BenQ doesn't include a carrying case, but the projector is still quite portable; gamers who need a projector they can easily carry from room to room or to a friend's house will appreciate the small size and light weight. They’re smaller, yes, but the picture quality is much, much better and they’ll look good wherever you put them in your house. The only cosmetic difference between the TH685 and TH685i is the collection and orientation of inputs on the back of the projector. While it’s a bit behind the times compared to a 4K TV, the 1080p BenQ TH685 is an affordable beamer for folks who want the biggest screen possible for the least amount of cash.

Sales of the latest Xbox Series X and PS5 consoles are truly mind-boggling (despite ongoing supply issues). And while that is all very exciting (if you're into it), the reality is many gamers are perfectly content to continue at 1080p on those consoles, or with their Xbox Ones and PS4s considering how difficult it is to snag one of the new ones. Given that it will likely be used in a relatively casual way rather than being permanently fixed in a dedicated room, does the TH685 look decent on your coffee table? If you do not want to compromise on projection quality and reliability, choose an original manufacturer lamp.Its potential is undoubtedly hamstrung a bit by the projector only carrying a mono 5W speaker system, but nonetheless this beamer actually sounds much better than expected, throwing its audio a good distance clear of its enclosure, keeping dialogue clear and convincing, and delivering on the promise of lots of subtle audio detailing. Please note that in respect of replacement lamps for Epson projectors, the Original Inside lamp consists of a bulb made by Philips and a generic housing. In our standard comparison of the same movies on both 1080p SDR and 4K HDR discs, the HDR versions delivered such an obvious step up in contrast and shadow detail that I didn't need a side-by-side comparison to be sure of it. Stunning 1080p HDR graphics and 3500 ANSI Lumens of high brightness delivers intense action even in daylight. Under lab testing in a soundproof room using the industry-standard multi-point averaged methodology, BenQ measured and rated the fan noise at 35 dBA in Normal lamp mode and 29 dBA in Economic.

Vertical lens shift allows you to correct this distortion so that you can place the projector below or above the projected image (e.ports situated next to one another and directed straight out of the back as is found on almost every projector, one has been moved behind a plastic cover (along with a mini USB power connector) and dedicated as the media streaming port for the included QS01 HDMI dongle. In informal tests in a family room with lots of windows, it was still bright enough to light up an 80-inch 1. Most of my current work for PCMag is about printers and projectors, but I've covered a wide variety of other subjects—in more than 4,000 pieces, over more than 40 years—including both computer-related areas and others ranging from ape language experiments, to politics, to cosmology, to space colonies.

Like its entry-level sibling, the TH685P offers a 3,500 ANSI lumen rating and is built around a single 1,920-by-1,200-pixel DLP chip The rated 1080p native resolution is based on the projector lighting up a maximum of 1,920 by 1,080 pixels at a time, with the extra 120 rows of pixels used to add a vertical digital shift. The brightness and color reproduction also stays the same, whereas the brightness of bulb projectors can slowly degrade over time. Pay in 3 is a form of credit, may not be suitable for everyone and use may affect your credit score. For HDR testing, I used 4K discs only, since HLG content is still more of a promise than a reality at this writing.

It’s worth stressing that both the grey dark scenes and rainbow issues are less of a problem if you retain some ambient light in the room. Few if any of those 3,500 claimed nits of brightness seems to go AWOL en-route to the screen, resulting in pictures that erupt off even a neutral projector screen with far more punch than the vast majority of projectors can manage – including many models costing way more than the TH685 does. There’s also support for the awesome 120Hz refresh rates now provided by decently-specced PCs and the latest generation of Xbox and PlayStation consoles. Dark scenes bottom out into grey rather than black, costing them depth and subtle shadow detailing, as well as flattening dark colours. The third big plus of the TH685’s brightness is that, as hoped, it means you can watch its pictures in rooms that still have a bit of light in them.

I'm so new to projectors and I think I have some longstanding preconceptions about their limitations which could be out of date. But these measurements and observations are not meant to suggest either excessive or noticeable color inaccuracy that most viewers would detect, and are not necessarily unexpected in a budget projector that's designed to be used for gaming and binge-watching in moderate ambient light. That last bit may not matter as much to you if overall image size is your biggest concern, but it’s worth pointing out all the same. But if you need that HDMI port for a source component that can't feed audio separately to an outboard system, you'll need to use the analog audio out. The BenQ TW533 video projector distinguishes itself from the rest with higher contrast as well as carefully nuanced colours without reducing the compression scale.Be amazed by hyper-realistic HDR details on massive Full HD 1080p projected images that put big screen TVs to shame. The TH685 is clearly positioned by BenQ as a gaming projector, so let’s first explore its console and PC credentials. The BENQ TH685 original bulb inside includes a bulb from one of the OEM manufacturers (Osram P-VIP, Philips UHP, Ushio, Matsushita, Iwasaki HSCR) and has plastic housing from a generic manufacturer. It will also play 3D sources if you've still got any, but a lack of compatible glasses meant we weren't able to try the 3D playback out for this review. zoom and digital image shift also help make setup easier by adding flexibility for positioning, and I found it much easier to control the manual focus than with TH685 to get a sharp image across the entire screen.