BenQ W1350 review

Also supplied in the box is a pair of active shutter 3D glasses. Active shutter glasses rapidly switch each lens from transparent to opaque, keeping in sync with the projected image and creating an authentic-looking 3D image. When you activate 3D and don the glasses, a lot of image vibrancy is lost, but if you’re a fan of 3D, the effect is pretty convincing. There’s a little bit of crosstalk on objects that are in the immediate foreground, such as the undergrowth in Avatar, but it’s barely noticeable and didn’t detract from the experience too much. It’s a shame two pairs aren’t supplied, although when you consider a single pair retails for more than £80, it’s understandable.Playing games in both 2D and 3D is great, and we measured input lag at between 27ms and 33ms, which is perfectly fine for non-competitive gaming. The juddering issues we have with movies is still present, but less noticeable in faster-paced games and didn’t harm our enjoyment of Injustice: Gods Among Men.

Projectors often miss the mark with their built-in speakers, and while it’s understandable on kit that’s designed to be mounted and permanently plugged into a home cinema system, portable projectors needs as few cables as possible to avoid tangles and trips. The 10W speaker built into the BenQ W1350 is very good indeed, providing crisp and clear speech, music and sound effects. You’ll never manage to recreate the bass presence of a home 5.1 home cinema system with this projector, but it does a mighty fine job all by itself.  This means you can save money by not having to buy external speakers.

While the projector gets very hot to the touch, the internal fan never becomes overbearingly loud. Noise is rated at 34dB, and while there’s a definite constant whooshing sound, turning the sound up easily overcomes this.

The BenQ W1350 is a decent compact projector with great speakers and excellent active shutter 3D. However, it sits in a slightly awkward price middleground that means paying £200 more (which, admittedly, is a fair whack more) will get you the Optoma HD50, which has frame interpolation technology for less judder. Meanwhile, paying £100 less gets you the Optoma GT1080, which also uses a single-chip DLP system and benefits from slightly brighter lamp, although its colours aren’t quite as strong and it doesn’t have the useful lens shift or horizontal keystoning of the BenQ. If you need something versatile and have the budget, then, the BenQ W1350 is still a good choice.