We're a social- and entertainment-driven society. We love our movies and TV shows. We are passionate about watching our favorite sports teams. We love playing video games. And all of these are better on big screens. The experience is more immersive, is more impactful, and when we have our friends over or family gathered, it's more social. For these viewing experiences, a 4K home entertainment projector like BenQ's TK series and GP520 is the ultimate upgrade to a living room.

It used to be that to truly enjoy having a projector, you needed a dedicated home theater room where any ambient light could be better controlled, creating a darker viewing environment. But that's no longer the case. Today's 4K home projectors have had the ability to get bright enough to come out of those dark rooms and live in the light of the living room where the family spends most of its time.

The BenQ TK series—TK710, TK710STi, TK700, TK700ST, TK705i, and TK705STi—along with the GP520 are able to put up to 3,200 ANSI lumens of light on the screen. That's more than enough to provide a bright, impactful, vibrant picture, even during afternoon hours. And with Google TV built into the GP520 and Android TV built into to the TK models, your favorite shows, movies, or sporting events are readily available with just a few presses of your remote.

Why Upgrade to a BenQ Projector for Watch Parties

One of the first things anyone that has witnessed a big-screen projector will tell you is how mind-blowing it can be. We're used to getting that kind of immersive experience at a movie theater but have accepted that a 65-inch TV from 8 feet away is the best most of us will get at home. But for comparable pricing, a BenQ projector can project a 150-inch diagonal image. It's also easier to gather more people around a 150-inch screen, or even a 100-inch screen, than it is a 65-inch TV. The two just can't compare as far as immersive viewing and overall impact.

Ambient light can be detrimental to an image, and this goes for both projectors and TVs. It has the potential to cause an image to look washed out, to raise the black level and negatively affect shadow detail, and to cause colors to look undersaturated. BenQ 4K laser projectors, 4K LED projectors, and 4K lamp projectors all have high brightness to combat the effects of ambient light. They also include an ambient light sensor that adjusts brightness based on the light in the room for the best viewing experience.

BenQ home entertainment projectors are great for a large variety of content. The GP520 has auto setup features to allow it to be quickly set up on the coffee table to casually stream content with the family and provide audio from its two built-in speakers in a compact size. The TK710 and TK710STi 4K laser projectors deliver high brightness and contrast perfect for watching movies through the Android TV OS platform or via an HDMI cable-connected source device. Plus, the TK710 has 10% vertical lens shift for flexible installation and can be used as a gaming projector with super low input lag. The TK700 and TK700ST are lamp-based options that also offer high brightness, low input lag for gaming, and stunning 4K resolution. All the projectors are also great for sports watching.

Since every living room is different, there are a variety of projectors to accommodate those situations. A room that's longer than it is wide has the space for a standard-throw projector, such as the TK710 or TK700, which could be installed on the ceiling or placed on a shelf in the back of the room. A living room that isn't very deep needs a short-throw projector, like the TK710STi or TK700ST. These projectors can be placed closer to the screen while still achieving a large image from a ceiling mount, shelf, or table. The compact GP520 is a great solution for a table projector that also provides easy streaming from the intuitive Google TV interface and sound from its built-in stereo speakers.

No matter the situation, there's a projector that's right for your living room that can deliver an immersive big-screen experience.

Key Factors to Consider When Purchasing

When looking for a living room projector, there are a few characteristics that should be considered. These range from technical specifications to different aspects of performance to ease of use. Let's break down the major points of interest when picking your next home entertainment projector.

Resolution

Resolution indicates the number of pixels in an image. The higher the resolution, the more pixels, and the more detailed the picture can be. Because there are a specific number of pixels for each resolution, the larger the projected image gets, the bigger the pixels become. That makes it important to get a high-resolution living room projector so the pixels stay as small and imperceptible as possible.

The two resolutions regularly seen for home entertainment projectors right now are 1080p and 4K. A 1080p image is 1920x1080 resolution, meaning 1,920 pixels across by 1,080 pixels high for a total of 2,073,600 pixels. It certainly sounds like a lot, but the 4K resolution used in home theater (3840x2160) is four times that at 8,294,400 pixels. So a 4K home theater projector has smaller pixels that are more difficult to see from a regular viewing distance and delivers a more detailed image than a 1080p home theater projector.

Brightness

The heart of entertainment in the home is usually the living room. In most residences, it is centrally located near the kitchen and dining room, making it a natural place for family and friends to gather and watch movies, TV shows, sports, or to play games. For most of us, it's also difficult to have the living room be a fully light-controlled environment. To combat any ambient light that might filter into the living room from large windows, or the desire to have lights on while the football game is on, home entertainment projectors need high brightness.

