Vivid TV eliminates the green bias and offers even better color saturation. If you need the extra brightness to stand up to ambient light-in a family room during daytime for example-it is easily up to the task. In addition to being within an acceptably realistic range, colors are also nicely saturated. As with most projectors, the HT2050A's brightest mode has a green bias, but the green shift in this case is so slight that most people won't notice it without comparing it to a reference image. Color accuracy, contrast, black level, shadow detail, and sense of three dimensionality are all among the best available for a projector in this price class, particularly with the Vivid TV color preset.Ĭolor Preset Mode Performance. The BenQ HT2050A offers a highly watchable image in all of its color preset modes. The Cinema preset combined with Economic power mode is 726 ANSI lumens-still bright enough for a 140' diagonal 1.3-gain screen in a dark room. Vivid TV in Economic mode delivers just a touch lower brightness, at 1021 lumens. In addition, for smaller screen sizes, the Cinema color preset offers similar picture quality with a little lower contrast at a still bright 1088 ANSI lumens. Dropping it into its eco-modes will be a good option for those who need no more than about 120' diagonal in a dark theater room. It can light up a 180' diagonal 1.0 gain screen in a dark room or 110' with moderate ambient light.

The measured 1528 ANSI lumens may be too bright if you don't want a really big image. It also delivers a dark black along with excellent contrast and sense of three dimensionality. Starting with the default settings for Vivid TV, adjusting the Hue for red and green gives a close match to a reference image without any loss of brightness. In the full telephoto setting, the 1.3x zoom drops the brightness by only 6 percent, which is not enough to notice or bother considering when positioning the projector. It works much like an auto iris to make dark scenes darker, lowering power usage by as much as 70% and extending lamp life. There is also a SmartEco mode, which isn't an eco mode in the usual sense. Economic mode reduces brightness by about 33% compared with Normal mode. Our test sample of the BenQ HT2050A produced ANSI lumen readings for Normal and Economic lamp settings with the zoom lens at its widest angle setting as follows: Fixed vertical offset conducive to ceiling mounting, but may be problematic for mounting on shelf behind seating area.īrightness.Lamp Replacements are $249, far higher than average in this price class.Moderate size and weight only 7.3 pounds.Better-than-typical warranty: 3 years for the projector including Express Exchange with free shipping one way 1 year or 2000 hours for the lamp.Optional Wireless FHD kit available for wireless, uncompressed streaming at up to 1080p 60Hz WiFi dongle for connection to mobile devices also available.Supports ISF color calibration for ISF Day and Night modes (if you're willing to pay a technician to calibrate it).Full 3D works with DLP-Link glasses drop in brightness compared to 2D is at the high end of the typical range.

Fast input lag: 16.4 ms with Fast mode on.

Robust audio: The onboard 10-watt mono speaker delivers better than typical sound quality with Cinema, Game, Music and Sports modes enough volume to easily fill a large room.

Vertical and horizontal keystone correction.

3,500 hour lamp life in full power mode, 5,000 hours in Economic mode, up to 7,000 hours in SmartEco mode.

Virtually no rainbow artifacts, thanks to the six-panel color wheel spinning at 6X speed.

RGBRGB color wheel delivers high quality color, largely because there's no white panel to boost white brightness far above color brightness.

Shorter-than-typical throw ratio delivers bigger-than-typical images in tight spaces.

1.3x zoom: longer zoom range than usual for the price.

However, BenQ says that the focus may be a little soft at 180' and larger. Even with video optimized settings, the HT2050A is bright enough, at about 1530 ANSI lumens, for as much as a 200' diagonal 16:9 image in a dark room with a 1.3 gain screen or a 125' image with moderate ambient light.

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