Home cinema projectors are becoming a much more popular choice as the main living room device to watch movies, play video games and catch up on Netflix. The BenQ W1090 home cinema projector is being aimed at people who want but for around £630 it falls short compared to its competitors.

The design on the W1090 is all white in slightly triangular curved frame which looks quite nice when others can be ‘blocky’. On the front you have the lens, with the fan on the right hand side. The top consists of the power button and the other buttons to control the unit if you decide to not use or lose the remote. On the back you’ll find; 2x HDMI inputs, 1x HDMI with MHL 2.0, Composite, 3.5mm jack input, 1x USB type A and 1 RS232.

You’ll find most connections needed but I always like to find a 3.5mm jack, as it is the easiest way to upgrade the speakers from the ones you have built in. That’s not to say the built in ones are bad, in fact they were actually pretty decent. When watching a movie or playing a video game they were loud enough you did not need to max them out, with noise distortion not being an issue. Plugging in a small pair of powered speakers though or an even more powerful system is still best, as you get better audio quality as the built in driver is only  10w.

The ‘on paper’ specifications detail upto 1080p video quality with the lamp being able to output up to 2000 lumens which is almost as much as the Epson TW-5210 (2,200 lumens). The age the bulb will greatly vary on how you use the projector, but is meant to last a minimum of 3000 hours on max according to BenQ’s website. In Eco mode the bulb drops down to around 1500 lumens and is said to be able to keep the lamp healthy for about 4500 hours.