Release date of the BenQ w1080st & First Reviews - Page 2

Asked the german support today once more about release date in germany...

Answer: at present there is no release planned for the DACH region.

Seriously??? That really sucks...i already sold my old proki

BenQ still isn't shipping these yet. I talked with a projector people rep and he said the delays are to make sure the W1080ST has all the firmware updates of the W1070. No ETA from them or from BenQ. Who knows when this will actually be released. I wonder if BenQ is teaming up with Emotiva on this one. haha.

since this is such a short throw projector that you can place just a few feet away from the screen on top of a table,are there any small portable power sources that you can use or "powerpacks" that you can use as an outlet placed very near the projector so you won't have to deal with the unit's own power cord being all over the floor.it would also be a nicer presentation visually without having to see the projector's own cord going all the way across the floor to reach the wall outlet.

I just got a notification from Amazon that they have pushed up the expected arrival (to them, I'm guessing) to Feb-22.

EDIT: Just checked my order status page on Amazon, and it has expected delivery of Feb-01 to Feb-22... so maybe I'll know or have it by Friday... could it be?

any suggestions on the problem i mentioned above in concealing the power cord if the projector is placed on top of a table a few feet away from the wall outlet.i just don't want the cord going from the top of the table downwards on to the carpet then going all the way across to reach the wall outlet.

Just saw a transaction go onto my cc -- Amazon charged me for the W1080ST, and the order status page has gone to "shipping soon" with a delivery estimate of Feb-24... Anybody else?

Get some information about TESLA. He tried to find a way to transmit power wireless over the air...just kidding...but there are some powerstations available. I dont think its the best way powering a projector in case of running out of battery whithout cooling down the bulp of the projector...live with the cable!

I don't see any CC charge yet but Amazon told me it should be delivered between 2/26 and 3/1. Nice to think it might be here in less than a week.

Wow, mine's out for delivery... shipped today and is scheduled for delivery today. Can't wait to see it...

I ordered on Jan-31...

EDIT: Just came in. Revision 101, made in January-2013. I'll check to see what firmware version it's on when I get home... I hope this W1080ST doesn't have the any of the (minor?) fw issues the 1070 had...
Edited by Solarbeat - 2/20/13 at 1:14pm

Ok - first impressions (I'm a total novice, so take it all with a grain of salt):

• Soft in the corners, just as the Chinese review noted. Adjusting to make the corners sharp makes the center soft -- annoying if you're displaying text, as it's quite noticeable, but not something you'd notice when watching a movie. This was my main take-away from the first time firing this up...
• Bright -- maybe too much so, even in SmartEco mode.
• Not loud, but not quiet either - sitting about 6ft away from it, it's nearly as loud as my Optoma HD70 was directly overhead.
• Hard to judge black levels and color, as I'm currently projecting on a beige wall as my HT is under construction (plans submitted for wife approval).
• I suppose my reading comprehension was off, as I expected that this was pretty much a short throw version of the W1070, and it performs similarly, but it does not have vertical lens-shift like the W1070.
• Firmware 1.01
• All told, it fits my needs better - I'm planning to do some gaming on it, and this new generation of game consoles will need a small area to move around in... now I just need to see if the short throw mounting location works, as it'd be smack dab in the middle of the room, about a foot and a half off of a 8ft ceiling. (tall friends are no longer allowed)

Is the brightness uniform evenly?
The w710st is not uniform as you can see a darker side depending where you are viewing.

What's the best way to test this?

If you have a dvr you can pause at a white or black image. Will be easier to check once you get your screen up.

If anyone knows where I can get one till March the 10th I'd really love to know, I'm going to the US on friday and I wanna come back with one!! plzplz

ordered mine from Amazon.. was one of the last few available on the 23rd. Now they say none available until 1-2 months.. Talk about demand/ low supply. Will be here on the 27th with mount and HDMI 25 ft. Screen wont be here until Friday so I will keep all posted on quality when I install

Mine coming tomorrow. I'll check on the brightness uniformity.

Mine is in. Bad news on brightness uniformity. Darker on the right side of screen. Keep in mind that I am using HP screen so the brightness is amplified. When watching from off angle this is no issue for me just like the w710st.
The plus side, oh there are many! Colors are very nice out of the box using echo mode. Many more user controls compared to the 710. Blacks are much deeper than the 710 which makes for a pleasing picture on the eyes. Sharpness is about even with the 710. Keep in mind too the 710 is 720p and half the price of the 1080st. Skin tones seem spot on very similar to my JVC RS46. My source is Directv HD. No 3D. Sorry not interested. If the brightness uniformity issue could somehow be fixed with these short throw projectors I would give it an A. Since it has this problem only grading it a C.

Are you sure it is not just where you are viewing from? Seating away from the lens on retroreflective screens can cause pretty significant uniformity variance... How far behind and to the side is your viewing position?

Others have seen the same as I on the w710st and they had a 1.0 gain screen. Another even sent his 710 back Benq after 600 hours and Benq tech said they saw the same after testing other 710. They concluded that it is the short throw technology.

