Gaming and beyond

BenQ X3000i

UHD projector

There’s an exciting first in this latest projector from BenQ, which is headlined as a ‘console gaming projector’ — part of the company’s ‘X’ gaming series — but which for our purposes at Sound+Image can also considered to be built for entertainment, coming as it does with consumer 4K resolution, HDMI inputs, built-in speakers and even an Android TV stick to give it a smart streaming interface.

It also looks rather different. As with the recent roll-to-aim GV30 projector, BenQ’s product design team has worked overtime to deliver something notably novel but also practical, so that here we have a rectangular box with curved edges, rather than the usual bulging projector shape. A line of orange surrounds the black frontage from which the lens peers not centrally, but from the top left.

Despite its friendly appearance, this is a serious projector. It delivers full Ultra High Definition via four-flash DLP, and it employs a 4LED light source which adds a bonus blue/green LED to the previous 3LED ecosystem, thereby promising to boost brightness and colour luminance, while also extending lifespan. It has all the adjustments you’d expect to optimise its home cinema performance, with the exception of motion smoothing.

The X3000i is designed to work upside down, whether conventionally ceiling-mounted or — since it has no controls requiring access on its top surface — simply plonked upside down on a high shelf... though that would be a fairly deep shelf. Pictures of the X3000i don’t really suggest its full size: it is 27cm wide and 20cm high, reaching back 26cm in depth. It can fire upwards from a table, or downwards from a ceiling, and usefully all its controls and air vents are on the sides, so it can be ‘hush-boxed’ easily, not that it turned out to need any hushing.

But that ‘first’ which initially intrigued us is nothing so large, indeed it is a mere inch long, and resides deep within the projector. It’s the latest 4K-capable DMD chip from Texas Instruments, the DLP650TE (right).

Equipment

This is not the first time BenQ has been quick to market with a DLP chip. This DLP650TE has, to our knowledge, only appeared elsewhere in one other projector, a Panasonic business model retailing at nearly $10k. The new chip is not native 4K, as used on far larger, more expensive projectors, notably Sony’s, but it follows TI’s method of delivering multiple