Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “BENQ TK860i REVIEW – Best 4k Smart Projector for 2023?”.
What is up folks how’s it going this rewards from MW technology and today we’re going to bring you guys, another review of a brand new BenQ projector, the TK 860i. Now, back in the middle of 2020, we actually reviewed the original BenQ tk850i super impressed by the overall value and image quality that that native 4K resolution projector brought to the table. But now with this successor with slight improvements of modifications, the TK 860, I could finally be that living room, large-scale home, theater experience, they’ve, always dreamed of to replace your TV living room setup and, if you’re going to replace your TV. That means the projector has to be bright enough to be used during the daytime, as well as easy to set up as a TV, ideally completely wireless.
Now, based on my experience thus far, I would definitely say that the TK 860i is certainly an improvement from the previous generation 850i and is closer to finally being that true TV replacement experience that we have all dreamed of. But with some slight shortcomings, which we’ll talk about, firstly in terms of directly comparing the improvements on the 860i compared to the 850i, it is definitely a lot brighter. Has a total Luminosity range of 3300 versus 3000 on the previous generation projector. It also has a higher Dynamic contrast: ratio of 50 0001 versus 30 000 to 1 and overall the technology and the lamp life is the exact same as the previous generation, so in normal mode, you’ll get up to 4 000 hours on the lamp in eco mode. About 10 000 hours and in smart Eco about 15 000 hours of lamp life. Furthermore, there is also a new feature on the tk860i called localized contrast, enhancer, which basically Maps up and divides the image into several different segments, thousands to be exact and analyzes. Each portion of the image to enhance the best amount of Shadow and highlight detail, resulting in a brighter, more Dynamic, looking image now in terms of the Native resolution and overall refresh rate that hasn’t really much change from the previous generation.
Still looking at 3840 by 2160. In terms of native resolution with a maximum refresh rate at 60 hertz at 4K, now, if you bump down the resolution on the newer model, you will get 240 hertz refresh rate compared to 60 at 1080p, which is a massive Improvement. In addition to the big Improvement, which is input lag, the previous TK 850i had a horrendous input lag of 83 milliseconds, both in 1080P and in 4k, making gaming pretty much impossible. But now, with the newer 860i at 1080p, 240 hertz, you get a much more reasonable input lag time of 8.7 milliseconds and 17.9 milliseconds at 4K result solution.
The external things haven’t changed too much from the overall look. Some slight color changes at the front face of the projector, but at the back you will notice that we have three HDMI connections instead of two and inside. We do have that dedicated space for the Android TV dongle that BenQ supplies, but the dongle itself has been upgraded named. The sqo2 basically functions exactly the same as the previous generation, but now you have native Netflix support before you pretty much have to download it through the apps manager, and it was a little bit of a headache to get onto the dongle. But now with this new dongle you have it built in and access to all the apps you would ever need and all the streaming platforms you would ever need and since it’s completely wireless and integrated inside the projector, it’s a completely wireless solution. All you really need to do for your setup is Supply power to the projector and you’re ready to go now in terms of the remote controls compared to the previous generation.
With came with two controllers, a one was a fully backlit uh remote control, specifically for the projector. It didn’t have any of the smart TV dongle integration, so you did had to use the Android TV dongle separately to control that interface, which is primarily your main controller and that didn’t have a backlight which was fairly annoying. But now with the newer generation 860i. You do have basically One controller that gets supplied to you that can control your projector and the Android TV dongle, and it has a backlight.
You do have a separate uh, remote control that comes with a dongle, but you really don’t need to use it. Since everything can be integrated with that one remote coming with a new projector, the only downside is that the backlight times out quite fast, maybe about two or three seconds and unfortunately I don’t really know how to increase the length of the backlight time. But it is nice to have one that did not one have one regardless now moving forward. You still have a built-in speaker system on the tk860i, like the previous generation. It’S still a 5 watt times 2 stereo setup, but it does have now Adobe admin certification, as well as multi-channel support compared to two channel support on the previous generation. But the sound quality is very similar on both projectors, based on what I’ve heard so far, and you probably want to have some sort of sound bar or small, surround sound system.
If you want to have the best audio quality experience, if you’re looking for a great all-in-one solution, that has a great image as well as great built-in audio, definitely check out the gp500 from BenQ. We did a full, dedicated review, video on that very recently, as well check out the description for that video. Now, moreover, we did primarily our testing in a controlled environment. We have a dedicated theater space, but this projector is really designed for really any situation. You’Re going to throw at it whether that’s in a brightly lit living, room experience or in a controlled environment like this. Ideally, if you want the best image quality, every projector is always going to benefit from having controlled lighting. That’S just the nature of the game. When you come to front projection setups now, can you use this in a bright environment? I would say: yes, definitely you still want some control. You don’t want the sun completely going on your projection surface and again, if you want the best image quality, I would also recommend some sort of dedicated projector screen, or at least a wall That’s fairly neutral in terms of its texture and overall Luminosity, ideally white. If you want the best image quality now again, you can definitely use this in a living room environment.
But if you’re looking for something that’s going to rival your TV experience in terms of brightness and that versatility factor of you could just leave it on all day and not have it to worry about it, you do have a lamp in here. That’S uh has a limited lifespan. Projectors are still a trade-off at this point, but we are becoming more and more closer to rivaling the your brightness and overall versatility of a TV setup, but we’re just not quite there. Yet.
I think as a dedicated home theater solution. In a controlled environment, you are still going to have probably the better experience with that larger display and since we have all the benefits of the smart TV you’re, not really losing anything from versatility and setup standpoint on this new TK 860i. Now, besides those initial Impressions, we’re going to continue testing this thing, I’m working on a smaller screen to fit into our living room right now. So we’ll continue our testing process with this tk60, all right to see how it handles different environments, but for now I’m really enjoying testing these projectors definitely love to know what you guys think about replacing a projector compared to your TV.
Do you think you’re there yet and would a larger screen be a compelling option to make that switch? Give us a thumbs up if you like this video big thanks to BenQ for supporting the channel Channel, giving us the opportunity to test out these amazing products, and you have haven’t done so already check out the description for more details about everything we’ve talked about. Please make sure you’re subscribed and have post notifications turned on big thanks for your support for watching we’ll see you real soon in the next one. Take care. .