We love Samsung’s Freestyle projectors for one reason: their ability to be easily angled towards the ceiling, making it possible to watch movies while lying comfortably in bed. It’s a nice feature to have, especially for portable projectors. Of course, if you can get the same feature in a projector with better picture quality than portables, even better. Well, that’s exactly what they’re bringing with the BenQ GV50.
Billed as a ceiling projector, the device is held on a base that allows its lens to be quickly aimed at a variety of angles, making it easy to beam your images up to the ceiling one moment and the bedroom walls the next. Basically, it’s like the Freestyle, but with bigger, more powerful hardware, which should make it more attractive for folks who prefer better visual fidelity.
The BenQ GV50 is a laser projector that can beam images up to 120 inches in 1080p. The base where the projector is mounted on allows its position to be adjusted 360 degrees horizontally and 135 degrees vertically, making it easy to place the picture anywhere on your walls or ceilings while keeping the projector in the same spot. It’s got all sorts of digital correction techniques onboard to minimize setup, including autofocus, auto 2D keystone correction, auto image rotation, and obstacle avoidance. Based on the product photos, it seems they’re positioning as a device you can keep right on the nightstand, which is pretty unique for a projector.
Controls are available right on the device, so you can manage playback without having to get up from the bed. The controls also include a zoom lever, which lets you adjust screen size on the fly, so you can make it smaller if the projected image ends up taking the space of your ceiling lights when you adjust. There’s also a timer button for setting when the projector will automatically turn off and a Night Shift picture mode that adjusts the colors to reduce eye strain for those times you’re watching in bed late at night.
The BenQ GV50 has a built-in 18W 2.1-channel speaker system that spares you from having to install home theater speakers in the bedroom. Even better, it comes with a “Ceiling Cinema Sound Mode” that fires audio downwards to match your bed height, which, the outfit claims, will provide a more immersive viewing experience in bed. And yes, there’s a Bluetooth speaker mode, so you can use the speaker on the projector to play all your music in the bedroom.
In case you’re curious about the projector itself, it has BenQ’s Cinematic Color Tech, support for HDR and HLG formats, 500 ANSI lumens of brightness, 92 percent coverage of the Rec. 79 color space, and a 30,000-hour lifespan rating for the laser light source. It’s also got Google TV built-in, so you get a comprehensive selection of apps preloaded for minimal setup, while a 60Hz refresh rate and a 22.4ms input lag makes it viable for casual gaming.
The BenQ GV50 is available now, priced at $599.