BenQ W1000 Projector – Image Quality2

W1000 Black Levels & Shadow Detail

Black Level Performance

Ahh, we come to the Achilles heel of the W1000 projector. The blacks are just not that black. Even the Optoma HD20, the other $999 projector, does visibly (though not greatly), better. I can do a decent job on very dark scenes, but never a great one.Still on scenes that are primarily dark but with some bright spots, such as the night cityscape below, the projector looks pretty darn good.

Immediately below, from The Dark Knight:

The pair of photos below, have the BenQ W1000 projector first, and the Epson Home Cinema 8500UB (best blacks under $3500 street price) below it. This is about as big a difference as you will find, yet, you can see that the W1000 can handle a nice dark scene with some bright areas, rather decently.

Here’s three: W1000 first, Optoma HD20 second, Epson third – this is an intentionally well overexposed image, from Space Cowboys. Here you can see the significant difference between the BenQ or the Optoma, compared to the Epson, (but do you have an extra $1200?):