BenQ W1070 Projector - Physical Tour 2

Posted on June 7, 2013 by Art Feierman

W1070 Menus

No surprises here at all. Nor should there be. BenQ's been going with the same general look and feel to the menus, that they used back when I owned one of their PE-8700 projectors. (6 years ago?) The main menus are selected by using the navigation to move right or left. The first menu on the left is the Picture menu. It has all the usual things you will find there, starting with selecting from the modes.

Unfortunately, you can't press Enter and see all the modes and pick one using the navigation. Instead, you have to scroll through them one at a time. The good news is most people won't need to change the mode once setup, except if you need Dynamic mode from time to time.

BenQ W1070
Menus Slideshow

Advanced Sub-menu

Below, the Advanced sub-menu. Note the Clarity control. Click enter and you will find only an Image noise adjustment. I was trying to figure out why an extra layer of submenu for a single control. I have concluded its because some other BenQ models have more than one control in their Clarity sub.

User Management Mode

The User Mode management let's you determine which of the other modes you want to use as the starting point for setting up User 1,2, 3.

Display Sub-menu

The Display sub-menu, has digital zoom - you might find it useful. It's not something you expect on a home projector, but it is a fairly common business projector feature. The W1070 has Overscan, but not Masking. It's nice to have a choice, if you have to get rid of some image noise around the edges as sometimes shows up with cable or satellite HDTV. There is also 3D which brings up a submenu.

Audio Menu

Here's how you control the audio.

Color Management

Here they are, the standard Color Temp controls, and below it, the full CMS for individual color calibration.

System Setup

The System Setup menu offers you everything from menu language selection to a Sleep timer. From here you can also change sources, and set the orientation (Front or Rear projection, Ceiling to Table).

System Setup: Advanced

Interestingly, usually "Advanced" menus are sub-menus, as is the case with the Picture - Advanced menu. The System Setup Advanced, though is a separate menu. Some of the highlights - Lamp settings (Normal Economic and Smart-Eco), there's a test pattern, High Altitude and Quick cool modes. Plus, this projector offers password protection (more of a business projector feature), and also the ISF menu for calibrators.

Input Password

The password area for entering the ISF saveable modes. The idea here, is that most calibrators are ISF certified. You've got two modes here for them to calibrate usually referred to as ISF Day and Night (with and without ambient light). Of course, few people will hire a professional calibrator for their W1070 projector. Which reminds me. We publish most of our calibration settings here.

Information Menu

Our last menu for today is one found on virtually every projector - a static Information menu. The W1070 provides most of the usual stuff - resolution, source, and firmware version, etc. That said, some projectors provide far more details.

BenQ W1070 Remote Control

I really don't care if a projector is supposedly designed for a family room or a dedicated home theater. Any remote that isn't backlit starts out with one big strike against it. This BenQ has that one strike.

The remote control for the W1070 is a smaller white affair, but still far bigger than "credit card" type remotes. Buttons are mostly small, as the whole remote is only about four inches long.

I won't bother to tell you what all the buttons are, as they are readable in the photo on the right.

Click Image to Enlarge

BenQ W1070 Lens Throw

For a standard 100" diagonal 16:9 screen, the BenQ W1070 can be placed as close as 8 feet 4 inches, or as far back as 10 feet, 10 inches. The lens is a 1.3:1 manual zoom.

BenQ W1070 Lens Shift

The BenQ W1070, almost to my amazement, offers lens shift at this price. Given, the amount of vertical lens shift is minor compared to almost any other projector, there is enough to do the job nicely for most ceiling mount setups and for just setting down the projector on a table projecting onto a screen.

BenQ was the first DLP manufacturer of relatively affordable to put lens shift on projectors, and I'm going back more than 5 years. Lens shift isn't easy for DLP projectors (at least affordably) and the range tends to be limited.

Like many other BenQ's, lens shift starts at "0 offset" with the lens even with the bottom of the screen (if table top).

Turn the small (flat head) screw behind the sliding door on the top, and you can raise the image about 6 inches higher on a 100" screen. This should work fine for table top usage, or ceiling mounting with normal ceiling heights.