If you treat a big new release the way others treat a night out, building a proper cinema inside your home starts to make a lot of sense, and the BenQ W4100i makes a strong case for it. When a major film like Apex starring Charlize Theron or the excellent sci-fi series The Boroughs drops, you can dim the lights, fire up the popcorn machine and sink into the couch. For that kind of setup the W4100i is a great option, delivering rich colors and excellent contrast. Several features, including a phenomenal filmmaker mode and a 24P frame rate mode, are fine-tuned to please die-hard movie fans. The fact that it is easy to set up is an added bonus.
Design and connectivity
Weighing about 22 pounds, the W4100i is built as a stationary long-throw projector that sits on a table facing the wall. The back houses three HDMI ports, an optical out and a 2.5-amp USB-A port for charging gadgets. The one quibble is the HDMI eARC port, which is not clearly labeled. It is marked as “Audio Relay” and assigned to HDMI 2 instead of HDMI 1, which can be confusing.
Near the lens are old-school levers for adjusting focus and throw distance, which is handy because it means no fiddling with the remote. Curiously, the Android TV dongle does not come preinstalled and instead has to be fitted behind a removable back panel. BenQ says the W4100i is designed for home-theater enthusiasts who are likely to use their own HDMI-connected devices. Even so, it feels a little odd when all you want to do is launch Netflix and start watching.
Software and setup
The OS setup is the easiest of any recent projector. It runs the older Android TV system rather than Google TV, but the interface feels virtually identical. One advantage of the Epson Lifestudio Grand Plus and its newer Google TV platform is built-in Gemini support, which the BenQ lacks.
The W4100i mostly adjusted the keystone and size on its own for both a projector screen and a living room wall. The image needed only a hair of straightening, though the way the Leica Cine Play 1 seems to magically size the picture automatically is still the nicer approach.
The remote
The W4100i remote is a joy to use. There are plenty of dedicated buttons for reaching the projector's advanced settings, yet it never feels cluttered or confusing. A row of buttons along the bottom makes adjusting picture quality easy too. Unlike most streaming-capable smart projectors, though, there are no dedicated buttons for any apps.
Specs and picture quality
The specs are impressive. The 3,200 lumens of brightness brings movies to life, even in a room that is not completely dark. The projector hits 100 percent of both the Rec.709 and DCI-P3 color gamut and supports HDR10+. BenQ includes settings such as Dynamic Black, tone and contrast enhancers, and CinematicColor to improve contrast, black levels and color variance.
In Predator: Badlands, the main character's alien skin renders fine on the W4100i, but the image is not as convincing or detailed as on the Epson Pro Cinema LS9000, which remains the reference point for this scene thanks to its exceptional texture and lifelike detail. Where the W4100i shines is contrast: details in the darker, dimly lit areas of scenes from Awake and The Creator stay clear and visible, thanks to BenQ's screen tech. The rendering matches what you would see in a movie theater.
Color reproduction in The Boroughs is equally striking. A red muscle car pops with rich colors, while expansive blue skies look vivid. However, a scene in Jack Ryan: Ghost War comes out a bit too grayed out, and Avatar: Fire and Ash does not look quite as stunning as it does on the Epson LS9000. While the W4100i falls short of the very best projectors on the market, you really cannot go wrong with it for watching theatrical movies.
The streaming experience
Watching The Bride via AirPlay through the HBO Max app on an iPhone, the audio synced perfectly with no buffering. An NBA playoff game streamed on YouTube TV looked absolutely stunning with vivid colors. The tense drama If I Had Legs I'd Kick You looked cinematic, vivid and pristine in filmmaker mode, played on an Xbox Series X using a 4K UHD Blu-Ray disc.
The standout feature is the 24 frames-per-second playback, which gives movies a more cinematic appearance. You can enable this movie mode in settings, and it lifts the overall impression. Every movie and show takes on a movielike feel that justifies BenQ's price.
Gaming punch
Gaming on the W4100i is extremely immersive. In 007: First Light, run on an Alienware 16X Aurora (2026) gaming laptop, the James Bond action game looks just like a movie. An ocean-side scene with rocky cliffs is strikingly realistic and immediately pulls you into the action.
A similar ocean scene in Senua's Saga: Hellblade II reveals exceptional clarity across the entire image, running at 240 Hz for smooth, lifelike motion. That same scene can look washed out on a low-contrast television, but here it appears vivid and clear. Projected onto a living room wall, it feels like playing a video game in a movie theater.
The anime-inspired visuals of NTE are another highlight. Scenes like standing on the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge, gazing out at the ocean with ships in the distance at high resolution, are deeply immersive, almost as if you can feel the wind on your face. The high frame rate keeps NTE smooth and responsive, with no lag.
Even gaming during the day in a room with windows on a bright, sunny afternoon, the image stays very clear and visible. The details in the white snow are easy to make out while winding through the streets and up the mountains of Japan in Forza Horizon 6.
The verdict
The BenQ W4100i sits just a notch below the top projectors tested recently, including the Leica Cine Play 1 and the Epson Pro Cinema LS9000. It is almost there. The colors are exceptional, and it works well even in a bright room. There are some flaws, but the easy setup, useful remote and brilliant colors make it a serious contender.
