How sharp is BENQ w7000?

BenQ usually does a fantastic job with their optics. Check out some reviews. All of them will tell you sharpness is fantastic and better than almost all 3 chip solutions. Compared to single chip dlps you're going to be better than average. There are some that are sharper but most of them are discontinued models. At the moment, you can expect it to be one of the sharpest options in the under $10000 market. The Mitsubishi HC7800D will be comparable in sharpness but with better blacks.

sharper than the Optoma HD8600?

Art at Projector Reveiws described the HD8600 sharpness as: "The Optoma HD8600 is a classic, single chip DLP projector, and as expected, produces a very sharp image. In reality, even the 0 setting (lowest) for sharpness, is probably a little too high, as there is a touch of oversharpening appearing. Still, it's relatively slight."

--- and in his much more recent review of the W7000 Art said: "Like the W6000, the W7000, as a single chip DLP projector is expected to be very sharp, and it is. Focusing about 1/3 out from the center, you get a very nicely sharp image from center to edge. No question, the W7000 is crisper than the recent Epsons, Panasonics and even Sonys - all 3 panel LCD or LCoS. Not having to converge three color optical streams really does make a difference."

Bottom line is the sharpness of the image with the Optoma HD8600 or the BenQ W7000 should be very similar when their sharpness control is adjusted to not boost high frequency details (which products an inaccurate emphasis of fine details) or to boost them equally (since it appears the HD8600 even at min. sharpness settting is overboosted). With the 3 chip projectors, be they LCD, LCoS or DLP, the sharpness can be degraded if the misconvergence of the red, blue and green colors is more than a small fraction of a pixel width and the level of misconvergence will vary from unit to unit for any of these 3-chip projectors.
Edited by Ron Jones - 6/17/12 at 5:07pm

thank u very much for the info ...

With all of the brands you've mentioned the W7000 is the sharpest so long as you are using 1.03 or greater firmware.

I'll agree with this as well. I've seen several 2011/12 projectors and feel that the W7000 is in another league in sharpness and clarity. It's actually sharper than both my Samsung D8000 plamsa (flagship 2011 model) and the Sony HX929 that I owned last year.

Of course, this is with the 1.03 firmware installed.

so u recommend the BENQ W7000 over the Optoma HD8600 overall?...

The hd8600 is a much higher-end projector with much higher-end components. Unless you need 3D or the extra brightness of the w7000, the hd8600 is going to easily beat it in overall PQ.

thanks coderguy, u gave me the answer i was looking for.