear panel can be used to feed external speakers such as a Sony soundbar or your existing Hi-Fi.

 

Basic set-up wizard

On turning the unit on for the first time, you’ll be greeted by the set-up wizards which will guide you through the basics such as projector position, language, OSD menu choice, and keystone correction.

 

You’ll want to use the built-in projection test screen to adjust the overall picture as this makes setting up a projector far easier. Do not use a still image, as this doesn’t produce the best overall results and may mean you’ll need to adjust the basic projector setting again.

 

Set the picture mode

Finally, choose the most suitable picture mode (Bright, Vivid, Cinema (REC. 709), Game, or 3D) or create and save your own using the 2 user presets (only available when using the Advanced OSD menu).

 

And relax!

If you’re using the onboard speakers, adjust the volume, then sit back and enjoy watching a movie, gaming or catching up on TV!

 

 

 

 

Performance

It’s quite easy to set the BenQ W2000 up and forget there’s plenty of options to experiment with. The basic cinema picture mode is bright with fantastic colour depth yet can be tweaked further with the brightness and contrast controls.

 

The ISF presets (day and night), while nice do seem a little over the top, especially given the lamp only puts out 2,000 Lumens and so requires a fairly dark room with little ambient light to start. It does struggle with anything other than a hint of daylight with colours easily washing out.

 

That said, brightness aside, the W2000 succeeds at creating a rich picture with an enhanced depth of colour and texture. We’d much rather have a projector which performs better at these aspects than sheer brightness alone.

 

Picture do suffer from softening at the edges an the black levels aren’t as sharp as they could be. And as you don’t want to be continually adjusting the contrast, you’ll have to experiment until you find a happy medium.

 

There is some motion juddering or blurring on fast action scenes yet it isn’t enough to cause concern. This could be a deal-breaker if you’re buying the BenQ W2000 for serious gaming, especially as the input lag is a sizeable 50 ms.

 

Something we’ve yet to cover is base noise. In normal mode, 30dB of noise is produced and so is fairly quiet. This drops to 27 dB in Eco mode. Depending on how sensitive your ears are, this could matter or maybe not. You should be able to hear a full range of frequencies and velocities.

 

Finally, 3D, which is quite decent albeit with slightly oversaturated colours. Of course, you’ll need to supply 3D glasses and use a suitable device. That said, for enjoying the occasion 3D content, it’s superb.

 

 

Is the BenQ W2000 worth buying?

As far as budget projector go, the BenQ W2000 is an exciting offering, packed with features. Whether you’re just starting on your home cinema journey or upgrading your projector, the W2000 create an immersive picture with superb colour palette and details.

 

It could do better in terms of its black levels and shadow details, especially in dark scenes and could handle fast-moving sequences slightly better.

 

Another feature sorely missing is Wi-Fi and while you can buy an additional piece of kit to add most of these capacities, BenQ has missed the mark on incorporating these now essential features.

 

The BenQ W2000 does offer excellent inputs and outputs, and the built-in speakers are great for what they are.

 

That said, it’s a fantastic and flexible unit for those wanting the big cinema experience on a budget. If you’re looking for a flexible projector that won’t break the bank, consider trialling the BenQ W2000. 9/10