BenQ's new 4K HDR projector promises home cinema heaven

(Image credit: BenQ)

published 27 March 2023

The best projectors deliver truly massive images and incredible immersion, and you'll find models by BenQ in multiple places in our best projectors guide. It looks like the firm's new GP500 projector will take up residence there too.

The $1,799 (UK prices haven't been confirmed yet) GP500 is a 4K HDR LED projector with impressive specs. It delivers full 3,840 x 2,160 4K resolution with both HDR 10 and HLG for high contrast, delivers 90% of the industry standard DCI-P3 colour gamut and has auto calibration to take the faff out of getting the best picture quality.

The GP500 also has four built-in drivers for 360-degree sound. It's not going to rival the best home cinema AV receivers – BenQ recommends you sit between a metre and two metres of the projector for the best audio experience – but it's nice to have, especially for smaller home cinema rooms.

How bright is the BenQ GP500 LED projector?

It's bright for a small projector, with its LED DLP outputting 1,000 to 1,500 ANSI Lumen brightness. BenQ says that means it can project screens larger than 100 inches from a distance of just two to three metres.

It's sociable too, with dual HDMI 2.0b (and HDCP 2.2), USB-A and ARC/SP-DIF 5.1 audio output. The projector also has dual band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for easy connections to smartphones, laptops and other mobile devices; AirPlay and Chromecast support is built in and the OS here is Android TV with the usual selection of streaming apps including Prime Video, Hulu and YouTube.

The GP500 has automatic colour calibration and keystone correction to prevent image distortion, and in addition to putting it on a table you can also mount it to the ceiling or use it in rear projection mode.

You can find out more on the BenQ website – or at least, you can on the US website. The UK page doesn't appear to be live just yet.

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Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series; her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was shortlisted for the British Book Awards. When she’s not scribbling, Carrie is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind (unquietmindmusic).