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Brightness. The TK700 is rated for 3,200 ANSI lumens. The brightest picture mode in both SDR and HDR was Bright while in Normal lamp mode. In SDR, this picture mode measured 2,818 ANSI lumens, which is 12% lower than its rated specification. HDR10 mode in HDR measured 2,796 ANSI lumens, which is 13% under the rated spec. HDR calibration for grayscale had similar results. Where HDR calibration will suffer though is in the CMS due to being limited to Rec.709 color space.
Users who are looking for an affordable, well-performing projector capable of taking advantage of the newest current-generation gaming consoles but have always been on the fence about projection gaming will be glad to know that this is a very suitable solution—assuming you can work around or live with some of the TK700's limitations. The TK700 utilizes a lamp based light source and Texas Instruments 0.47-inch DLP chip. Any single chip DLP projector has the potential for showing rainbow effects, but fortunately, during my time with the projector, I did not experience any in any content that I viewed. Of course, 4K projectors that use the 0.47-inch DLP DMD are not true native 4K. They actually utilize 4-way XPR (Expanded Pixel Resolution) pixel shift at 240Hz to take the DMD's native 1920x1080 resolution up to 8.3 million pixels on screen. The projector does accept a 3840x2160 resolution signal and it's actually quite sharp, to the point where only those with the keenest eyes would likely be able to see it is not native 4K. The color temperature settings that were most accurate out of the box were actually Native and Cool, which provided a tighter grayscale until about 50% stimuli (brightness) and then starts to push blue through the remainder of the grayscale as it gets brighter. The Normal and Warm color temperature settings pushed red throughout the entire grayscale range. Measurements also revealed that Native color temperature put colors within the Rec.709 color space closer to being on target as well. The next game I wanted to try was Gran Turismo 7 on PlayStation 5. This game also required a small amount of time to adjust to the difference in latency, though it took less time than with King of Fighters. Unfortunately, GT7 does not have a 120fps mode. While running the game in its 4K/60 HDR mode I found that my breaking was slightly off when going around corners. Outside of that everything else virtually felt the same as when played on my OLED. This was another game that was displayed beautifully on the projector with rich and vibrant colors, great HDR, and pure immersion. Another treat playing at 100 inches in HDR. The second is that the high brightness levels make the TK700 usable in daytime. Sure, you lose some contrast, making it hard to make much out in the murkier dungeons of Elden Ring, but otherwise all is fine. What’s more, the projector is still usable in the Smart Eco setting, which doubles the Normal lamp life of 4,000 hours without reducing the brightness levels to a daft extent.
Built for 4K Gaming
For full HD 3D, the TK700 supports DLP-Link glasses and offers a single 3D mode. I didn't notice any crosstalk in my tests and saw only a hint of 3D-related motion artifacts in scenes that tend to cause them. However, using two different DLP-Link glasses—including one from BenQ—I ran into a repeatable problem that I've never seen before. At specific points in one of our test clips, the colors first changed suddenly and then the glasses lost sync with the left-right alternation of frames. BenQ says it has not been able to replicate the issue, and that if it were to show up, it would be covered under the projector's warranty. Calibrated image settings from any third-party do not account for the significant potential for sample-to-sample variation, nor the different screen sizes and materials, lighting, lamp usage, or other environmental factors that can affect image quality. Projectors should always be calibrated in the user's own space and tuned for the expected viewing conditions. However, the settings provided here may be a helpful starting point for some. Always record your current settings before making adjustments so you can return to them as desired. Refer to the Performance section for some context for each calibration. SDR Using the provided 2-point grayscale controls I targeted the production industry standard D65 neutral gray white point. Afterwards, a full CMS (color management system) calibration for the RGBCMY primaries and secondary colors was performed as well. Results for post calibration grayscale came in very well given the TK700 only has a 2-point control for grayscale. Max DeltaE was 2.6 for 100% white, while 3 points were under 2dE, the rest being under 1dE. With the CMS portion I targeted 75% saturation and luminance so as to capture where the majority of content resides. 80% and lower looked great though for 100% saturated colors the dE max figures were as high as 8dE. For viewing 1080p SDR movies and video, Game mode delivered nicely saturated color and acceptable color accuracy. When viewing in a dark room, it delivered good contrast and a sense of three-dimensionality in both dark scenes and more brightly lit scenes, along with almost all of the detail I know to look for in the shadows. It also maintained the dramatic visual impact that the dark scenes were designed to deliver.
The TK700 comes with a wide range of preset modes to make the most of your projector. Featuring 3D, Bright, Cinema, Game, HDR, HDR Game, HDR10, HLG, Living Room and Sport preset modes with unique settings for each mode, it’s easy to tailor the projector to your ideal setting.
The BenQ TK700 is a great all-rounder that shines for big-screen gaming
Gaming. I'll start with gaming since it is this projector's primary focus. All gaming was done using BenQ's Game mode with Fast Mode on and Details Adjustment on Low as I found that provided the best balance. During my time with the TK700 I played several games across multiple genres. I started with the Xbox Series X and Halo Infinite. Immediately upon just going into the Series X dashboard I was able to feel the responsiveness. With the Series X I had it set to output at 4K/60Hz, and while in game it felt great. It wasn't as fast as, say, a dedicated gaming monitor or a something like an OLED, but it was pretty good—to the point that I didn't have to change anything with how I play normally to adjust. The HDR added a great sense of depth and highlights. I didn't feel like I was missing anything and being able to play with that level of responsiveness at 100 inches was a real treat. It can’t be stressed enough, though, that these response times on a projector are very novel indeed, and given this is a projector with native 4K you’re not going to find better than this performance at the moment. All but a small number of inveterate competitive gamers (or dyed in the wool pedants) are going to notice any input lag. Basically, you’re probably not going to get better performance than this. Initial impressions of the out of the box (OOTB) performance pre-calibration were that Bright and User would be very suitable for Bright Room viewing with a fair amount of ambient light. If you wanted a little more accuracy in that setting, the Living Room picture mode would be the ideal go-to. Dark room viewing would be best to utilize Cinema picture mode. With any of these picture modes using either Native or Normal color temperatures would come down to preference. The HDR modes are a little simpler due to both modes performing roughly the same. None of the picture modes were dead on accurate OOTB however, and that was very visible in all of the colors.
