BenQ X500i Smart Projector

Brightness, color and the room

2200 ANSI lumens sounds generous until you switch the lights on. RTINGS says the projector is “not quite bright enough to pop in rooms with a few lights” and calls outdoor and bedroom use mediocre for the same reason. In a darkened room it is fine, and the short-throw lens is the reason: roughly a 60-inch image at three feet, 120 inches at 6 to 7.2 feet.

Contrast is strongest in dark scenes and flattens as more of the screen turns bright. Color accuracy is close to perfect out of the box, but color volume is weak, so the most vivid colors look muted and lighter shades lose saturation. DLP rainbow flashes can bother sensitive viewers. PCGamesN also pushes you toward a dedicated screen rather than a general wall, and describes the picture on a dark grey wall as impressive even with room light.

Decide the room first. A dark room with a proper screen gets you a good picture. A bright living room does not, and no setting on the projector changes that.

Gaming latency and motion

BenQ lists input lag of 16.7 ms at 1080p/60 and 4K/60, 8.3 ms at 1080p/120 and 4.2 ms at 1080p/240. That last number is the one competitive shooters care about, and PCGamesN describes Elden Ring and Total War gameplay as buttery smooth.

Two details in the mode table matter. The 8.3 ms figure belongs to 1080p/120, because BenQ’s 2K modes downscale to 1080p, so a 1440p/120 signal runs as a downscaled 1080p/120 image. And 4K stops at 60 Hz, so the projector cannot drive a 4K/120 display.

There is no VRR, so frame-rate fluctuations are never smoothed. Movie motion is uneven during camera pans from 60 Hz sources. RTINGS still rates gaming responsiveness as great and notes that DLP imaging keeps pixel transitions clean.

The Google TV dongle

The smart system is not built into the projector. A QS02 Android TV dongle slots into a bay under a screw-on rear cover, plugs into an internal HDMI port and hangs off a Micro-USB power lead that PCGamesN describes as “jankily cable-managed” with a fit that “doesn’t feel particularly premium”. Once it is in, you get Wi-Fi 6, Chromecast, AirPlay, Google Assistant and Google Voice Search on top of the projector’s own 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0, with Netflix preloaded.

It is a one-time job, and PCGamesN’s other complaint is the Google TV implementation itself. RTINGS found movie motion uneven in the dongle’s own native apps, so treat it as a streaming box with the same caveats as any other. Console mode does auto-detect current-generation consoles, including the Nintendo Switch, and adjusts resolution and refresh rate.

Noise, running costs and warranty

The two reviewers disagree on the fans. BenQ rates acoustic noise at 31 dB typical and 29 dB in ECO, and RTINGS says the fan is not especially distracting from typical viewing distances. PCGamesN names the twin fans (80 mm intake, 92 mm exhaust) as its first con and calls them “a bit too noisy” during quiet menu navigation. Distance and background audio decide which experience you get.

Money beyond the purchase is thin. The projector runs at 236 W typical at 110V and under 0.5 W in standby, and because the light source is LED there is no lamp cost at all. You do need to budget for a screen and a ceiling mount, neither of which is in the box.

Support is where the paperwork gets specific. BenQ America’s US warranty is three years, parts and labor, with depot service for products bought and located in the continental US, Hawaii and Alaska. There is no advance replacement, and you pay the freight to BenQ while BenQ pays it back. BenQ lists exclusions for normal wear, abuse, third-party parts and improper environments. No teardown, service manual or parts list for this model was found, so the depot route is the repair route.

One caveat on the reliability picture: no owner forum threads or retailer Q&A for this model were readable when this was checked. Nobody has published a failure rate for the X500i, so treat the noise, manual focus and brightness limits above as known annoyances rather than defects.

Is it worth it?

The X500i launched in the US at $1,699 in October 2023 (Notebookcheck), and PCGamesN tested it at $1,699 in a review updated 2025-04-01. ProjectorCentral indexes a $1,624 street price against a $1,999 MSRP (2026-10-21); that is an indexed figure rather than a confirmed checkout price.

At or below about $1,600 it is hard to argue with: short-throw 4K, 240 Hz gaming and a bundled Google TV dongle at that money is a rare combination. Between $1,600 and $1,750 you are in the band the reviewers actually tested. From about $1,750 up the value thins fast, because nothing in the measured feature set improves, and at MSRP you are in the X3100i/X300G price band while giving up the X3100i’s size and the X300G’s portability.

PCGamesN’s own verdict points elsewhere for some buyers: XGIMI Halo+ for portability and automatic setup, and the costlier X3100i for the better technical specification.

If your room stays dark and you play shooters, this is a good buy inside that band. If you watch in daylight, fix the room before you buy the projector.

Which model this is

This page covers the BenQ X500i, the short-throw 4K gaming projector sold as ASIN B0CK4B8DVW. Do not merge it with the X3100i or X3300i, which use a larger chassis and are brighter, with the X300G portable, with the lamp-based TK710 and TK720, or with the GS50. The reviewed unit at RTINGS was the white SKU, and BenQ publishes one set of dimensions and weight rather than per-color figures.

Sources

Manufacturer:

• X500i Specifications | BenQ US
• X500i Warranty | BenQ US
• X500i User Manual | BenQ US
• X500i FAQ | BenQ US

Independent reviews:

• BenQ X500i DLP Projector Specs | ProjectorCentral

Owner reports:

• No owner forum threads or retailer Q&A for this model were readable during the research pass, so the reliability picture rests on the two reviews and one instrumented lab test above.