Benq ht2050a review manual#

It looks like a panel misalignment, except this is a single-chip projector. One edge will have a green tinge, the other magenta. Closing credits in a movie, for instance. It's not really obvious from a normal viewing distance, but with fine lines, like white on a dark background, the issue becomes quite obvious. There are slight chromatic aberrations, caused by, I think, inexpensive lens elements. Neither looked hugely different with HDR compared to SDR, which is to be expected with projectors. In the end, the TH685's extra brightness and greater color accuracy won out, but it was hard to pick a favorite here.

The sky, however, was a richer blue on the 28HDR. The TH685 had more natural colors, and a more natural color temperature, the Optoma having a green tint. The Battle of Crait in the Last Jedi was a good test of the HDR, with bright white salt/sand, explosions, and the vivid reds of the underlying minerals. The HT2050A isn't HDR, so for my final test I focused on the Optoma and the TH685. Or projectors, but the 2050A just draws the eye to its more pleasing image. I wouldn't call them 'washed out' like early LCD Shadows are darker, the image has more apparent depth, it just has more punch. The HT2050A has nearly 3x the contrast ratio, and it's obvious. Their slight differences aren't visible side by side. The TH658 and 28HDR are basically tied, in terms of contrast. It's just noticeably better in this incredibly important test. Since the lamp itself is around $160 as of this writing, and even in the Normal mode will last upwards of three years, you probably don't need to sweat this too much.Ĭontrast ratio, as has been the case with all the projectors I reviewed this year, ended up being a no-contest win for the HT2050A. It balloons lamp life out to 15,000 hours.

LampSave, on the other hand, decreases lamp power in darker scenes 'while offering a longer lamp life.' It does this primarily by limiting maximum light output to what you'd get in the Eco mode. This results in a claimed lamp life of 8,000 hours. SmartEco mode decreases lamp power in darker scenes 'while optimizing display quality,' as BenQ describes. There are two other lamp modes that sound like they do the same thing, but work slightly different. This jumps up to 10,000 hours in the Eco mode, though you lose about 35% of the light output. Lamp life is a fairly average 4,000 hours in the Normal mode. Also like a puppy its breath is hot and its bark is loud - when you sit too close to any projector you can feel the heat as well as hear more fan noise. The TH685 joins us on the couch like an untrained puppy. It is not, however, a true short-throw projector.įor perspective, I have a 102-inch screen, and most sub-$1,000 projectors can fill that sitting on a stand behind my sofa, roughly 12 feet from the screen.

Conversely, you can put the projector closer to the screen, so coffee table placement would still allow a big image. If you don't want to mount it on the ceiling, it's not going to work behind your head unless your sofa is fairly close to the screen, or the screen itself is quite massive. Despite having a 1.3x zoom, it requires closer placement to the screen than some of its direct competition. Read more: Home theater projectors: Eight tips for set up, placement and picture settings

If you're watching a widescreen movie, for example, you can position the image up or down the screen since the back bars can be cropped out without losing any pertinent info. It moves the image center up or down on the DLP chip, cropping whatever part of the image doesn't fit. The TH685's digital lens shift isn't as good, but it is something.

Benq ht2050a review manual#

There's no manual lens shift, a feature found on the TH685's cheaper brother, the HT2050A.