It’s the colours that swing it for the W1800, though. Not only did this projector slightly exceed Rec.709 in testing but colour accuracy is fantastic by projector standards, with an average Delta E of 2.89. Its only serious rival here is the Viewsonic X10-4K and that’s slightly more expensive. Zoom Lens Light Loss. The TK700's light loss when shifting from the widest zoom ring position to its longest telephoto ring position was 16.1%. Featuring 4K resolution, the TK700 maximises the graphic content from the latest games. Unlike other projectors, the signal is native, not upsampled. This means you get to see the colours, texture and depth of the game – just as the game creator intended. HDR takes the picture to the next level, with crystal-clear detail – even within the darkest areas of the screen. Featuring super-high brightness at 3200 ANSI Lumens, the TK700 is ideal for use in ‘normal’ living room light levels. This means you get vivid, dynamic colour, without having to draw curtains and blinds. Users who would calibrate will be glad to know you can get a fairly accurate picture with the controls given. The controls provided within the projector are your standard fare of 2-point grayscale controls and CMS (color management system) to adjust RGBCMY primary and secondary color points. These same controls are available in HDR picture modes as well. Grayscale can be dialed in nicely, though given the gamut specification, color can't be dialed in to fully cover the Rec.709 color space, and there's no support for WCG (wide color gamut) for HDR.Similar to its predecessor, the TK700 has a specification of covering 96% of the Rec.709 color gamut; we verified it with a very close measurement of 94.6%. So, while there are definitely some similarities between the two models, the most obvious difference is in throw ratio, where the TK700's 1.3X zoom is spec'd at 1.13 to 1.46:1. The TK700 also has only one special genre-based game mode where its predecessor had three (more on that below). Outside of the obvious difference in the lens (which has a shroud on the TK700STi to prevent light spill) and a few various markings, such as the LumiExpert and 4K badges, the design of the TK700 and TK700STi look identical. Input Lag. Input lag measurements were taken using the lag measurement function on a Murideo 8K Seven Generator. Within the TK700's Game picture mode, in the Game Settings menu, Fast Mode must be turned to on to receive the lowest input lag. These measurements were performed three times for each signal listed for a total of 30 measurements. All measurements averaged 2-3ms higher than the measurements listed in specification, though additional testing with other displays suggest this may be attributable to the measuring device. SDR Viewing. I decided to watch Skyfall in 1080p and the presentation was good. In the scene where Bond meets Q in the Museum the flesh tones looked mostly right—not the best that I've seen, but very good. All the detail I was expecting to see was there as well, such as those in the design on the wallpaper behind them, the stripes in Q's white shirt, etc. Everything resolved perfectly. The only thing that was a little off was the color and flesh tones. It wasn't bad, but it was missing just a tad bit of saturation that I know should be there in Q's face.
The brightness limitation means the BenQ isn’t the best projector for use in brighter rooms. It is usable with some ambient light but it’s undoubtedly at its best in a darkened room. But there’s more to picture quality than brightness, as I’ll get to in a minute. The devices I used for reviewing content post-calibration were Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, Gaming PC with Nvidia GeForce RTX3090 graphics, Oppo UDP-203, and Fire TV 4K. The TK700 did a decent job with shadow detail and highlights in SDR. In HDR it didn't fare as well as I would have hoped; note that the TK700 does not offer any type of dynamic iris to assist with dark content. Motion was excellent however in everything I demoed while using it from games, to movies, and test patterns. This projector does not have any motion interpolation features, which makes perfect sense considering it is a gaming projector and to get the best performance when it comes to input latency you would want all of that turned off. So it's nice to see it has such good motion on all types of content without the need of such features.
Features
Input lag is the major curse for gamers. There’s little more frustrating to a gamer than when the vision just doesn’t respond fast enough to the controls. It can mean the difference between onscreen life or death, a lap record or second place or simply missing out on completing the level in time. With its class-leading 16ms response, the TK700 is amongst the fastest responding 4K projectors in its class. Now there is no excuse for not beating your rival to the draw. User picture mode uncalibrated is 99.6% as bright as Bright picture mode and HDR10 picture mode is 99.2% as bright. For home entertainment, and for gamers who want to move up to a big-screen 4K HDR image and the shortest input lags available, the BenQ TK700 can be a solid entry-level projector. If rainbow artifacts are an issue for you, however, be sure to consider the Optoma UHD35 instead, which offers slightly higher brightness along with essentially the same input lag times, and did a better job of avoiding showing the red-green-blue flashes in our tests. The projector also has a relatively short throw of 1.3:1 with the zoom control at full, giving you a 100in picture at a distance of only 2.5m. The only worrying spec is a maximum brightness of just 2,000 ANSI lumens. BenQ W1800 review: Price and competition Among the other notable features of the TK700 is 3D, which is actually very bright when triggered, though the projector does not offer any control to increase or decrease the 3D effect. Also, the TK700 includes BenQ's LumiExpert, which is useful for automatically adjusting perceived brightness by tweaking the gamma based on the ambient light in the room. This feature may prove useful if you place this projector in a multi-purpose room such as a living room that has a fair amount of ambient light that changes throughout the day or you like to watch with different levels of room lighting at different times.
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