BenQ GS50 Review

The GS50 like the rest of the range comes in the shape of a cute little cube. As you can see from the picture, BenQ hasn’t kept it plain boring either. The green side panels with the orange highlights for the vents along with the nice handle that looks like leather. In terms of quality, apart from the standard knuckle test, I didn’t have the heart to drop-test it. BenQ claims it can survive a drop from about 2.3ft. It features a TPU inner layer and the outer layer is made of resin. Apart from that it will also survive a light splash of water and is IPX2 rated.

The GS50 auto focuses the moment you turn it on and it also has an adjustable sliding stand that will tilt the unit up by 15 degrees, offering a more flexible and hassle-free position setup, especially outdoors.

Setup is easy. It takes seconds to load and you’re up and watching in no time. Just log in your details and you have Android TV with a host of apps to enjoy. The GS50 lasts about 2.5 hours in Low Power mode, but that drops the brightness down by a notch compared to the ‘Normal’ mode.

Realistically, you will want to use the GS50 in the ‘Normal’ mode but the battery will last for a shorter time, also depending on the level of volume. However, we preferred the ‘Cinema’ mode as that appeared the most natural to our eyes. The overall quality of the picture the GS50 projects is quite impressive and the colours are vibrant and rich. We can’t expect home-cinema levels here, but we did notice that a few details in darker sequences of any content would appear a tad washed out. But this is us nitpicking, at this price, we have nothing much to complain about. On the audio side of things, the GS50 packs in two 5W midrange tweeters and a thumpy 10W woofer. It gets plenty loud and you won’t require to hook up an additional speaker unit although the provision is given via a 3.5mm input

The GS50 ticks a lot of boxes for those looking for a portable entertainment solution. For starters, it’s actually practical and comes with it’s own carry case that fits all the accessories and charging cables in a neat lunch-box format. The additional ability to withstand the weather makes it that tad more desirable too.