Out of the Box quick review BenQ HT3550 UHD 4K projector with all glass lens elements

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  • Lex
    Moderator Emeritus
    • Apr 2001
    • 27461

    Out of the Box quick review BenQ HT3550 UHD 4K projector with all glass lens elements

    Speaking of Elements, the 3rd movie I watched "OOB" out of box, was drum role..... Blu Ray 5th Element. It's always a crowd pleaser, and we know it's a pretty good older production, that holds its own as a nice watch on better TVs, be they LCD, flat panel, old Plasma 1080P, or DLP or LASER, if you want to drop some cash, and you can drop a lot in projection arena, sometimes, you get what you pay for I guess.

    But I took it out of the box, removed my Sanyo 1080p LCD, which of course, had it's fair share of light bleed, lack of color saturation, lower black levels, and difficulty finding spot on focus on a larger projection screen.

    Well, hold the presses boys, this bad boy's got satellite com link, X Rad blah blah, you know like in Twister. RIP Bill Paxton, we miss you. Before going further, I must tell you, I watched Twister the other day before the new machine came in, it's due another viewing soon... My gosh my Aerial Acoustics SW12 subwoofer about shook brick off the house cranked up with that movie the other day.

    I digress, back to OOB, The first movie I watched was to gauge normal movies, and it happened to be in the hopper on my original Sony Blu Ray player, you know the one that cost 1K and competed with HD-DVD to win the battle of the HD mixes. Well Pretty woman had some pixelization up close, but from regular viewing distance, it was quite nice, ,with excellent color, focus, and overall viewing.

    Night two, I wanted to step it up to a newer production, I drug out Mr. and Mrs. Smith, may I say, Ms. Angelina never looked finer. Whoa! Up close, zero pixelization when moved to my Pioneer Elite 3D BRay, from a couple of years back. Not a really high $ player, but does a pretty good job, except it locked up right off the bat, and I had to reboot it.

    It was a relatively simple setup, though, I am going to have to change some setup in my room and make it a better theater again. I'm stoked.



    The all glass elements provide acccurate focus, corner to corner detail, excellent color rendition, and black blacks, with a bright OOB projector setup. I was rather surprised to find I had pretty loud audio right out of the box, from the projector! I did not even know it had that. I went in the menu and that is the one adjustment I have made so far, I turned it down all the way.

    I'll hop in the menu system and tweak a bit soon, not to much though, because frankly, I don't think it needs much. I will likely turn the lighting down to save on bulb life, I mean it is bright in my darkish cave like room!!!

    Mr. and Mrs. Smith was an excellent overall production, and Brad and Anjelina were actually getting along except when they tried to kill each other of course, lol.

    Last night I took the 5th, the 5th Element and had a dance with LeLu, ah when she says please help in that soft voice, I want to jump in the screen and help her, poor thing... What can I say about this 1080p movie upconverted to 4K projector, I guess? No pixelization, excellent color, and tremendous focus, spot on.

    So, with my projector, it came with a 50 foot (I think) HDMI cable, a projector mount, and a little blu tooth speaker, I can use to listen to XM radio from my phone, nice perks. I don't think there were any other freebies. I bought it from Projector People, (Sarah), and she was quite nice with help after the sale, I actually just bought it online while at home sick, and it would not ship until they were open the first of week. If I had waited unjtil cyber Monday? I may not have got it from them, I didnt' see it on site then.

    So, for around 1500 clams, you can get a projector with 4K resolution, operates fairly quite, but a little fan noise, and get freebies while they last. They will be there for support if I need them as well. The only thing that went foul was it shipped directly from BENQ and they did not put my name on box, and I shipped it to a Fed Ex print ship center, so I could pick up at my convenience. I anticipated needing my tracking number, so I had it in my phone, and once she had that and my ID, I was good to go.

    This was a really sweet upgrade for me from the LCD 1080p world of a few years ago, of course, it should be. I got a 1080i projector that still works as well, but I expect it would be a difficult calibration. I'm moving forward. Now I am thinking about low lying furniture for my theater components, to try and modernize and better my viewing room. That will take some time, I am just thinking right now-

    More will be added to this review later, after I have used it more, adjusted it a bit, and move on. I think the one thing I miss the most, is the autoclose cover over lens elements, it's a cheesy pop off lens iris cover, and sort of interestingly, has a bottom half cover, not sure why, but I guess they had their reason.

    12/13 - I checked brightness settings and it was about half way mark. i turned it dow a bit and was then seeing the blackest blacks with little compromise if any for overall image-

    Lex is BACK!!!
    Doug
    "I'm out there Jerry, and I'm loving every minute of it!" - Kramer
  • Ovation
    Super Senior Member
    • Sep 2004
    • 2202

    #2
    Excellent news. Enjoy.

    Comment

    • Kevin P
      Member
      • Aug 2000
      • 10809

      #3
      Looks like a nice unit... was just reading the specs on BenQ's website... so it's DLP? Didn't know they made 4k DLPs. Is there any rainbow effect?

      Nice that they give you a long HDMI cable with it... I know HDMI has length limitations, no issues with that long a cable?

      Comment

      • Lex
        Moderator Emeritus
        • Apr 2001
        • 27461

        #4
        Thank you Ovation!

        and you too Kevin! Well, I have not experieneced any rainbow effect to my knowledge. I think the next step up is like laser or something. I don't know, I made a pretty quick decision when I got enough free stuff to offset the tax more or less. However, that said, I may not use the mount, but a spare long HDMI cable is certainly worth having around! I have 2 long, not sure how long black flexible sleeving covered HDMI, I got way back when. One may have issues, not sure. I have not as yet got the new HDMI cable out of the packaging. I may do that over the holidays. I have been working on trying to get my room more theater like, as I feel like it. I worked on some stuff Fri night when I really did not feel like it, but I just kept going, it's like a mission, to get 1 room at a time organized and cleaned up some. This one is a Beooooooch! The Great room.. Lots going on in there with a drum set, Marshall 2 12" cab made in England speaker cabinet and a Made in England power head, along with my compact set of DW drums, and a projector, a 60 plasman and a 55" 4K curved front on the other wall, so forget optimizing sound, just get things tidied up as best I can, and enjoy movies and music. The new cable is your basic variety with only a rubberized cover. I think it is 35 or so feet, I forget right now, but I will check. This proj sure has nice blacks and great colors. With the accurate focus from all glass lenses, it's making it a joy to explore.

        Thanks.
        Doug
        "I'm out there Jerry, and I'm loving every minute of it!" - Kramer

        Comment

        • Lex
          Moderator Emeritus
          • Apr 2001
          • 27461

          #5
          Last night, I watched a 21 year old DVD (480P) on my new projector, and through my Pioneer Blue Ray player. I was completely blown away with the image quality. It looked like a Blue Ray disc playing honestly. For those that forgot, this is a futuristic planetary action film where Kirk Russell plays a very stern faced part, he is a soldier. He gets cast aside as an obsolete soldier, and then makes a comeback tour, helping a bunch of civilians as best he could. Totally blown away with the image quality, can't say it enough. 5 stars:5:
          Doug
          "I'm out there Jerry, and I'm loving every minute of it!" - Kramer

          Comment

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