The uniformity issue is noticed when viewing dead center. No issue viewing off angle.

Don't doubt that there could be some uniformity issue, just know HP screens are tricky when evaluating uniformity. The fact that the uniformity disappears off-axis is somewhat odd... if your right side is darker, moving to the left should improve uniformity (moving your position more inline with the lens) and moving to the right should make it worse (higher angle & lower gain to right side exacerbating the issue). If there is no issue off-axis at all, I'd venture you may be outside the half-gain cone of the HP and in the 'flat' section of the gain curve (not seeing a difference there would imply decent uniformity)... any chance you can post a pic from as close to the lens as you can place a camera?

I want to buy the Benq w1080st to replace my Optoma GT720 (1280x800 DLP 3D short throw).
Thanks for the uniformity issue warning.
The black level will be the same of the W1070?

This is a very interesting review (with some comparison!!):
http://www.projectorreviews.com/benq/w1070/image.php

I hope also to reduce the Pixeling ("mosquito screen effect") of my actual Optoma Gt720 (about 150" of screen, 3,15m of width) with the Full-HD.

Sorry. Waiting for UPS to pickup to send back to Amazon.

Black levels were good for this price range DLP. I was surprised how good they were. On par with the Benq w7000 but not JVC good.

I did put in The Dark Knight blu ray for a few minutes before I packed it up. Very nice.

I got mine yesterday and by no means do I know what I'm doing when reviewing projectors so I thought I would just note some of my observations.

First impressions were that the color and sharpness was very clear. Animated stuff really popped which was quite nice. I have factory settings at the moment so there's certainly room for improvement in most areas. As I plan to ceiling mount, I wasn't going to do much calibration until I got it in place. The blacks look fine to me when projected on a gray wall (no screen yet). You can see a little difference between shadows outside the projection area and the black bars inside the projection area but certainly nothing I'm concerned about.

There does seem to be some small focus issue with the top right corner (when sitting on a table) as I can make the other three fairly sharp but that corner seems to be a little fuzzy. Given that the center of the lens is about 4 inches left of center, that means that the top right corner would be the furtherest one from the center of the lens which might explain the fuzziness. With some fine tuning you can almost get it to go away but on the test pattern it's still noticable to me (although not when watching an actual movie).

The 3D was neat to have at home. I've never had a 3D system before so not sure what to comment about on that as the only thing I have to compare it to is the theaters. I used the sainsonic glasses and noticed a dramatic decrease in brightness (which was expected) but I certainly didn't have to strain to watch it. If looking for it (as the forum has taught me to do) you can see a slight red tinge with sainsonics in the black bars around the picture (just as you can with the W1070).

I watched the Dark Knight briefly and the picture (including blacks) looked quite nice to me. Again I'm no pro and have little to compare it to but it looked great to everyone watching.

There are a couple concerns other than the slight focus issue (as once mounted and finely tuned it should barely be noticable). First is that the fan after turning the unit off has some sort of clicking noise every 5-10 seconds. The fan stayed on for 60-90 seconds as it should but I'm not sure what the clicking is. Also after running for about 4 hours it was extremely hot underneth. It was sitting on a semi-flexible leather ottoman so it may not have gotten the airflow it needed underneth but it was quite warm to the touch. I have another old Mitsubishi LCD projector that was given to me that has never gotten that hot after that amount of usage. Might not be an issue for anyone ceiling mounting but thought I would mention it.

Additionally, I haven't done a complete read of the manual but there must be some sort of capacitor in the projector to help with power flickers or something as when turning off the unit and unplugging it the orange standy power light stays on for a good 30-45 seconds. It doesn't really make any difference operationally to the porjector but just something I noticed.
Edited by sketch660 - 2/27/13 at 2:08pm

My first post, I decided to finally join the avs forum to comment on my newest projector, coming from the optoma gt 750 and comparing the two the Ben Q is amazing. I'm currently projecting to a 100 inch screen with a 1.1 gain and I don't see any off the uniformity issues. I also have a panasonic vt series with close to kuros blacks and I like the picture better on this pj. I need a short throw projector because my man cave is kind of small an the throw is actually slightly shorter than on my gt 750. I will be selling my optoma in the next few days. I just thought I would share my short time with the 1080st. I got lucky and ordered last Saturday and got one of the last ones available. For the money I paid, extremely happy with the purchase. It also came with a decent carrying bag much better than the optoma back pack.

I ran it at about a 145" diagonal last night on wide aspect and could see a lot of warping in the corners. The previous comment I made was done on the auto aspect which looked much better but was a much smaller picture more in the center of the screen. Only watched a couple shows last night so I'll have to do some more testing tonight to see if it's doing it on everything or just the show I was watching. I kind of expect that it will continue as it's not projecting onto a concave screen so the distance to those far corners is much more but BenQ says that the projector should project images between 40" and 300" so I would think it should still look decent at 145"
Edited by sketch660 - 2/28/13 at 2:15pm