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BenQ PB6100 by WhoAmi - Jul 20, 2005
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| SVGA (800x600), 1500 ANSI Lumens, 5.6 lbs, $999 (MSRP) |
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| Personal Experience |
| I have owned and used my PB6100 for approximately 10 months now. It is the first projector I have owned, and I project it against MDF painted with GooSystems Digital Grey. Now it took some time for everything to flesh out, including building a crapbox PC to run PC games and movies via VGA, setting up game consoles PS2 and GC via S-Video, and swapping out my standard digital cable box for an HD digital cable box from Time Warner NYC. I plug in the HD cable box to my PB6100 via a component to VGA cable. Pro: It’s a really good deal. The quality of the image is really nice for the price. Also, the image’s contrast, color saturation, quality, jumped leaps and bounds after I installed the MDF with the GooSystems paint versus shooting against a white wall, which I had to use while I waited for the paint in the mail. Also, HD looks really amazing when it’s not going crazy (more below!). Con: First, there’s no component input, which makes it really difficult to plug in component HD devices without buying cables and adapters. That is why I’m still using S-Video on my PS2 and GC. Second, I don’t know why, but some games, especially those with scrolling words such as those that occur in Gran Turismo 4 where car/race information is scrolled right to left, is really blurry. Maybe its because of the 480i S-Video input? If someone can offer me some advice or some remedy, that’ll be great. Third, sometimes HD digital cable goes crazy. When something really explosive happens on screen, or there’s lots of special effects going on, or even when there’s a commercial, the display would turn blue for a moment and adjust the screen resolution, and suddenly you missed the movie’s climax! This happens only with HD digital cable and not with any DVD movies. Again, if someone can offer me some advice, that’ll be great. Fourth, after about 4 months of use, there appeared several weird artifacts across the display. Sort of like very unfocused dust particles inside the projector. It seems like there’s dust on the lens, etc, but after removing the lens and hosing everything down in and out with compressed air, the problem is still present, but a bit faded. It doesn’t bother me THAT much unless the movie/show/game is displaying a completely black screen and my living room is pitch black. I wish there was some form of dust filtering. BOTTOM LINE: It’s a very cheap projector (I got mine last year for about $700) with impressive image quality. The build and design leaves a bit to be desired, but hey, its cheap and a good start for those who are interested in adding a projector to their list of techie gadgets. Also, neither I nor my girlfriend are affected by the rainbow affect. I believe I noticed it for the first 3 hours, but it didn’t leave me sick or nauseous. After about 2 days, we never noticed it again. I logged a little over 700 hours with the bulb in mostly Economy mode, and I guess luckily (judging by some accounts), the bulb still looks bright and fresh – except for that artifact I mentioned above. Anyway, there’s a lot of projectors to choose from now compared to last year, all with really good prices and better quality so its hard for me to imagine anyone buying a PB6100 now unless you find an ultra good deal and just want some new toy to start off your projector experience. And if that’s it, then its not a bad place to start! |
