BenQ TK700 Gaming Projector

The BenQ TK700 home entertainment projector has a lot in common with the BenQ TK700STi, but not as much as you might think from their similar names. The “ST” is BenQ’s shorthand for short throw, while the “i” indicates smart TV features, but the difference isn’t just that the TK700 has a different lens and comes without BenQ’s Android TV dongle. It’s also limited to a single game mode rather than multiple predefined settings, while adding a slightly higher maximum brightness and a lower cost: $1,499 list and widely available for less. Among the features it shares with the TK700STi are 4K (3,840-by-2,160-pixel) resolution, HDR support, and exceedingly short input lag times. Still, some picture quality issues, including rainbow artifacts and color accuracy problems, keep the TK700 from being a recommended entry-level 4K gaming projector.

Built for 4K Gaming

As with all current 4K gaming projectors, the TK700 is built around a 1,920-by-1,080-pixel DLP chip that uses TI’s fast-switch pixel shifting to put 3,840 by 2,160 pixels on the screen. Like most, it also uses a lamp, rather than a solid-state light source, and its eight-segment color wheel—red-green-blue-white-red-green-blue-white—includes white panels. The advantage of the white panels is that they boost brightness, so the image will stand up to higher levels of ambient light. The disadvantage is that they can also hurt color accuracy, which is an issue that crops up for the TK700, but just barely. (More on color accuracy later.)