BenQ PE8700

Get over the badge and you're in for a treat

It might sound like the name of a well-known DIY store, but actually, BenQ prefers supplying projectors to selling power tools. So far, most of these products have been aimed at the corporate presentation market. However, the PE8700 marks the Taiwanese firm's arrival in the high-end home cinema arena.

First impressions of the unit are extremely positive. The chassis is pretty solid and the styling is simple if rather nondescript (strangely reminiscent of recent Sony efforts). In the centre of the projector is a blue panel which houses the menu controls and zoom/focus rings,while either side of the unit are two large exhausts to prevent meltdown. Additional controls, plus a funky coloured orange backlight, are provided on the otherwise unspectacular grey handset.

As with most projectors,set-up is reasonably straightforward. BenQ has left nothing to chance on the connections front, with BNC connectors for High Definition TV hook-up (though it's not as if we're ever going to get HDTV over here) plus the usual composite,component and S-Video sockets. A very basic (12-degree) keystone adjustment is provided, but if you want to ensure a rectangular picture, you'll need to mount the unit level with the centre of the screen. More useful are the picture-in-picture and picture-on-picture functions, which enable you to watch movies while having a big-screen Windows Messenger video chat on your PC.

Whereas LCD projectors used to dominate the home cinema market, DLP (Digital Light Processing) is now the technology of choice for most manufacturers. And it's not too hard to see why. This DLP model features a six-segment colour wheel which eliminates the strange rainbow effect you get while moving your head when watching pictures on some DLP devices.

What's more,colours are among the best we've ever seen from a projector - maybe slightly tinged with orange when displaying reds, but nothing like the Tango effect you get with some four-segment colour-wheel models. Our only small criticisms are that the throw isn't the best around and lowish brightness levels mean you'll have to keep the curtains shut for daylight viewing.

BenQ might have some way to go in convincing people it's not a DIY store, but with superb models such as this one, it's definitely heading in the right direction. For big-screen viewing,the PE8700 is certainly a worthy alternative to any plasma screen on the market.
Chris Price

KEY FEATURES:
Single-chip DLP projector (with six-segment colour wheel), native 16:9 resolution (1,280 x 720 pixels), 210W lamp (2,000-hour lamp life), 2,000:1 contrast ratio, 32dB fan, 1,000 ANSI lumens brightness, PAL/SECAM/NTSC, connections: 1 x composite video in, 1 x S-Video in, 1 x component video in, 1 x progressive component video in (BNC), 1 x PC in (RGB/DVI), 1 x RS-232 (8-pin mini DIN), 12V trigger (mini-jack), dimensions: 400 x 116 x 347mm, weight: 6.7kg