Boasting a 5,000-lumen rating, the BenQ SW921 ($1,549) delivers a bright enough image for a midsize to large room at a low price for its class. It also offers a 1.6x zoom lens, for significant flexibility in how far you can place it from the screen for any given size image, and a small vertical lens shift to let you move the image up or down just a touch without having to tilt the WXGA (1,280-by-800) projector. Factor in its near-excellent image quality for data presentations, along with video that's mostly watchable, despite some rainbow artifacts, and it's clearly a strong contender.

Among the SW921's($1,327.78 at Amazon) competitors are the NEC Display Solutions NP-P452W ($1,583.00 at Amazon) that I recently reviewed and the Epson PowerLite 1975W WXGA Wireless 3LCD Multimedia Projector ($1,627.56 at Amazon) , which is our Editors' Choice WXGA model for a midsize to large conference room or classroom. Both models have some advantages over the SW921, but both are also priced higher enough that they don't offer any better value. The only question is whether you'd rather pay more for their extras compared with the SW921 or do without them and save some money.

Basics

The Epson model is the only one of these projectors that's built around a three-chip LCD engine. Both the SW921 and the NEC model use single-chip DLP engines. The advantages for the three-chip engine are that it guarantees that the Epson 1975W is free of rainbow artifacts (red-green-blue flashes), and it ensures that its color and white brightness are the same. With DLP data projectors, the two brightness levels are generally different, which can affect both color quality and the brightness of full-color images. The advantage for both DLP models is that—like most DLP projectors today—they support 3D. However, few data-projector applications need 3D, so for most people, that won't matter.

Another key difference among these models is that the NEC NP-P452W is the only one that has a significant lens shift, and the only one with both vertical and horizontal lens shift—two features that largely explain its higher price compared with the SW921. Vertical lens shift lets you move the image up and down without tilting the projector. Horizontal lens shift lets you move the image left and right without swiveling the projector. Being able to move the image without distorting the image shape by tilting or swiveling means you don't have to resort to a digital keystone adjustment, which can introduce artifacts with some images.

When I tested the NEC model, I measured its vertical shift at plus or minus 49 percent of the image height from the midpoint and the horizontal shift at plus or minus 38 percent. In comparison, the SW921 only offers a vertical shift, which I measured at a total of not quite 3 percent of the image height. That's enough to be useful, but still meager compared with the NEC NP-P452W's shift. The Epson 1975W doesn't offer any lens shift at all.

Setup and Brightness

The SW921 is built on the same platform as both the lower-resolution BenQ SX920 and the higher-resolution BenQ SU922 ($1,388.34 at Amazon) . All three are the same size and weight—at 4.7 by 10.5 by 16.2 inches (HWD) and 10 pounds 13 ounces. They also offer the same set of connectors, the same 1.6x zoom lens, and the same sound system, including a 20-watt speaker. For details on all of these features, see my review of the BenQ SX920 ($1,144.67 at Amazon) .

The difference in price among the three models comes from the difference in resolution, with the XGA (1,024-by-768) resolution of the BenQ SX920 giving it a price tag that's $150 less than the SW921, and the BenQ SU922's WUXGA (1,920-by-1,200) resolution giving it a price premium of $250 over the SW921. The three BenQ models also have essentially the same vertical lens shift feature. However, the different resolutions for the projectors also give them different aspect ratios for the image, so the percentage of vertical shift is different. The BenQ SX920 offers a vertical shift at a total of less than 5 percent of the image height, while I measured the total shift of the BenQ SU922 at 2.5 percent of the image height.

The difference in aspect ratios between 4:3 for the XGA BenQ SX920 and 16:10 for the WXGA SW921 means that despite having the same brightness rating, the two are appropriate for different image sizes. According to the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) recommendations, at the SW921's native 16:10 aspect ratio, 5,000 lumens would be suitable for a 269- to 365-inch image (measured diagonally) assuming a 1.0-gain screen in theater-dark lighting. With moderate ambient light, the appropriate size would drop to 178 inches.

For smaller screen sizes, you can lower the brightness level by switching to the projector's Eco lamp mode, using a lower brightness preset mode, or both. Keep in mind that the lower color than white brightness means that full-color images won't be as bright as you would expect based on the white brightness. (For more on the topic, see Color Brightness: What It Is, Why It Matters.)

Image Quality

The SW921's quality for data images is excellent in many ways, but falls short on color quality, making it near-excellent overall. Every mode includes colors that were notably dark in my tests in terms of a hue-saturation-brightness color model. Yellow was also a little greenish in some modes in my tests and mustard color in others. However, colors are nicely saturated, and color quality is more than good enough for most data presentations.

See How We Test Projectors

Beyond that, the SW921 did an excellent job with color balance on our standard suite of DisplayMate tests, with suitably neutral grays at all levels from black to white in most modes. In addition, images designed to bring out pixel jitter and moiré patterns were rock solid, even with a VGA connection. More important for most data-projector applications is that the SW921 did a good job holding detail. White text on black was highly readable in my tests at sizes as small at 10.5 points, and black text on white was easily readable at 7.5 points.

The projector also did a good job of avoiding rainbow artifacts. The only time I saw them on our data-image tests was with one image that's designed to bring them out, and even then I saw only minor hints when I shifted my gaze back and forth quickly. With video, I saw them infrequently enough in well-lit scenes that few people if any would find them bothersome. With poorly lit scenes, however, they showed often enough that anyone who sees them easily may find them occasionally annoying.

In most other ways, video quality in my tests was good enough to be watchable. Colors were within the realm of reasonable, I saw only a slight hint of posterization (shading changing suddenly where it should change gradually) and only in the most demanding scenes, the projector did an excellent job with shadow detail (details based on shading in dark areas), and noise was no worse than moderately obvious in scenes that tend to bring it out.

Conclusion

For a guaranteed rainbow-free image even with video, plus the benefits for color quality and the brightness of color images that come with matching levels of white and color brightness, consider the Epson 1975W, our Editors' Choice for the category. Also be sure to take a look at the NEC NP-P452W for its setup convenience, thanks to its high percentages of lens shift. That said, the BenQ SW921 will give you a bright image, near-excellent quality for data images, a 1.6x zoom, and even a small lens shift at a significantly lower price than the Epson or NEC models.

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• Hands On With ZTE's SPro2 Smart Projector