BenQ W1000 home theatre projector

The BenQ W1000 is an entry-level 1080p home theatre projector with a high quality lens that allows it to display plenty of image detail. It struggles when it comes to displaying especially dark or bright areas of the screen though; its 3000:1 contrast ratio is insufficient for getting the most out of demanding movies like The Dark Knight.

The BenQ W1000 is easy to set up. A telescoping leg at the front and a rear screw-style leg let you to alter the height and angle of the projector, respectively. Once we had the projector set up in our test room, we found the automatic keystone adjustment useful for creating a properly squared projection image. A test pattern is also handy for making adjustments.

We used one of the BenQ W1000's two HDMI inputs for connecting our Samsung BD-P3600 Blu-ray player, but component, S-Video and composite are also available for older devices. Front-mounted zoom and focus controls are adequate for getting the biggest, sharpest picture available, but we still prefer electronic focus control for its ease in obtaining maximum pixel sharpness.

The picture projected by the BenQ W1000 is film-like in Cinema mode, with smooth colour gradation and muted tones that are accurate and pleasant to view. A wide range of adjustment is available for the BenQ W1000's picture settings, and after a little tweaking we were able to customise the picture to best suit our test projection surface. Once the projector was correctly set up, we saw a good level of detail when viewing 1080p video. Our test Blu-ray movies of The Dark Knight and Terminator: Salvation displayed clean, sharp edges and good skin detail in close-up scenes.

The BenQ W1000 has a 3000:1 contrast ratio, which makes it noticeably superior to business projectors like the InFocus IN3114 when it comes to displaying high-contrast images. It falls behind slightly more expensive projectors such as the Epson EH-TW3500 though, struggling to display dark and bright area detail in the difficult opening sequence of The Dark Knight. It is otherwise competent but unspectacular when displaying most video content.

The user interface is an area where the BenQ W1000 is impressive. It quickly responds to button presses, and the menu is clearly laid out with simple explanations for each option. The interface groups similar functions in a logical manner.

The BenQ W1000 is reasonably cheap, with good picture detail, film-like colour and acceptable contrast. It's easy to set up and tailor to your favourite settings, but the images it projects can be outclassed by competing models. If you're on a tight budget it will perform acceptably when presented with all but the most demanding high-definition video content.

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