BenQ TK850i True 4K HDR-PRO Smart Home Entertainment Projector powered by Android TV | 3000 Lumens | 98% Rec.709 | Lens shift & Keystone for Easy Setup | 3D Projector for Binge Watchers and Sports

100%

First of all I would like to say to all those who are new to projectors to do your research before one. This is my 5th one and I learn something new that I didnt know with the prior one. I started with a 720p ViewSonic and despite its lack of technical and features it actually had the most lumens . This Ben q rivals my ViewSonic with brightness and thats a welcome addition. Placement of your projector is super important as well and I learned that the hard way. The farther away you place your projector from your screen the less brighter the image. This Ben q is replacing my Epson 8345 that has 1600 lumens. Its only recommended for dark rooms with very little light coming in but the Ben q with double the lumens can be used with the lights on and even a curtainless window during the day! Im not a technical guy when it comes to number and side by side comparisons detecting the smallest flaw in an image . I look at out of the box picture quality and the 3550 in my view delivers!

Perfect for my theater room. I have a little outside light in the room and this projector has been perfect.

I have wanted a projector for a long time, and finally was able to get one. I did a lot of research, and i really loved hat i had read about this one. This projector is great. It is a 1080 projector with pixel shifting, so they can call it 4k. It supports HDR and has a wide color range. The latest firmware added ARC. Projector also supports 3d if thats your thing, I had a passive 3dtv that i thought was good, this is fantastic!!! Its really what 3d should be. I have watch a few 4k movies on it and it puts out a beautiful picture. I have also watch a lot blu-ray movies and it up converts great. What was my real surprise was watching old tv shows that were of not great quality. I feared seeing it blown up on a 110 screen was going to make it impossible to enjoy, and i am glad I was wrong. It even made old Andy Griffith shows look great. Now i am not going to lie, mounting this was not fun. Where it mounts, it is not flush, so you have to be pretty creative with the mounting bracket you use. If you choose not to mount it and just have it on a table, you should have no worries. You really need to read the mounting instructions well though, and make sure you have the room to do it. This is a shorter throw projector, so you can get a 110 screen from a little over 8ft away, but i wish i would have went with a 100 because of the room. If you follow the instructions even an idiot with no experience or confidence in doing anything like this can do it pretty well. It just make take a little longer than a professional. Dont let the price fool you, you are getting a high end projector in the BenQ th3550. This projector is beautiful in a dark room, and still looks good in low light, or light not directly on it. In a bright room its going to look washed out. Benq has the TK850 projector that is better in more light, so if you cant control your lighting that maybe better for you, but if you can control your lighting, again you cannot get better than this.

