Spec me - Projector

hellarda

hellarda

hellarda

Soldato
Joined
4 Mar 2008
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Location
Guildford
Hi all,

For a while I've wanted a projector and my Uni room is perfectly suited to one, I was wondering if you could kindly recommend a decent FHD projector around the £500

Ive been looking at the BenQ W1070 which can be had for £469.95 - is this any good?

Are there any others to consider?

Thanks,

Ali
 
If your budget is £500, you cant really beat it. I've thought about buying one, but it wont get much use & my ancient Sanyo Z3 is still going strong after 10 years or so. I'd get pennies for it if I sold it, so I'll wait for it to go bang before buying a new one.
 
Grimley said:
If your budget is £500, you cant really beat it. I've thought about buying one, but it wont get much use & my ancient Sanyo Z3 is still going strong after 10 years or so. I'd get pennies for it if I sold it, so I'll wait for it to go bang before buying a new one.
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£500 is really my budget yeah, unless an extra £100 or so is going to make a massive amount of difference...
 
You know that you'll need a sound system too, right? These super-budget projects have a small mono speaker. But it's really a step down in sound quality from a £20 dock.
 
lucid said:
You know that you'll need a sound system too, right? These super-budget projects have a small mono speaker. But it's really a step down in sound quality from a £20 dock.
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Yeah don't worry, I already have a pair of Rokit 8 studio monitors ;)
 
I have the Benq W1070 and I love it. I also picked up a 100" motorised screen from the auction site for about £65 new, and thought it wont be much good but will do for a while and that is also really good so I have not needed to get anything better.
The Benq projector, in my opinion, has great colour, motion and full HD resolution and is fantastic for films and games. The only downsides seem to be contrast/shadows don't seem to have quite enough detail when compared to my Panasonic Plasma tv and the heat and noise that the projector produces means the windows have to be opened and sound system turned up.
When I bought the Benq W1070 I think it was more like £699 and then I bought a 5.1 amp/speakers, Blu-ray player and freeview HD box so it was more like £1,500 but was worth it.

But, I think if I was going to do it now I may think about how much really large screen TV's are getting cheaper. I would probably go for something like a 75" tv. But for under £500 if you can deal with the noise and heat then it is a bargain.
 
Have a W1070. It strikes me as ridiculously good value for money compared with any other kind of TV/projector. Bought mine from Richer Sounds so have peace of mind with projectors being new to me (got a 5 year warranty).

I find the noise a non-issue given the price. Also it doesn't help mine's in a small, low ceilinged room (it's only a couple of feet above my head).

The main con for me is that it's a DLP projector and thus, in my case, has some blur. Apparently not all are susceptible to it but I find when watching dark scenes (i.e. Walking Dead episodes) with quick movements that there is often blur. I also found the blur very pronounced when watching David Attenborough's Life Story episode with the hummingbirds. Anyway, that wouldn't stop me from recommending it. It has huge wow-factor for the price and despite that flaw hasn't disappointed. I wouldn't want a £500 TV instead.

Edit: If you do get one and want to save costs on a screen then look up 'black widow' paint mix. You'll find it on AVSForum and Wikipedia. I used it and I'm very happy. Before applying I sanded, white primer, sanded with a fine grain, white primer, sanded with a very fine grain, primer and then black widow. It was time intensive but cost me £50 which was significantly less than 110 inch screens. Also use this to ensure it'll project the right sized image in your room. Finally, if you're going to ceiling mount it then invest in a good bracket/mount. Cheap ones you find on Amazon are just that - I'd put at least £50 aside for a decent ceiling bracket.
 
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I'd still love to have an opportunity to run my calibration gear over one of these to see what it's capable of when tweaked up professionally. It eould be interesting to see what it's like tweaked up.
 
Before anything else. Work out if the w1070 will suit your room using a throw calculator to see how far you have you mount the projector for your desired screen size
 
Cheers for the replies guys. I will be using it on a white/very light cream wall for now as it will be at my uni house so don't need to worry about screen/mounts (just going to put it on a table).

Sounds like its the one to go for then.

Cheers!
 
Well I decided to buy one. Its awesome. Fills the whole of my back wall in my room at uni. Reading a few reviews and looking at recommended settings really helped improve the image, the standard setting really over saturated everything. One annoyance I have is the fact that as the walls in my room are white, the corners reflect slight off the adjacent wall which washes the colour out slightly. Not a massive problem but oh well :)
 
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