Earlier this year, BenQ announced the European launch of a 4LED Home Cinema projector. Now this W4100i 4LED DLP model is available for sale in the US, featuring 150-inch 4K visuals at up to 3,200 lumens plus a game-friendly 240-Hz mode.
Where its series stablemate, the W5800, has been designed for large home theaters, the W4100i caters to the needs of smaller spaces with support for screens up to 120 diagonal inches – though the visuals can be stretched up to 150 inches.
The projector features a 4LED light source for 3,200 ANSI lumens, and is reported capable of delivering "true 4K UHD resolution." This model features BenQ's own CinematicColor technology, covering 100% of the Rec.709 and DCI-P3 color gamuts, for the promise of vivid, color-rich 30-bit imagery. The company has also included AI Cinema algorithms to automatically optimize dynamic range, color saturation and sharpness for compressed streaming content.
HDR-Pro boasts real-time, frame-by-frame dynamic tone mapping in HDR10+ and HLG content formats – "dynamically adjusting tone curves to preserve both bright highlights and deep shadow details." The W4100i is also factory calibrated for color accuracy, achieving a Delta E figure of less than 2. Dynamic contrast of 3-million:1 should make for deeper blacks and sharp highlights.
Meanwhile the FilmMaker mode "preserves motion cadence, cinematic color, dynamic range, and brightness as intended by the director, along with native 24p playback for authentic frame-by-frame accuracy."
This model ships with an Android TV dongle for access to streaming apps such as Netflix and Prime Video over 802.11ac Wi-Fi. There's support for screen mirroring via AirPlay and Google Cast, along with voice search using the Bluetooth remote. Vertical and horizontal lens shift is included too, for repositioning of the image without needing to move the projector around.
Console gamers will appreciate the low 6.5-ms input lag over HDMI 2.1 at 1080p/240 Hz – though that goes up to 17.9 ms when playing at 4K/60 Hz. And finally, the projector rocks a single 5-W speaker only, meaning those wanting to be enveloped in a soundtrack will need to cable up to an external sound system over HDMI eARC or multi-channel S/PDIF.
The BenQ W4100i projector is available now for US$2,999, including a free ceiling mount (for a limited time). You can also buy it through Amazon.
Product page: W4100i
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