The Benq W1400 projector managed to break some of my preconceptions about the practical utility of a projector at home. The fact that we got to test this device for two weeks during the World Cup, with two football matches each evening, might have had something to do with this.

Before this, I had been skeptical about owning a projector as I thought it would not be a good value for money, especially having it installed in a small apartment in Bucharest. I can say that I changed my mind as I saw that a projector can fit even in a 15 sqm living room.

In fact the Benq projector can project an image on a screen that’s just one meter away. They call this short-throw ratio and it’s one of the features of this model.

From two meters away, it can fill the wall with a large good quality image (2 meters wide and 1.5 meters high), which is three times larger than the one on our regular flat screen TV.

We found this just right as not to be disturbing for the eyes from our viewing point. We set the projector on the laptop table and as we had to tilt it a little bit, in order to have the image above the cupboard, the feature that allows the user to adjust the angle for the projection offset proved very useful. It gave us a nice square image with no distortions.

At first, we connected it to the laptop and watched a few matches broadcasted online by the national television TVR. Even for the matches which began at seven in the evening when there was still plenty of light coming into the room, the image looked very well and the colors were strong, with good contrast. We also closed the curtains to watch a movie and it felt very much like we were at the cinema. The advantage, however, was that at home we could pause the movie whenever we wanted so we didn’t miss anything.

So we decided that such a projector would be in fact very useful at home. The sound coming from the box was also unexpectedly good, given the facts that in the beginning we didn’t even realize that it has its own speakers (you can’t see them).

It’s worth mentioning, however, that this device is not so comfortable to use in the summer when it’s really hot, unless you have air conditioning. The projector generates a lot of heat. But it could help you save some money for the heating bill in the winter, I imagine.

Another thing we noticed was that the quality of the image is given not only by the projector itself, but also by the source of the video stream and the connecting solution. At first we used the HDMI cable to connect it to the laptop and the streaming which had an online source was quite good. Then, I connected it to the digital box provided by our cable TV operator with a RCA connector, as the projector doesn’t have a SCART socket, and the image was poor quality. I believe this was due to the connector.

But we only managed to see the full potential of this projector when we went to visit a friend who also has HD TV cable contract. We connected the device via HDMI and got a crystal clear image. It was just like seeing HD movies at the cinema. We watched a football game and a documentary on National Geographic and I can honestly say that some of the images were breathtaking.

Adding to that, the projector also has a feature that can transform your average projection in a 3D projection, but unfortunately we didn’t have the 3D glasses to test that. Even so, it was pretty hard for us to go back to our regular flat screen TV after the testing period ended.

To sum up, such a device can be a great entertainment tool, especially when you have friends coming over to watch a football match or a movie. We also used it one evening at the office and the team really enjoyed it. The only thing they didn’t like was that Italy was eliminated after that match against Uruguay!

The Benq W1400 projector is available at online retailer eMag for RON 5,470 (about EUR 1,250). Its upgraded version, W1500, which can be connected wireless, is also available, at a price tag of RON 6,550 (EUR 1.490).

By Andrei Chirileasa, andrei@romania-insider.com