It's important to look for 4K home entertainment projectors that have a brightness output of at least 2,500 lumens. Lower brightness in a well-lit room can cause the image to look washed out and difficult to see. All of the projectors in BenQ's home entertainment lineup are bright enough to deliver a clear, vibrant picture in a living room environment, with most having 3,000 or more lumens of brightness.

Color Performance

If brightness allows the picture from a 4K home entertainment projector to pop, the color performance makes sure the picture looks realistic. When colors are inaccurate or look undersaturated, the image doesn't match what we expect and becomes less immersive. We question why the actors look sunburned or why the sky looks more green than blue.

When a living room projector has accurately calibrated color matched with high brightness, images look vibrant and draw you into the story and action. Worlds become real in our living rooms, explosions have more impact, and characters are more relatable. While projectors have a collection of picture modes to choose from, the most color accurate is usually Cinema.

Smart OS Platforms

How we interact and select our content is controlled by a home entertainments projector's smart operating system (OS)—and not all smart OS platforms are created equal. The most robust and user friendly available are Google TV and Android TV. Both run on the Android system and include similar functionality but have slightly different implementation and consumer usability.

If you're looking for an easy-to-use OS for the whole family, Google TV is for you. Built into the BenQ GP520, Google TV has an intuitive layout, the ability for personalized profiles—so family members with different tastes can switch to their profile for recommendations—as well as child safety features to help control the types of content your child can encounter. Setting up a kid profile also allows you to choose screen time limits and track activity from your device.

Android TV, available with the BenQ QS02 streaming stick, has many of the same features as Google TV—such as multiple user profiles, voice control, and Chromecast support—but has a more app-focused approach than Google TV, which is more content-focused. Android TV also is missing the kid-friendly features.

Gaming performance

While brightness, color performance, and smart features are the primary concerns when looking for a living room projector that delivers a great movie- and TV-watching experience, there are a few more things to look for when it comes to gaming. Since gaming is an interactive experience, how your projector responds to your actions is of utmost importance when playing a game; input lag is how this is measured.

The length of time between the press of a button on a controller and how quickly it happens on screen could be the difference between hitting an enemy and defeat. Input lag is measured in milliseconds, and each fraction of a second is important. When playing on a high-input-lag projector, everything you do feels sluggish. Many home entertainment projectors of the past had input lag measuring in the hundreds of milliseconds, which is easy to see as opposed to feel. It's important for a living room projector used for gaming has an input lag that measures in the teens of milliseconds or below, and BenQ projectors can get as low as 4.16ms.

Flexible installation capabilities

Every space is different. How deep a room is, where couches are placed, what the wall and ceiling stud orientation is in a room, and where a screen can be placed all dictate where a projector can be placed. Because each room is different, projectors need to be flexible in how they can be placed or mounted.

BenQ's range of home entertainment projectors offers a variety of installation possibilities. There are options that can be placed on a table in front of the couch, on an equipment rack behind it, or mounted on the ceiling. In addition, there are 4K short-throw projector versions of the same model—such as the TK710, TK 710STi, TK700, and TK700ST—that allow for closer placement to the screen in rooms that don't have the depth necessary for the non-ST versions.

For even more flexibility, BenQ's new ST30 portable desktop mount projector stand is compatible with the GP520 and soon the TK705/TK705Sti. The mount's durable design features a 5mm curved metal arm with full-metal base and anti-slip silicone pads for strong, stable positioning. It tilts 20 degrees, rotates 360 degrees, and locks in place with a simple switch.

Audio

George Lucas said, "Sound is 50 percent of the movie-going experience," so what is a home entertainment projector setup without audio? Projectors like the BenQ GP520 include two 12-watt speakers to provide a Dolby Audio experience. You can also connect speakers or headphones with Bluetooth 5.2 to further enhance your living room projector sound.

And all BenQ projectors include eARC capability and Dolby Atmos support, so they can be connected via HDMI to a full Dolby Atmos system with an AVR or soundbar.

The BenQ Home Entertainment Lineup

No matter what your living room requires, BenQ has a collection of 4K home entertainment projectors to deliver bright, color accurate, and engaging content for your family. You can be a Netflix junkie, a cinephile with a massive Criterion collection, or own every game console on the market. A BenQ 4K home projector is available to fit your needs.

