BenQ W5000 Home Theater Projector Review - General Performance-2

Posted on October 30, 2013 by Art Feierman

W5000 Projector - Light Leakage

No issues here. Unlike, say, the Optoma HD80 series which leaks enough light out around the lens, that you can see it on your front wall, (just barely) during dark scenes if your walls are light colored. Even when doing my photo shoot on the Carada Brilliant White screen using a relatively small 70" diagonal image, light leakage was not an issue.

W5000 Audible Noise Levels

Ahh! The W5000, like many BenQ projectors before it, is rather quiet for a DLP projector. Much of this, no doubt is due to the large size of the projector. The bigger the projector, the easier to baffle the sound. Whereas most DLP projectors are very noisy with lamp on bright, the BenQ is rather tame. I'd say it's only slightly louder than Sony's VW40, for example, and noticeably quieter than the Epson Home Cinema 1080 UB. By comparison, it is dramatically quieter than the Optoma HD803 (which should also mean the HD80, and HD8000).

In low lamp, it is very quiet. I'd say overall, it's also slightly quieter than my JVC RS1, although since I don't bring that down from its shelf, it's hard to say.

Bottom line: The seriously noise adverse (including those mounting the projector directly overhead), may be a little unhappy when in full power mode, but the noise levels probably will deter virtually no one from buying the BenQ W5000 projector.

W5000 Projector Screen Recommendations

High Contrast Gray! The W5000 looks great on my Firehawk. My last viewing ( last night), at first had me wishing for a touch more lumens while filling about as much of the Firehawk as I could from where the BenQ sits (about 124" diagonal). However, after watching for about 10 minutes, I forgot completely. (Iris fully open, Brilliant Color OFF, Cinema Mode adjusted). The picture was a little dark, perhaps, but very rich, and intense. Watching Pirates, was extremely impressive.

In the testing room, however, where I use my 106" Carada, the W5000 really looks dynamic. The experience was totally different. The pop and wow factor really was present. The letter box grays, however weren't as you would expect, that dark.

Bottom line: Purists will love the high contrast gray surfaces. Among the advantages, is that I seem to notice the image noise a bit less, than on white surfaces. (That's very subjective!) Taking into consideration, lamp dimming over time, I'd probably say that 120" is the maximum screen size for a Firehawk grayscreen. The projector is really superb to view with a new lamp, at 110". It's got some firepower to spare. (Its 670 lumens in best mode, yield about 13.8 ft-lamberts on a 128" screen (gain 1.0).

You can definitely go larger with the Carada or other good screens from Da-lite, Elite, etc., if they are 1.3 to 1.5 gain screens.

W5000 Projector Measurements and Calibration

Ok, you're getting tired of hearing this. Out of the box color accuracy in "best" (Cinema) mode is very good, better than the majority of competitors. As usual, I measured out of the box performance, then calibrated the grayscale (R,G,B adjustments to target the ideal 6500K color temperature. Below you will find both the before and after measurements, as well as the settings used. Remember I did this with the projector having only a few hours on it. Colors will shift slightly over time, which is why many professional calibrators recommend having a minimum of 100 - 200 hours on the lamp before calibration.