Let me start saying that this is my first BenQ projector and my overall experience so far has been super great. I’m not a professional video calibrator, not a videophile guy, but when it comes to technology, I like to spend my hard earned money wisely. Before I made my decision to buy this 4K projector, I spend hours of research on different brands and models from Sony, Optoma and Epson. It was a tough decision, since I had to take a lot of considerations, like my room size, screen material, lightning, picture quality and must important, value. This is a $1,500 4K DLP projector but what make it so special is that BenQ was able to put so many features and great performance in a complete “affordable” package. Now let’s move on to some of the specs and performance. Build Quality & Remote Control The BenQ HT3550 weights around 12lbs and is 15in x 10in. x 5in. It has a beautiful bronze color on the front and back of the unit and the rest is pure white. What I like about this unit is the size, is not to big and has a nice weight and rounded shape. The remote control is fully backlit and it has a nice weight and feel on your hand. The buttons are well placed and they have a nice click sound when pressed. On the back of the unit are (2) HDMI 2.0, (1) Service USB, Ethernet port and (1) USB for media files which also you can use it for the firmware updates. 2000 Lumens Yeah, let me be clear, this projector is designed for rooms that have complete light control. If your looking to watch movies during the day with some ambient light I suggest go for the BenQ TK850, it has all the same great features of the HT3550 minus the Wide Color Gamut in favor of a 3,000 lumens lamp. However, the expense of light output in this projector is compensated with very well calibrated colors and great contrast out of the box. The best mode to watch movies isCinema. On this mode the projector has the best light output, fallowed by Vivid TV“ for watching cable programming and sports. The other setting is Dark Cinema which engage the Wide Color Gamut but it dims the picture by 10%, however you will get more spectrum color depending how well you calibrate this unit. I found that this unit unit has a very good light output with 100 & 120 inches screens, however with bigger screen I think some users may prefer to go with a more higher lumens projector. 4K - (Pixel Shift) First, this is not a native 4K projector, inside the HT3550 is a Texas Instruments 0.47” new DLP XPR 4K UHD chip which has a physical mirror matrix of 1920 x 1080. It uses 4-phase pixel shifting to create 8.3 million pixels. This is a cheaper but effective way to produce a 4K resolution that it makes difficult to the human eye to distinguish a true native 4K vs. 4K pixel shift picture (also known as Faux-K to others). This technology began with JVCs introduction of pixel shifting in 2013 and since then it has spark controversy among consumers and videophiles purists. But I’m not gonna talk about this topic, it just to give you an idea of what it is. HDR + Dynamic Iris + Tone Mapping These are some of the best solid features of the HT3550. Thanks to the Dynamic Iris and software tone mapping the HT3550 is capable to produce awesome black and white levels, it has a contrast ratio of 30,000:1. As today, this is the only projector under $2K that has Dynamic Iris at this price range. The HDR performance on this projector is super great, all Marvel movies on Disney + looks awesome with really deep blacks and rich colors. For me, HDR is the secret sauce to really enjoy 4K. The Dynamic Iris works very well, however I would have liked that the dynamic Iris would have been a bit faster. Sometimes you can see some light flickering as the DI tries to adapt, it feels a bit distracting but is not something that will not ruin your overall cinema experience. Sharpness This projector has a very good sharp image. It may not have the sharpness of other more expensive hi-end projectors like Sony and Epson but is very decent and clean. The firmware update (V1.0.5) that was release last December really help to improved some of the algorithms in favor of a more sharper picture. This was one area that some users were complaining and I think BenQ did a nice job with the fix. This projector supports 3D. While I do own a very small amount of 3D movies, I decided to give it a try for this review. So I popped in Avatar 3D into my Panasonic 4K player and I was really impressed on how good it performed. The image was sharp, “crosstalk” free, however, the projector dims the light output by 20%, it feels kind of bummer. TV Material Performance This in one area that I feel is bit of a mix bag. The projector does shine with 4K material, with HDR engaged looks simply awesome, but for 1080p material it will depend on which source your watching and how good and clean your getting that signal. Regular Blu-ray movies and streaming will look great, Netflix and Disney + are incredible to watch on this projector. On cable, I feel the projector falls a bit, and the reason I’m saying this is because you can see some jaggy images, however this will depend on how good your cable or satellite provider is and quality varíes from channel to channel. Sound The projector have good quality speakers. They are 5w each and deliver very good and clear dialogue even with the volume down. I think the best EQ sound mode is Cinema and for some reason it even sound better that the user mode. However the best way to go is with a sound-bar. The only thing I really missed is Bluetooth connectivity that helps to avoid long cable runs. Fan noise Ok, I have to admit that this projector is a bit noisy, in my room with a very quiet environment my SPL meter was reading from 26-28db. However, during movie sessions and with the air conditioner unit turn on, the noice is barely noticeable, This will also depend on how far the projector is from the sitting position. Wrap up The BenQ HT3550 is a great DLP projector. As today, it is hard to find a projector under $1,500 packed with so many features. In my opinion, it even rivals some projector that cost a lot more. In the end, I guarantee you won’t regret this buy.

