Hello FMs,
Looking & lurking for an LED pj for quite sometime now, I finally laid my hands on Benq GP2 PJ. Frankly speaking, this was my first encounter 'face to face' with an LED pj. I really wanted to try an LED PJ so as to see what these 200-300 ANSI lumens can do in this age when luminosity for normal bulb projectors are quoted at least 10 times of the above.
So the stage was set at the distributor's place by a Benq supplier. Well, the stage was his small shop with green color walls for projection which had a concrete beam column in the middle of the screen with good bright white ambiance light which cannot be switched off for some reason. His video files were crappy pre-dvd rips downloaded from the internet on his laptop which was connected by a very high quality 'gold-plated' HDMi cable!
A perfect recipe for disaster in short, if I had to write something in lieu of the above para; I would take the HDMi cable in this set up! I thought to myself that I am not spending my hard earned money on this thing. And My review would have ended here IF, mind it, IF I had declined the offer by the Benq guy to go to his hotel for a 'better demo'.
I am now glad that I accepted his offer!
So half an hour later, we were in a small hall in the hotel where this Benq guy was putting up. No laptop, but he found his flash drive in his room which had some 'hd' videos stored. The PJ was again switched on in this hall - Big stretches of White walls with thankfully no support beams in between and more importantly, lights which can be switched off completely.
hyeah: However, it was not still pitch dark, but still okay.
The guy plugged in his flash drive & now the GP2 was talking. His reported 'HD' videos were really in HD and he played a music video from a new movie and a few clips from another new hindi movie. Man, after all that I had been through in the first para, I really did not thought that this same pj will put out this quality. The videos were very much in the range of acceptable brightness and the HD quality was truly crisp & sharp. The pixels blocks were not visible. I was probably viewing in the range of 70-75 inches. Hiding my over enthusiasm now, I decided to stretch this image diagonal to see the resultant drop in brightness. I pulled the pj about 2-2.5 feet back. It was now doing something in access of 150 inches. Not sure but could be around even 170 inches.
Result: Brightness fell BUT still very much watchable. I liked the overall picture quality & color tone. I wanted to slightly increase the saturation which I believe would make the color tone even richer but I was stuck in analysing the luminosity & crispness of the picture at huge sizes. Of course I was not 'blown away' like I was actually when I demo'ed the Viewsonic Pro8200, but that was a projector with conventional bulb putting out 2000 lumens in full HD. I dare not compare these 2 here else you might report my post to the moderators!
Would I buy the PJ? - Yes. I am planning to. His price quoted is slightly higher than what I will get from say Flipkart. I asked him to reconsider his price after looking at flipkart's price.
But as I say this, its not only Benq for me. I am quite open for Acer LED k130 too, but no availability at my place.
Please let me know your suggestions too about this PJ. Sorry for the long post but it may help for someone looking to invest his hard earned money in an LED PJ.
Regards,
Saket
Looking & lurking for an LED pj for quite sometime now, I finally laid my hands on Benq GP2 PJ. Frankly speaking, this was my first encounter 'face to face' with an LED pj. I really wanted to try an LED PJ so as to see what these 200-300 ANSI lumens can do in this age when luminosity for normal bulb projectors are quoted at least 10 times of the above.
So the stage was set at the distributor's place by a Benq supplier. Well, the stage was his small shop with green color walls for projection which had a concrete beam column in the middle of the screen with good bright white ambiance light which cannot be switched off for some reason. His video files were crappy pre-dvd rips downloaded from the internet on his laptop which was connected by a very high quality 'gold-plated' HDMi cable!
A perfect recipe for disaster in short, if I had to write something in lieu of the above para; I would take the HDMi cable in this set up! I thought to myself that I am not spending my hard earned money on this thing. And My review would have ended here IF, mind it, IF I had declined the offer by the Benq guy to go to his hotel for a 'better demo'.
I am now glad that I accepted his offer!
So half an hour later, we were in a small hall in the hotel where this Benq guy was putting up. No laptop, but he found his flash drive in his room which had some 'hd' videos stored. The PJ was again switched on in this hall - Big stretches of White walls with thankfully no support beams in between and more importantly, lights which can be switched off completely.
hyeah: However, it was not still pitch dark, but still okay.The guy plugged in his flash drive & now the GP2 was talking. His reported 'HD' videos were really in HD and he played a music video from a new movie and a few clips from another new hindi movie. Man, after all that I had been through in the first para, I really did not thought that this same pj will put out this quality. The videos were very much in the range of acceptable brightness and the HD quality was truly crisp & sharp. The pixels blocks were not visible. I was probably viewing in the range of 70-75 inches. Hiding my over enthusiasm now, I decided to stretch this image diagonal to see the resultant drop in brightness. I pulled the pj about 2-2.5 feet back. It was now doing something in access of 150 inches. Not sure but could be around even 170 inches.
Result: Brightness fell BUT still very much watchable. I liked the overall picture quality & color tone. I wanted to slightly increase the saturation which I believe would make the color tone even richer but I was stuck in analysing the luminosity & crispness of the picture at huge sizes. Of course I was not 'blown away' like I was actually when I demo'ed the Viewsonic Pro8200, but that was a projector with conventional bulb putting out 2000 lumens in full HD. I dare not compare these 2 here else you might report my post to the moderators!
Would I buy the PJ? - Yes. I am planning to. His price quoted is slightly higher than what I will get from say Flipkart. I asked him to reconsider his price after looking at flipkart's price.
But as I say this, its not only Benq for me. I am quite open for Acer LED k130 too, but no availability at my place.
Please let me know your suggestions too about this PJ. Sorry for the long post but it may help for someone looking to invest his hard earned money in an LED PJ.
Regards,
Saket
