BenQ W1200 Projector - Image Quality-5

Black Level and Shadow Detail Performance: W1200 Projector - Bottom Line

The overall performance of both shadow detail and black levels are consistent with our belief that the W1200 is a very good, general purpose home projector, rather than a performance oriented projector like their more expensive W6000, which we consider better suited for dedicated home theaters with their more controlled room conditions.

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Want a nice, reasonably bright projector? Not a perfectionist - you like your LCDTVs or Plasmas, but never really fiddled with the controls? If that sounds like you or your family (and if you are doing all the research, then the other family members are likely even less critical), then you should be thoroughly pleased with the W1200's overall picture quality. Sure, when I switch back from the W1200 to more expensive projectors like the Epson 8700UB (great blacks), JVC RS20 (mine - even better blacks), I tend to go. "Wow - that's better!" (notably on darker scenes).

This is a fun projector. The family rarely notices when I switch from one projector to another. Wife and daughter have watched American Idol, Fashion Police, etc. on the W1200 and nary a complaint!

In fact the only issue reported by my daughter, is when I first turned on the W1200 (with CFI turned to off) and she exclaimed - CFI is on. She's my CFI bird-dog - she can walk into my room, glance at the screen for maybe 1/2 second and immediately tell me if CFI is in play. She, BTW, found the "wrong" CFI - set to off, but really on, to be well over the top. I always turned it off, myself, except for checking out sports. I've been running it on the lowest setting for the basketball playoffs.

A mix of additional images to show off the BenQ W1200:

BenQ W1200 Projector: Bottom Line on HDTV Sports

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The room lighting around my dark floors/walls/ceiling was shutters partially open. In addition, seven 50 watt equivalent down facing LED lights are on in the back half of the room, and along with incoming light from the windows, lights up the couch. It's plenty bright in the back of the room despite the surfaces being very dark. A fair amount of ambient light is hitting the screen and you can see that it's washing out the image a bit. It's still a good looking image though. I wouldn't normally have the shutters anywhere near that open for real watching, and I'd still have plenty of light to work with in the back.

Above and below, two identical photos except for the exposure. The first of the pair gives you a reasonable idea of the room lighting.

The second looks darker so that you can get a better idea of how good the picture actually looked.

More importantly take a look at another HDTV NFL image. Most impressive: