If you have the budget to recreate a big-screen movie-theatre experience at home, a 4K projector is an excellent investment that can keep you entertained for years to come. BenQ W5800 is one of the best 4K projectors because its versatility makes it suitable for any type of room and content — movies, games or TV watching. It’s a direct contender of Sony X5000ES.

The projector offers a combination of high-end performance and features that you won’t always find in any other 4K projector. Sure, it’s not hard to find a bright 4K projector for gaming or sports, but it’s difficult to find a great 4K movie projector that doesn’t cost a fortune, given the size of projection.

Set it up carefully

Setting it up definitely needs two people to handle the machine. For safety, it comes in a double box and once you place it on the table, you will admire its industrial design.

The set up process has to be done carefully. It’s a biggish projector and if your table doesn’t have enough space, it might need to be installed from the ceiling.

The zoom, shift and focus of this projector are motorised. It’s a projector that can do 4K UHD at 120Hz, making it a good match if you like to play high-frame-rate video games.

The remote is well-designed and has all the function keys

The projector comes with a 1.6x optical zoom lens positioned in the middle of the device while on either side are air flow intakes.

On the back are all the ports and manual controls. Ports include two HDMI inputs, one of which comes with audio return support. Then there is USB Type A for reading media, one RS232 port, one RJ-45 LAN, one audio port and two IR receiver ports.

Colour accuracy and performance

Just like any serious projector, the lens is mid mount, made of all glass to minimise chromatic aberration, to add more contrast and clarity.

Let’s talk about colour accuracy. The results are tremendous. I have rarely come across a projector with this level of accuracy out of the box. Pictures are sharp and colours are natural.

The projector uses a laser light source and produces 2600 ANSI lumenss. It can project up to 200-inch pictures with accuracy. Users can also choose between a 16:9 and 2.35:1 aspect ratio.

Since we didn’t have a projection screen, projections were trained on an almost white wall. The projection is bright and the colours are as good as it gets. The projector offers a 100 per cent DCI-P3 colour gamut, which ensures accurate colour representation for most content.

Heat is easily tackled by the many vents on the projector

W5800’s 100 per cent DCI-P3 coverage is 1.3x wider than 100 per cent of Rec. 709, and covers 76 per cent of the ideal UHDTV BT. 2020 standard. Compared to Rec. 709 projectors, W5800 performs superior colour mapping that produces colours closer to BT. 2020, thereby delivering the most accurate colour reproduction for all 4K HDR content. Additionally, BenQ’s CinematicColour technology ensures every single W5800 unit shipped is calibrated with an optimal DCI-P3 colour table to guarantee colour accuracy.

We even used the projector with a laptop and with downloaded content through a USB stick. It works perfectly.

The UI is simple and that makes things easy for most us. The projector has the necessary detail and brightness to cast a sharp image on a large size (we tried 120 inches), and they are meant to be paired with a high-quality projection screen.

Watching films with bright and dark scenes is a joy. BenQ HDR-PRO technology integrates blue laser hardware with light control technology and Dynamic Black software to gauge the appropriate light levels and optimise the contrast dynamically to match each movie scene, bringing out details in dark shadows and preventing washout in bright scenes.

Another feature that needs a mention is Local Contrast Enhancer, an advanced algorithm to enhance contrast ratio for 4K HDR movies. It analyses the brightness levels of multiple zones within the picture and adjusts the gamma for each zone independently, preserving subtle details in dark and bright areas while enriching the depth of the 4K HDR image. If that’s not enough, there is a calibration report inside the box.

The port section ensures the projector can be used for years

Should you buy it?

The 4K image is clear and detailed and with movies like Dune and Justice League images on our large screen look crisp and detailed. The 120Hz refresh rate improves motion clarity for sports and gaming. What about missing speakers? The projector is for home dens where one expects the presence of a good sound system. When it comes to pictures, cinephiles will be impressed time and again by the level of colour accuracy and sharpness.

At a glance

Device: BenQ W5800

Price: ₹ 650,000

High notes

All the manual controls are on the back of the projector

High colour accuracy and sharpness

Excellent brightness

Perfect picture size to price ratio

Motorised zoom

Remote is well-designed

Muffled note

Slightly bulky