Benq W100 end of life?

amcluesent

Distinguished Member
Joined
Aug 13, 2002
Messages
5,176
Reaction score
1,038
Points
1,030
Location
Glasgow
So after reading the reviews, I decided my first projector would be the Benq W100. Ordered from eBuyer, nothing delivered on Saturday, so I belled them today to be told it was end of life, none in the warehouse, money refunded no question.

So are they BSing me about the W100? I would buy elsewhere, but I don't fancy a model that really is getting the chop.
 
Well it might be, benQ's 'replacement' model or closest is the new W500 (i think) which is LCD. The only other option for cheapish SD res pj is a in72 or 74 (with the latter being pal resolution, but not worth the extra apparently).

Give it a month or two though and 720p pj's might be down to the £500 mark, still more than the £300ish price of the benq though.

What is the problem with getting one that is end of life? Warranty wise the manufacturer needs to keep enough spairs arround for a number of years by law. Bulb wise it'd probably be cheaper and models will be better by the time the hours on it are up to just get a new one.

If i was looking for a pj arround that price range i'd still be interested and there may be some deals arround from people clearing stock if it is end of life.

The only 'new' SD pj's are the ones with build in DVD players and speakers, and for the price your better off with a 720p model and a cheapish all in one av system from sony ect...
 
Hi All,

I also recently fell foul of Ebuyer's poor online stock indicator (it took then 4 days to notify me that the item was out of stock and this was only following a call to them inquiring where my delivery was! :/). They didn't mention the end of line though.

Went to buy from oyyy, who were also out of stock, but did state that the product was discontinued. In the end I got desperate and took the plunge with Amazon. They had stock and I received the product the next day no problems. Great service, but w100 was £50 more expensive :(

I could have shopped around but time was of the essence after the Ebuyer debacle and with stock dwindling all over. After researching heavily the w100 looked like my best bet and I wanted one rather than start looking for other candidates.

Did some testing yesterday on a newly painted wall (white) with a Philips HTS3357 all-in-one and all looks good so far. Just need to work out how to enable upscaling on the Philips (stuck on 'auto' at the moment) and Progressive scan. For the money the w100 gives a nicely balanced colour picture out-of-the-box with very little rainbow effect and is unbelievably quiet in eco mode. Blacks are pretty good, although I haven't tweaked the colours right now and I have a tin of icestorm standing by if I reallly need it. :)

The w100 truly does what it says on the tin and suits me down to the ground as my first projector. Rumour has it that if I get upscaling working then it could look even better. :) Any help with that would be greatly appreciated (I've emailed Philips as I think it might be a known issue as on their DVP5960 unit) I'm currently connected via a HDMI - DVI-D cable.

Fillbotus
 
The w100 truly does what it says on the tin and suits me down to the ground as my first projector. Rumour has it that if I get upscaling working then it could look even better. :) Any help with that would be greatly appreciated (I've emailed Philips as I think it might be a known issue as on their DVP5960 unit) I'm currently connected via a HDMI - DVI-D cable.

Fillbotus

You may find upscaling a bit pointless. The PJ will downscale the picture to 480 on everything you put into it. However, I did see some improvement in quality on some films and particularly animation when sending 720p to it but most of the time there is very little difference. The source will be upscaled from 480 or 576 to 720 then back down to 480 again.
 
As abiove upscaling may not be that useful from a DVD player, but a HD source downscaled will probably looks amazing.
 
http://www.p4c.philips.com/cgi-bin/...VP5960/05&mid=Link_Software&hlt=Link_Software

See link above for software upgrade to 5960. I had same problem and works fine after updating. I have same PJ and DVD and had same issue.

Thank you everyone for the replies regarding the upscaling issue I'm having. gmp, can I just confirm that you have successfully used the DVP5960 firmware file on the HTS3357 DVD player. I just want to be sure before I hose my machine :)

Cheers

Fillbotus
 
Sorry didn't read your original post properly and thought you had 5960, so would not do anything until you get feedback from Philips. Worth persuing as I found final pq on W100 much better when fed upscaled image from DVD. I was already feeding 1080i via sky hd and was not happy with dvd pq until I got upscaling working on 5960.
 
I brought 2 for a customer and they only took the one. Does this site have a classifieds section? if it does I can't find it. Not a big fan of ebay.
 

The latest video from AVForums

TV Buying Guide - Which TV Is Best For You?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom