BenQ GP1 LED pocket projector reviewed: loved, possibly lurved

The universal acclaim for BenQ's GP1 LED projector is deafening. Naturally, some trade-offs were made in brightness, contrast, and resolution in order to squeeze things down to a palm-sized 5.4 x 4.7 x 2.1-inch footprint. But at just 1.4-pounds, it won't cause your bicep, atrophied by pantywaist netbooks, too much strain. Thanks to a LED light source with a 20,000 hour lifespan, this $499 DLP projector manages to spread 100 lumens across 858 x 600 pixels with a 2,000:1 contrast -- specs that give solid results when projecting a 40-inch image in a bright, shades-drawn room on up to 80-inches in near-black environments. Better yet, pop in a USB stick loaded with images (JPEG, GIF, BMP, TIFF) or videos (MPEG4, MJPEG, xvid, 3ivX) and the projector will automatically launch a media playback menu -- no laptop required. The lack of zoom, an ailment common in all these tiny projectors, will limit placement and a measured 38dB (from a distance of 30cm) operational hum will be distracting to home theater buffs or cubical monkeys forced into the sleepy corporate dens of PowerPoint. But all-in-all, BenQ's come up with a winner, and truth doesn't make a noise.

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[(Unverified) Posted May 25th 2009 5:19AM]

TOO EARLY IN THE MORN FOR ME

[EI8HT Posted May 25th 2009 5:21AM]

it's nice to know that benq is an equal rights employer and doesn't mind hiring people with down syndrome

[(Unverified) Posted May 25th 2009 5:44AM]

DAMN RIGHT♠

[Jakob Posted May 25th 2009 5:54AM]

What a guy :D Look at his pulsing lips.

[(Unverified) Posted May 25th 2009 6:59AM]

What is causing that hum? Aren't LEDs supposed to be really energy efficient, thus generating small amounts of heat and making fans unnecessary?

[(Unverified) Posted May 25th 2009 7:26AM]

the LED itself might not be taking up much energy by itself, but the circuitry which regulate and supply its power does...
if you have an LED bulb, the actual bulb is cool to the touch but it would usually be surrounded by heatsinks that cool the circuitry

[Wwhat Posted May 25th 2009 11:11AM]

Well yeah high capacity LED from a watt and over do have/need a cooling fin, but there's no need to use a fan for that surely, a large passive heatsink can cool a modern 100W graphicscard enough for use, so even a 5W LED should be possible to be cooled passively, as does the powersupply.

But it's part of the ongoing effort to make noise, same reason that SSD card of OCZ has a small fan, and same reason they stand outside your house chipping wood, even if you are in a city, noise is mandatory.

[Chuuchdizzle Posted May 25th 2009 7:06AM]

subtle white stripes reference there guys

[(Unverified) Posted May 25th 2009 8:27AM]

hehe -- Thomas

[Charbax Posted May 25th 2009 7:19AM]

I'm posting a HD review of it with detailed format and USB host codec testing at http://techvideoblog.com as soon as I have completed the testing.

Being able to connect your USB stick or even USB hard drive to it directly to play videos from it is really a killer application I think.

If they make the USB feature to work correctly, you could basically throw out your computer, your HDTV, your DVD player and everything else in your house, and just use this kind of product for entertainment.

So far, even though 100 lumen sounds little, it's still very bright and awesome for entertainment in a dark room (cinemas are supposed to be dark anyways). If they can lower the price on such kind of model towards $300 by Christmas, I don't see how this type of super compact 3LED projector isn't going to be a best seller.

[Guspaz Posted May 25th 2009 11:26AM]

Hrrm...

I work for an organization that's got a bunch of 2300 and 3200 lumen projectors. The 2300L ones become useless at 120" brightly lit rooms, and are OK (but not ideal) in dimly lit rooms.

A 40" screen has 1/8th the surface area of a 120" screen, so in order to get "OK" performance in a dimly lit room, you'd need something like 300 lumen...

So yeah, this thing will work OK in a pitch-black room, but don't expect much in any other conditions.

[(Unverified) Posted May 25th 2009 1:16PM]

He should trim his fingernails...