BenQ W6000 Projector Review

BenQ W6000 Projector Overview

The BenQ W6000 was intended to be the brightest projector anywhere near its price for movie watching, and there’s no doubt it delivers on that. Few home theater projectors under $10,000 can match the “best mode” brightness of the W6000. Often, however, in the past, the brighter projectors compromised elsewhere to get the brightness. The BenQ, W6000, though, also just happens to be a pretty impressive projector overall. The W6000 has very good placement flexibility, sporting lens shift and a 1.5:1 manual zoom lens. Few under $5000 DLP projectors until recently have offered lens shift (and most have been BenQs), though we are seeing a couple more these days. With the slightly longer than normal throw range zoom lens, the BenQ W6000 should work as a rear shelf mounted projector in most rooms, as well, of course being ceiling mountable, or set on a table. Relatively speaking the W6000 is a small to mid-sized projector, there are a few a lot smaller, but it’s still fairly compact, and much smaller than the largest projectors. It comes finished in a shiny black with a lighter color (a dark purplish blue) around the control panel and lens. All and all, a respectable looking projector, but not a masterpiece. The BenQ W6000 has that classic DLP look to its image, with rich colors and very good depth. It offers their version of TI’s Brilliant Color, with a simple choice of off or on. (Some manufacturers offer multiple Brilliant Color settings.) BenQ projectors previously reviewed (and those owned by me), have traditionally produced a very sharp image, and the W6000 projector is no exception. The W6000 is nice and razor sharp on all digital content, like my favorite HD football games, or Discovery-HD channel. Black levels are enhanced with a dynamic iris, and it does deliver really good dark blacks, but the sometimes visible action of the dynamic iris, is our primary issue with this projector. It will be discussed elsewhere in the review. Don’t let me scare you off with that statement. I’ve yet to see a perfectly “invisible” dynamic iris. Some though, are less frequently noticeable than others. There’s a set of conditions where the BenQ’s iris is more noticeable than I’d like, but that’s true for most (not all) of the projectors with dynamic irises. I’m waiting right now to hear back from BenQ, we’ve been discussing the iris, and I’m hoping to hear that they will be able to make firmware changes to improve it. Other than that, the BenQ W6000 is an extremely well balanced, first class projector for the money. The W6000 is available online from select dealers (two, I’m told) as well as local dealers. In a pinch it probably can be purchased directly from BenQ’s site, but as of this time, it’s listed, but the cart doesn’t work. (Remember, the product hasn’t shipped yet.) Still, my take is why buy directly from the manufacturer if you can buy from a dealer, for the same price? Why not have both a dealer and the manufacturer working for you? The BenQ pricing is at their MAP price, so it won’t be below the price of their resellers.

W6000 Projector Highlights