Review: BenQ W1350

Introduction and features

Not everyone wants a home cinema, and even those who do will only make use of their 80-inch-plus images occasionally.

Something of a jack of all trades, the Full HD, 3D and bright-enough-for-daylight-use BenQ W1350 is clearly aimed at those who want extra magnification for games nights, big sporting events, and the odd Friday night movie.

Design and specs

Deciding where to place a projector like the W1350 – and having the confidence to line-up a big screen image – all comes down to how the projector is tooled. The W1350 does have some of the tools you need to do just that, including a reasonably short throw image, while its 1.5x of optical zoom means a 70-inch image is possible from about two metres away.

There's also some keystone adjustment controls, but getting a correctly aligned image this way not only takes time and expertise (not something first-time projector owners are going to be ecstatic about), but it also degrades the image.

Much easier are lens shift levers above the lamp itself, which push the projection both vertically and horizontally. Unfortunately, the W1350 has only vertical lens shift (and only slightly so), so moving the projector off-centre is practically impossible.

That's a shame, though it's an issue that affects similarly-priced products. However, the manual focus and zoom ring around the lens are easy enough to operate.

Elsewhere, the W1350 impresses, with a 2,000 hour-rated lamp (enough for one movie each day for three years) and a lamp that's capable of 2,500 ANSI Lumens; this is one projector that should perform pretty well during the day.

A single-chip DLP projector with six-segment colour wheels and a native Full HD resolution of 1920x1080 pixels, it's reasonably lightweight, so easy to carry from room to room. Ins and outs (though a Wireless HD Kit connection is also available) include a couple of HDMI inputs, composite video, component video, RS232C, a 12V trigger, a VGA input for hooking up a laptop, and a couple of audio ins and outs for good measure.

The latter make sense given the W1350's inclusion of a 10W speaker.

Performance

The W1350 is hard to fault on both detail and colour, and straight out of the box in the native Cinema picture mode, too. During my test disc, Hugo on Blu-ray, the detail in the 80-inch projection was vibrant and subtly graded, with blues, reds and greens real standouts.

Skin tones were also reasonably good – perhaps a touch overcooked, but nothing a trip to the comprehensive colour menus couldn't solve – and detail always high.

Though images are very good, they are not faultless. Black levels are average, which is as I would expect on any similarly-priced product as the BenQ W1350. There's also very little motion blur to contend with, so all that Full HD detail is retained.

Although there's almost no reason to use them for watching a film in blackout conditions, the W1350 also has ISF Day and ISF Night modes – both created by the Imaging Science Foundation – as well as a Bright mode for use in the day (which ends up with a blue-ish wash).

The W1350 also comes with a single pair of active shutter 3D specs in the box.

Though probably not high on most lists of home cinema wants, the setting-up 3D on the W1350 is as hassle-free as you could wish for – it's completely automatic. It handles 3D reasonably well, with the usual increase in contrast; Hugo on 3D Blu-ray represented the W1350's cinematic highpoint – while motion sequences were smooth. I didn't notice any crosstalk whatsoever.

It's worth noting that it's not possible to swap between picture presets in 3D mode – what you see if what you get – though it's important to toggle-on BrilliantColour, which drastically warms-up colours. Without it the 3D image is seriously cold indeed.

Verdict

This latest BenQ beamer is almost a tough one to pigeon-hole. It delivers a great out-of-the-box cinema experience, with great colours and impressive detail, but it doesn't feel like it's been created with the home-user in mind.

It feels a bit like an office projector that's stepping outside its comfort zone, with an aged-looking user-interface and physical setup options that aren't particularly home-friendly.

And price-wise, at some $1,540 (£974, AUS$1,990) it feels a touch over what you'd be wanting to pay for this level of home beamer.

We liked

While its 2,500 ANSI Lumens lamp allows it to be used in the day, in a blackout the W1350 produces very good images straight out of the box in Cinema mode. The 120x330x247mm, 3.7kg W1350 also sports an excellent design, with the two-tone white and silver chassis tapered on each side to produce a V-shaped product that looks as slight and as svelte as a lamp-meets-air-con unit can do.

However, the W1350 isn't particularly loud; I measured it at 61 decibels. This can be covered-up by turning-up the speaker, of course, and it does go loud enough without distorting to do just that.

Another nice touch – and ideal considering its primary environment is a blackout – is the backlit-remote control. It's even in red to help preserve night vision.

We disliked

While as a multimedia projector for occasional gaming TV and movies the W1350 works well, it's not faultless – and it's not particularly user-friendly either. It's graphical user interface is very average, looking like something you might find on a bargain bin TV about 10 years ago.

If projector manufacturers want to know why their wares are so often judged as functional business machines rather than gadgets to delight us in the home, they should look at these user interfaces.

That's exactly what's happened with built-in speakers; a couple of years ago a speaker in a projector was utterly unheard-of. In 2015 it's very rare to find any 'budget' projector without a speaker, though with competing models like the ViewSonic PJD7830HDL now boasting a stunning 16W speaker, the trends is now overtaking what the BenQ W1350 is capable of.

Although I was impressed by the colour in hi-def footage, I did notice a lot of evidence that the W1350 produces rainbow effect despite its six-speed colour wheel. Most viewers won't even notice this, but those of us with eyes that are sensitive to this side effect of a slow colour wheel, the W1350 is worth avoiding (though so too are almost all DLP projectors under about £1,500).

Another niggle was that the red backlighting on the remote is engaged each time a button is pressed, so the entire thing blinks constantly if you're, say, performing multiple presses to turn-up the volume.

Verdict

Is this really a home cinema beamer? It's tricky to set-up and almost impossible to use off-centre without resorting to the keystone correction tools. That might be fine for business presentation but just doesn't cut it in home cinema.

The BenQ W1350 feels almost like a business projector that's not been changed quite enough.

That said, its video processing is good, producing excellent Full HD detail and almost spot-on colours that lack only contrast and black levels. The result is an excellently cinematic image straight out of the box.

The backlit remote control is a great idea for home cinema, for sure, but overall the W1350 needs a few tweaks to its set-up tools and its on-screen menus to lend it a friendlier face.

There's also something about the W1350's price that screams overkill for most; do you need 3D? It's arguably the high-point of this product in terms of pure image quality – and it's hassle-free to set-up – but it does mean a price about £100 higher than close competitors.

I would happily swap 3D for some extensive lens shift levers, which would give the W1350 the versatility that should be at the heart of its design.

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