BenQ W1210ST Gaming Projector

Record-breaking low latency

PRICE $ 1319 www.benq.com.au If

you’ve been reading PC PowerPlay for a while, you probably know how passionate I am about projectors as the ultimate gaming display. When it comes to dollars per inch, they’re unbeatable, delivering wall-spanning immersion at a cost much more affordable than big-screen TVs. However, they often suffer from input-latency, which is what makes BenQ’s W1210ST a rather interesting proposition.

The company has focused on making this the lowest latency projector on the market. This means that as soon you hit your mouse button, your gun fires on-screen almost immediately. Projectors with high latency can add an extra 120ms or more to the time you hit fire and it displaying onscreen, but the W1210ST lowers this to a mere 16ms when operating in gaming mode. Basically this is imperceptible to all but robotic eyes.

It’s also designed to throw out a huge image at a very short range, pumping out a 100-inch screen at a distance of just 1.5 metres. This is great for smaller rooms, but if you want to mount it at the rear of a longer room, could be a concern. The image is a standard HD resolution of 1920 x 1080, while the DLP chip inside delivers brilliant colour and contrast at such a low price point. It’s also rather dazzlingly bright, with a rating of 2200 Ansi Lumens, so you can use it in rooms that are less than light-proof.

There is a price to be paid for the use of a DLP technology though – the dreaded “Rainbow effect”, which gamers seem to be most perceptible to, as we spend so much time staring at screens. Even though this projector uses a sixspeed wheel, we noticed ever-so slight

designed to throw out a huge image at short range, pumping out a 100-inch screen at a distance of just 1.5m

colour halos and rainbowing during fast moving scenes. Having said that, we’re very prone to this effect, which many people never notice. So we’d highly recommend giving this projector a demo at the shop before you take it home; hopefully you’re one of those who aren’t susceptible to the Rainbow effect. If you don’t want to drape a HDMI cable from your PC to the projector, an optional wireless box will do it all via the wonders of radio waves, and BenQ claims this introduces zero latency to the entire system. It’s great to see BenQ put gamers first, especially considering the fantastic price point of this projector; you’ll pay a similar amount for a high refresh rate 30inch panel. However, we just wish they’d gone with LCD technology instead of DLP, to guarantee no sign of the Rainbow effect. Given BenQ’s love of DLP though, we can’t see this happening in the near future. BENNETT RING

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