BenQ's new premium projector is a bright, native 4K beamer that's got an Award-winning Sony in its sights

Lewis Empson
·2 min read
BenQ W5800 on a dark background with a light beam coming out of the lens.
BenQ W5800 on a dark background with a light beam coming out of the lens.

BenQ has announced the latest addition to its CinePrime series of projectors, and it looks like it could be the company's most serious model it's made to date. The W5800 touts a high-brightness figure and a feature set that should appease even the most scrutinous cinephiles.

This is a 4K DLP laser projector, which incorporates BenQ's CinematicColour and HDR-Pro technologies. However, unlike most of BenQ's other 4K projectors, this doesn't use pixel-shifting technology to achieve the resolution. This is a native 4K projector that's capable of outputting the full 8.3 million pixels – unsurprisingly, the price reflects that, but we'll touch on that later.

It boasts a high claimed brightness figure of 2600 ANSI Lumens, with BenQ suggesting that this is the world's first laser projector with that brightness figure. It can also project an image up to 200 inches, with a 1.6x zoom function that allows for an immersive 150-inch picture from just 16.6 feet away. The W5800 also includes a 2D lens shift feature (vertical 土 50% and horizontal 土 21% max.) which means you can centre the picture even if your positioning space is limited.

BenQ says that the W5800 covers 100 per cent of the DCI-P3 and Rec. 709 colour spaces, meaning it's capable of reproducing "true Hollywood colours". It also features the new HDR-Pro engine which enhances contrast, as well the Dynamic Black Technology which increases the contrast range in HDR mode, making light and dark scenes more vivid and impactful.

The W5800 also supports HDR10 and HDR10+ with dynamic picture metadata which individually optimises each frame; this is notably something that the Sony VPL-XW5000ES does not have. It even includes Filmmaker mode, which supports high-quality 24p HDR video playback with minimal judder, which BenQ says will help to "preserve the purity of the original image".

Unsurprisingly, a projector this serious requires a serious price tag. The W5800 costs £4600 / $5999 / AU$8999, putting it uncomfortably close to the multi-Award winning Sony VPL-XW5000ES (£5999 / $5998 / AU$9990), meaning BenQ has some serious competition within this space. Only time will tell if BenQ can dethrone the reigning champion, but we're excited to see BenQ's expansion into the premium projector space either way.

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