The Show Streamer

So much of the content we consume today is found on myriad streaming programs that you can find through your Google TV. Be it from your living room coffee table or your ceiling, there are options for the Show Streamer.

BenQ GP520: The GP520 is a family-friendly projector that can be brought out and set up in the matter of minutes. The compact size of only 9.49 inches wide by 5.94 inches high by 8.86 inches deep and 8.2 pounds means it's easy to move, and it includes automatic setup features to get you watching content fast. Auto Cinema Mode using three integrated sensors combined with CinematicColor tuning technology to properly adapt the image to your living room parameters. Wall color correction, ambient light adaptation, and distance-based adjustment make sure the image is bright and optimized for your space.

BenQ TK705i/TK205Sti: These 4K 3000-lumen home entertainment projectors are powered by BenQ CinematicColor and HDR-PRO technologies to deliver dramatic 4K visuals with vivid contrast, rich tones, and cinematic depth, even in well-lit rooms. The TK705i features motorized zoom (1.0-1.3x optical zoom ratio) and the TK705STi offers a short-throw ratio of 0.8 for flexible installation in compact spaces, projecting up to 150" with flexible throw distances. Both models were designed to blend into the home with clean lines, premium fabric finish, and thoughtful details. Powered by HDMI 2.1 and ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode), the TK705i and TK705STi automatically detect gameplay signals to reduce video delay. And they are the only projectors in their class with USB-C (up to 30W) charging, letting you power your device while you play. No breaks, no dead batteries.

The Movie Buff

As a cinephile, you strive to emulate the movie-going experience at home—without the distracting other audience members on their phones. It's important to have a bright, consistent, accurate image that will immerse you in whatever world you have in store for the evening.

BenQ TK710: This 4K laser projector is rated to output 3,200 ANSI lumens of brightness, and the light engine can last up to 20,000 hours for years of movie enjoyment. It can be placed on a table or mounted on your ceiling and is capable of up to 10% vertical lens shift to keep the image squared up while still fitting your screen height. The 1.3x zoom allows distance placement of 8.4 to 10.9 feet for a 100-inch diagonal image, 10 to 13.1 feet for 120-inch diagonal, and 12.5 to 16.3 feet for an enormous 150-inch, wall-sized picture. The living room projector's HDMI ports support gaming up to 4K/60 with an incredibly low 16ms input lag (or down to 4.16ms with a 1080p/240Hz signal) to satisfy the most competitive gamers.

BenQ TK710STi: The STi version includes many of the great features of the TK710, including a laser light engine capable of 3,200 ANSI lumens, ceiling or table installation, and HDMI that support 4K/60 gaming with only 4.16ms of input lag. But the short throw lens and 1.2x zoom means the projector can be placed closer to the screen and still display huge images. With a 100-inch diagonal image from only 5 to 6 feet away, 120-inch from 6 to 7.2 feet, or 150-inch from 7.5 to 9 feet, the TK710STi can fit in a shallower living room. Plus, it comes with Android TV, so those movies are easily accessible to stream from all the major platforms like Netflix, Disney+, and HBO Max.

The Game Day Host

Feeling like you're at the game without having to deal with traffic, ticket prices, or getting drinks spilled on you is the dream. And you can choose who you share your time with by inviting all of your friends and family to enjoy your favorite sports.

BenQ TK700: It's important to have high brightness when you're watching the game in the afternoon, and the TK700 4K home projector delivers just that. It uses a traditional lamp as a light source that has 3,200 ANSI lumens of brightness and a 10,000:1 contrast ratio. Once the game is over, the TK700 is also a great gaming projector thanks to its super low input lag, or for an evening movie with the family.

BenQ TK700ST: The TK700ST is just like the TK700, but with the added flexibility of being a short-throw projector. It's a great sports solution when your living room is less than 12 feet deep and you still want a big screen.

BenQ Projectors Transform the Living Room

There's only one way to get a true big-screen experience in your living room without breaking the bank, and that's with one of BenQ's 4K home entertainment projectors. They offer high brightness and ambient light sensing features to combat the detrimental effects of a sunlit living room. They're just as good at showing movies as they are playing video games or for cheering on your favorite team. And with the flexibility of installation options across the lineup, there's one that's perfect for every living room.

Having a big-screen 4K projector in your living room brings families together, it brings friends together, and it offers enjoyment every day of the week for years to come.

Thinking about getting a projector, but unsure if it fits your space? BenQ's AR Projector Planner helps you simulate, plan, and choose the perfect model for your home. Try it now