AV Projector of the Year under $2000

Fancy a movie in your tent, or a binge on your bedroom wall? BenQ’s dinky and portable $1299 GS2 is ready to oblige. This is, as you can see, a very different design to the usual style of home projector. It’s near cubical, coloured a gentle tan, built with some level of impact protection and splash-proofing — because this projector is not intended to stay at home. The BenQ GS2 comes with a canvas carry bag, and it can operate on its internal battery pack.

There have been previous portable pico projectors, and indeed BenQ had the GS1 predecessor to this model. But where the GS2 scores is in having such an array of built-in smarts — plug the included Wi-Fi dongle into its USB socket and it runs an Android interface with apps including Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube, iQIYO (a Chinese-based streaming service) and Aptoide, a store for additional apps. You can cast screens to it from your smart devices, including Apple devices using AirPlay. It supports Miracast. It can connect to your network when you’re at home, but it can also act as a Wi-Fi hotspot, so if you’re away from a network you can still connect your phone to it and mirror content to the projector. It has one HDMI input, a USB-A slot, and a USB-C socket.

What about sound? The GS2 has two speakers built in, but you can go larger by using its 3.5mm analogue audio output, or its Bluetooth support for connecting speakers and headphones.

The projection engine uses DLP technology, its tiny 0.3-inch digital micromirror device offering 720p resolution (1280 × 720) while accepting incoming signals up to 1080p. While that’s the same resolution as for the GS1, the brightness has been bumped up from 300 lumens to 500 lumens by a change from lamp to LED light source, which gives far more life — 20,000 hours in normal (high brightness) mode, and 30,000 in ‘Eco’ mode. BenQ clearly considers 100-inch screens about the maximum size to be usefully employed — that’s the biggest size mentioned in the table in the manual. To fill such a screen the projector needs to be 2.88 metres away.

Power is supplied by an external power pack. The power connection is similar in style to the magnetic ones used on certain Mac computers. Built-in is a battery to allow portable operation. This is rated at providing up to three hours of operation.

Of course you don’t get the sharpness of 1080p or 4K, nor the brightness which a full-size projector will deliver, and if you’re after the ultimate bigscreen experience, you should aim higher. But the GS2 offers a fun, versatile experience with a smart streaming and screen-mirroring interface in a neat and portable form factor. We enjoyed it very much, both at home and in the limited locations to which we’ve been allowed to travel recently! More info: www.benq.com.au

If you’re after the ultimate bigscreen experience, aim higher. But BenQ’s GS2 offers fun, versatile, smart entertainment in a neat portable form.