Benq W4000i 4K projector review

Dressed in a more compact form factor with an off-centre lens, the W4000i looks nothing like its predecessor. If anything, it looks more like an educational product, but the black chassis does hint at its cinephile-pleasing intentions. Benq hasn’t messed with what makes its dedicated home-theatre range of projectors so easy to set-up; the manual adjustment rings for focus and zoom and dials for vertical and horizontal lens shift are placed conveniently near the lens. This offers a remarkable amount of flexibility in installation without resorting to pixel-robbing keystone correction. What has changed dramatically, thankfully, is the light engine that powers it. Gone is the lamp-based module, replaced with a 4-LED light source and a new Texas Instruments DLP engine with a larger 0.66in DMD that more efficiently manages to create the 8.3 million pixels needed for its “True 4K” certification.

Benq has thrown everything it can at the W4000i to ensure it lives up to the cinematic standards it promises. Thankfully, it has the ammo to do it comfortably. Boasting of a full DCI-P3 colour space coverage, its inclusion of a Wide Colour Gamut filter is implemented intelligently by offsetting the inherent dimming of the picture with 3200 lumens of brightness. Even though it comes factory-calibrated to produce the best picture quality in most conditions, if you really want to get your colorimeter and CALman out of retirement, it provides granular control over different RGB channels over a 10-point scale and a colour management system with gain, saturation and hue controls.

But let’s face it, most people buying this will be the plug-and-play variety and for those, the W4000i has a more straightforward workaround under the CinematicColor menu. It allows you to dial in just the right amount of extra detail, colour, resolution and even a feature borrowed from TVs - local contrast enhancer. It divides the image into multiple zones and applies an algorithm to modulate the brightness and contrast levels in the lighter and darker areas of the frame, in real time! As a bonus nod to filmmakers, the W4000i also throws in a True 24p mode that adjusts the frame rate ever so slightly to make motion smoother, without resorting to the dreaded “soap opera” effect of lesser motion processing systems.

Perhaps the most odd feature of the W4000i is the Android TV dongle that comes attached to the rear panel, in its own protective housing. Effectively it’s an HDMI plug-in stick with micro-USB power, but it does involve the removal of a screw for the casing. Our review sample had it already attached and ready to go and the experience was as good as a modern Google TV OS-based television, Netflix et all! Finally, you can have a standalone home theatre projector without the need for an external source and it even comes with its own remote that is smaller and more distilled, with hot keys for popular apps. As expected, wireless casting from your phone is possible through AirPlay or Chromecast too.

Although the W4000i isn’t touted as a gaming projector, it does pretty well in terms of input lag, with a claimed response time of 17.9ms at 1080p/60 and can do up to 240Hz. 4K/60 is possible too and there is a Fast mode option to reduce input lag even in 4K/120Hz.

Out of the box, few, if any projector has been as impressive as the W4000i. Shipping with a certificate of calibration from the factory, it definitely isn’t just a feel-good marketing exercise.

Beanie Bubble on Apple TV+ is a movie with a wildly dynamic colour palette and in HDR mode, the Benq does full justice to the bright, candy colours of the soft toy revolution. As always, there is a sweet spot that needs to be achieved with regard to sharpness, brightness, saturation and flesh tones and spend a few minutes going back and forth and you will be rewarded with something that looks just right. HDR tone mapping is handled beautifully in Filmmaker mode, providing enough peak brightness to the whites without washing out the richness of the colours or sacrificing shadow detail. Black levels aren’t the best though and is probably the only real grouse I have with the W4000i. But even then, the greyness within extreme blacks never compromised the colour contrast in the rest of the frame.

Between the HDR and Filmmaker modes, some amount of experimentation might be required according to the source material and its resolution, but the Wide Colour Gamut, activated by a cinema filter does extend the colour fidelity visibly. It does dim the picture ever so slightly but the payoff is well worth it, especially on movies mastered in HDR. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 is rendered with pitch-perfect skin tones and a punchy presentation that totally immerses you into the action-packed sequences. Focus uniformity across the entire image is commendable too and our 120in screen had no visible softness anywhere. Geometry is spot on too and the generous lens shift makes it possible to wedge the Benq in places that might be trickier than a dedicated den. 

Its Android TV experience is just as good as any modern TV and the built-in mono speaker might even get the job done if you just want to watch some background news or YouTube videos without switching on the connected home-theatre system.

Keeping up with its stellar track record of providing the maximum bang for your buck, Benq has another winner on its hands with the W4000i. Value for money wise, it stands head and shoulders above the competition and if you’re looking for a short-throw projector in the range of Rs. 3-4 lacs in a mid-end home-theatre system, you can’t get better than this currently.