BenQ MH733 Projector Review – Picture and Sound Quality: Color Modes, Video Image Quality, Text and Presentation Quality, Audio Quality
Out of the Box Picture Quality
In the color department, the BenQ MH733 falls somewhere between solid and pretty good. Color accuracy was not as great as say your 3LCD Epsons on the market, which is not a knock, but I do think I experienced a bit more accurate overall color performance on this BenQ MH733 than the two InFocus projectors I reviewed back in the beginning of the year, the IN2128HDx and the IN116xa.
To start, in Bright mode, being a single chip DLP, there is definitely some color distortion, red is very dark and yellow is has a mustard color to it. Skin tones looked surprisingly, reasonably good on Bright mode. As is typical, use Bright mode only when you need max brightness otherwise you are going to suffer some color accuracy so just be prepared.
As you move into Presentation mode, the red did not improve very much, but you can certainly see reds become a bit bolder/brighter on the color pie chart. Skin tones performed pretty well there, better than the brightness mode on most low cost DLP projectors. sRGB starts to improve the color accuracy much more on the whole, especially red, though the skin tones looked a bit more washed out than you’d want – a bit cool.
Lastly, Cinema is definitely hands down, your best color representations and the skin tones look great. If you can sacrifice some brightness, I would recommend sticking with Cinema mode for the best overall quality and accuracy for your colors and picture.
Each of these images is taken with the brightest Lamp Setting and Cinema Mode. The BenQ MH733 performed admirably in terms of Image Quality, there were certainly some scenes that left me wanting more, some scenes seened less sharp, darker scenes especially, but on the whole, I was satisfied with the image. It’s not top of the line but for its main purposes in business and education, the BenQ MH733 is a net positive in image quality.
Claiming Full HD picture and the good contrast expected from a DLP projector, the MH733 does not disappoint in the Text and Presentation Quality department. Text is sharp. 8 pt is difficult to read as you’d expect but once you get to 10 and higher, it’s very sharp and extremely easy and clear to read. Besides no one really uses 8 point type on 1080p content, except maybe for foot notes. Too small for anyone standing more than a few feet from the screen to be able to read, no matter how sharp and clear the text is.
For the presentations themselves, the image is simply sharp. I left the projector in Cinema Mode for the PowerPoint shots to maximize color quality with the sharpness. It did not disappoint as you can see from the pictures. While you may struggle a bit with the projector’s picture quality if forced to use the Bright setting, with Cinema mode in a good lighting environment, you can feel very confident knowing the images projected behind are you look as good as you thought they did when selecting them on your computer! And there are other modes in-between, with more brightness than Cinema, and better color than Bright mode. Choose what works best in your environment, and the type of info you are sharing.
Bottom line: The image quality on the BenQ MH733 impresses for a small business/education projector.
Lastly, the speaker. The MH733 comes with a single 10 Watt speaker mounted on the left side of the projector. It is more than powerful enough to fill a classroom or boardroom but don’t expect this to fill a large university lecture hall or auditorium. You can hook up external speakers if you need the extra power but unfortunately, while you can choose which source to use, you cannot use both the external speakers and the MH733’s speaker at the same time, a feature that can aid in giving you superb sound quality on a small budget if you wanted to include a subwoofer.
As for volume control, the lowest setting is really quite loud and it increases significantly on the loudest setting. So you have a pretty loud baseline here, be aware if you need to ensure your projectors are not blaring. Of course in most circumstances you may well be able to also control the volume from the source, as is typical, with casting, Apple TV, a laptop, etc.
Bottom line, at 10 watts, it’s a booming speaker in the right environments, so especially if you are on the go or in a boardroom or classroom sized room, you can feel confident utilizing the BenQ MH733’s speakers all on their own.