For background I have owned the benq w1070 for 5 years or so. Which has performed wonderfully. I have had my eye on the 3550 for a little while. Having pre ordered the xbox series x I figured it was time to upgrade my dedicated theater room to take advantage of 4k standard next gen games. I already own an xbox one x and 10 or so 4k uhd physical movies. Now that I have mounted it properly to the ceiling to get the image up to size for my 120 inch screen I can give an opinion on its performance. The clarity is stunning. The picture attached to this post was taken from my couch with my phone. It doesnt truly convey the experience, but I think its a good example. Film grain is obvious, so I found that the best quality in terms of clarity was from digital films on uhd discs. Avengers Endgame looked amazing to the point that I think the image is superior to a movie theater. The factory settings on the projector are close to perfect. The brightness is excellent in my dedicated dark basement theater room on a 120 inch retractable screen. Some key facts to keep in mind. This model uses pixel shifting to create a true 4k image from a native 1080 dlp chip. Whatever technological trickery they developed here works, end of story. My guess is upgrading to a native 4k projector would could/would be an improvement, but honestly I cant see a difference and that upgrade is thousands of additional dollars. I have a nice Sony 4k tv in my living room and I personally feel you cant fully appreciate the benefits of 4k unless the screen is huge, now that I have tested that theory I am convinced. Also, a key consideration for me was 3d. Like my previous w1070, this model supports 3d, so I cant still watch my large library of 3d blu rays. If you have never seen 3d with active glasses on a dlp projector its an incredible experience that I highly recommend. One last note, there is apparently some lag on most of the 4k projectors for gaming. I am a grown up who still plays games, not a competitive gamer. I tried out several games in 4k on my xbox. No lag issues I was able to identify. I also had to order a new ceiling mount as the hole pattern for the 3550 was totally different from my previous projector, but that was expected. To summarize, for the money this projector punches way above its weight class. If you have the space to dedicate to a home theater this is a worthy investment. Its a no brainer upgrade over the benq w1070, which for me was the best value of any audio visual equipment I have ever purchased. I am super excited to get my next gen game system plugged into this bad boy.

My second BenQ, I love it.

Look, its a nice PJ. Its quiet enough and resolution is great. It is picky about the strength of your HDMI signal - there are plenty of older HDMI receivers that will not have enough signal to light it without (at least) tweaking the settings in the built in HDMI Equalizer. Even when you do, it is inconsistent and fussy with resolution. If you wire it straight from the source (Apple TV, PS4) these issues do not present. I am upgrading from an 8 year old 720p DLP unit, and have never been able to see the rainbow effect with it - on this one, I can see it in the whites every time, without fail. Also, this thing is bright. On its least powerful settings, I still had to mount an ND filter to the front to get it dark enough in my completely light-controlled theater. (No, you cant adjust brightness and fix this, brightness is a component of the picture adjustment, not the lamp output.) While the color rendering is truly terrific and remarkably-tweakable, the sharpness really does leave something to be desired. While there are work arounds for the other issues I have with this PJ, there is no fix for underperforming glass, and this is ultimately why it was returned. What can I say, its mounted dead level, flat and true and it is discernibly soft at the edges of the screen. My screen width at 16:9 is 87, it starts to lose focus about 13 from either side. The lens just isnt up to it. You can see it in programming and it is very obvious using the (internally generated) alignment grid feature. I really, truly wanted this thing to work out and Ive tried accommodating it every which way - lots of people obviously love this PJ - in my experience... its just not cutting it. For similar money, the Epson is hands down a superior product in every possible way.

Best one so far, have it hanging on ceiling too.

I used to drool over the 4k projectors and think to myself that it will be forever before I am ready to spend enough money on one. I owned the HT2050 until the HDMI ports got toasted by a nearby lightning strike and loved it. I had looked at the newer models from Benq but was not impressed with certain things they took away from them or added to them. I stumbled upon the 3550 just as it was being released and my jaw hit the floor. I finally had time to get it hooked up on a 180 screen with 4K and it blew me away! I didnt want to go to bed last night or work today. Just wanted to lock myself in the media room. I dont think you can find a better projector for the price of this one. My only complaint thus far is that it seems a bit loud during quiet scenes, but I am sitting under it.