BenQ W100 Digital Projector Review: Summary, Pros, Cons 1

Posted on October 7, 2013 by Art Feierman

Typical Attributes

Warranty - 1 year parts/labor
Documentation (just guessing here, as I haven't seen the finished documentation), but BenQ's has never been that great (and I own one of their projectors)
Styling - nothing to write home about - but a clean looking white "box"

As you can see, I'm having problems finding things to complain about.

From a standpoint of recommending this projector compared to the competition, here are a few thoughts. Up until now my favorite entry level HT projector has been the Optoma H27, which has been around since fall of 2005.

While I liked the old BenQ PE5120 (the W100's predecessor), it became somewhat obsolete because of only a 2X color wheel as competitors moved to 4X to minimize rainbow effect.

Of course InFocus has just replaced its popular Screenplay 4805 with the new Play Big (nice name?) IN72. This should be a real contender as well. We received our IN72 review unit yesterday, have already plugged it in briefly, and testing starts on it tomorrow. I would think that those are the three major players around the $1000 price point unless you consider all-in-one units.

Of the three, the pricing probably will look like this: The Optoma H27 seems to be commanding right around $1000, while the InFocus close to its $1299 MAP pricing. The BenQ W100, however, is being positioned by BenQ W100 projector to be below $1000, and possibly at $899!

I'm going to attempt to get my hands on another Optoma H27 for a few days. After I complete the IN72 projector review, before end of May), and hopefully give the H27 a revisit, I plan to post a comparison review of these three projectors, designed to help you figure out which projector will best fit your specific requirements. There are so many subleties that affect what works best for each installation that no one projector even has a chance of being the best for everyone, and quite often, placement issues and brightness (as examples) can override other advantages.

Back to the W100. Summary: Low cost, excellent picture out of the box with no fiddling, easy to hook up, low cost of operation due to long lamp life, a typical warranty, and very quiet! Put all that together and it translates to great price performance.