The Remote
BenQ has a well laid out remote, complete with laser pointer. About the only caution is that the controls for navigating the menus, are near the top, with arrow keys for selecting and changing. The larger disc pad in the center of the remote is used for remote mousing. Most other brands have the disc pad do double duty. If this is your projector, you’ll get used to that setup quickly. For me, working with lots of different models, it takes a little getting used to. Top center on the remote is the Source button, which lets you quickly work through the many.
The image’s aspect ratio (4:3, 16:9, 5:4) can be controlled by a button on the projector's remote. There is no need to hunt it down in the menus. More and more projectors offer this, and it is great to have if you will be using sources with different aspect ratios (remember many new laptops are now 16:9, as are DVD’s.)
The remote mousing control is excellent! The disc pad is large and the left, and right mouse buttons are also large and well spaced.
Between them is a drag button, excellent if you need to move objects around. (I really liked using it.)
Digital zoom and Volume controls are rocker switches and work well.
Definitely important to note is the Auto button which “sizes up” your source, and automatically adjusts it to fit the screen. No partially lost top bottom or edges of your windows desktop. Well done. Other features include, Mute, Freeze, and Blank.
Lastly, you’ll find buttons for Picture in Picture, you can open a 2nd window, control its size, the source and its position. Few projectors offer Picture in Picture, and most presenters can live without it, but you just might really like it. So as I said earlier, it’s an excellent remote, well laid out with lots of space between buttons, which prevents mistakes.
Interfacing: Back panel
This BenQ has a pretty good set of inputs for a microportable.
· Two computer inputs, standard HD15 connectors
· Component video can be had from either computer input, making this one of the few small projectors with enough connectivity to support a computer and a component video source without changing cables.
· Audio: 1 stereo mini jack, this drives a single 2 watt speaker (most in this class have 1 .5 watt speaker)
· S-Video
· Composite video (the usual NTSC/PAL/SECAM) through an RCA jack
· USB port
· Serial port for command and control (a mini-DIN connector not an RS-232)
What is missing is a monitor out.
This means nothing to laptop users, but for desktop users (including most schools), that leaves you without a signal going back to the monitor. You can solve that problem with a Y cable with some minor loss, but having a monitor out would be nice for a small percentage of presenters.
NEXT
Another detail, although the PB7200 has two computer inputs, both are analog. While most projectors this small only have one computer input, more and more projectors with two computer inputs offer one as a DVI-I (digital video + analog video). That would have been a nice touch. Note, very, very, ver,y very few users have a DVI output on their computers, this is a feature that has been available for several years but has only caught on in a couple of vertical applications, mostly run from desktop computers, so don’t fret over the lack of DVI. (Your HDTV cable or satellite box) probably has a DVI output, if you plan to hook that up to your projector, but that’s for video, and you will also have component video, so again, don’t worry about it.
Got Feet?
This BenQ has a drop down foot front center, and it also has two screw adjustable rear feet. That gives you a 3 point stance, which is the most stable. The only downside, and perhaps my biggest complaint about this projector, is that with all feet in their “up” or default positions, the image projects pretty high up on most screens. As a result, users tend to be lowering the two rear feet (screw thread) instead of the much faster to use front foot).
