BenQ has released an all-around nice-looking portable projector that doubles as a Bluetooth speaker. Enjoy movies anywhere.
The new BenQ GV30 looks like a regular Bluetooth speaker, but it really has a projector built in. Its native resolution is “only” 720p, unfortunately not Full HD. On the other hand, for the intended purpose – portability, watching a movie in the tent and things like that – you don’t need that as much. Still, 1080p for $700 would have been quite nice, many Chinese no-name projectors offer that native(!) resolution for a significantly lower price. And by native, we mean the resolution of the LCD inside the projector. Cheap budget projectors – sometimes costing only a few tens – offer a native resolution of only 320 x 200 pixels or something similar. All Full HD or even 4K input is then downsampled to an unusably undetailed resolution. The BenQ offers HD resolution, which is already a lot more practical to use, but as far as we are concerned could have been a tad more.
2.1-Sound
On the other hand, BenQ claims to have paid extra attention to the sound quality. In the GV30 you will find two 4 watt high-midrange drivers and an 8 watt subwoofer. The developers say that the sound has been tuned for clear details and a solid low for a cinema sound. On the projection side, the device delivers an image size of 100 inches at a brightness of 300 lumens. A special day mode should provide better contrast in daylight. Furthermore, a computer running on Android is built in, allowing you to use all kinds of apps – including those from streaming services. Another practical feature of the BenQ GV30 is that it has a built-in battery, which when fully charged is good for 2.5 hours of playtime. External sources can be connected via HDMI and USB-C.
