BenQ TH575i projector review: Bright lights, big screen
Rating: 3.5/5
Not every home projector offers 4K resolution or fancy features; some like to keep it simple for those who just want to enjoy a big, bright image on the wall, offers access to Netflix without buying a separate streaming box, and use a remote that just simply works. That is precisely the territory the BenQ TH575i occupies – priced at Rs 56,500 on official website. After spending time testing it across movies, sports broadcasts and a few late-night gaming sessions, it largely delivers on that promise. But there are some hiccups, let’s find out.
Design and build: Functional, not flashy
The TH575i is a traditional lamp-based DLP projector, and it makes no attempt to disguise that fact. There is no sleek LED chassis here, no whisper-quiet operation, no pretence of being a compact lifestyle device. It is a white, fairly utilitarian box, with three M5 mounting holes on top for ceiling installation and adjustable feet for tabletop placement. The build feels solid rather than premium, which is appropriate given where this projector sits in the market.
Connectivity is handled through two HDMI 1.4a ports on the rear, a USB-B port capable of powering small streaming sticks, an analog audio output, and an RS-232 port for custom installation setups. There is no Wi-Fi or Bluetooth built into the projector itself because everything runs through the included Google TV dongle or an external source you plug in.
That brightness comes at a cost as it draws much power and to dissipate heat, it has a fan loud fan that throws the heat out. For example, if we are sitting close to the unit, the fan noise is noticeable enough which means that ceiling mounting or rear-of-room placement is the more comfortable option. The projector also gets 10W speakers, which are enough if you are watching a late night FIFA World Cup match alone. However, if you are watching in a group, you need to connect external speakers to get the ‘immersive’ feeling, given that the projector is made for home entertainment.
Picture quality: Bright, strong contrast
Brightness is BenQ TH575i’s strongest argument. In a market increasingly dominated by compact LED projectors, BenQ has gone the other direction with this model, and the logic is straightforward: raw light output. The TH575i is rated at 3,800 ANSI lumens – a figure that most portable LED projectors simply cannot touch.
Image quality on the TH575i is something of a mixed bag as it depends heavily on what you are watching and how much colour accuracy matters to you. Contrast is genuinely the standout strength. With a rated 15,000:1 contrast ratio, dark scenes hold real depth rather than collapsing into the grey haze typical of budget projectors. Watching a dimly lit thriller, shadows retained texture and detail rather than flattening out completely, even if the deepest near-blacks still show some limitations.
For example, we watched Padmaavat. The colours were fairly accurate out-of-the-box, and needed some correction before we could enjoy the grandeur of the sets, colours and shine of jewellery and low-light scenes. We also watched Day of the Jackal, which actually has an opposite tone of Padmaavat: Bright scenes in sunlight, lighter clothes shades, and colourful buildings and architecture. Overall, it was a pleasing experience altogether.
Colour gamut coverage reaches 88% of Rec.709 after calibration, which is adequate for standard HD content but it means HDR material looks washed out rather than punchy. This means that if you are expecting expecting vibrant, true-to-source colours straight from the box will need to spend time in the settings menu.
For example, the red saree that Deepika Padukone wore looked slightly washed out. Similarly, when watching Paraguay’s match in FIFA World Cup, their royal blue colour jersey looked black and details were lost. However, there is good news.
BenQ includes dedicated picture modes to compensate. Sports Mode adjusts colour temperature to make pitch greens and skin tones look more natural under brighter living-room lighting. During our testing, watching a football match in Sports Mode looked more balanced than the default profile. Cinema Mode aims for accuracy closer to what filmmakers intended, while Game Mode introduces Black Detail Enhancement.
Resolution tops out at native 1080p, which means the 4K content available on OTTs were scaled down to FHD resolution. On screen sizes up to 100 to 120 inches at a normal viewing distance, this is rarely a problem in practice. Push toward the upper end of that range, the limits of Full HD do start to show.
According to the official website, the BenQ TH575i gets a Google TV dongle, pre-optimised by BenQ for use with this projector. The dongle that plugs into one of the rear HDMI ports and provides access to Netflix, YouTube, Disney+, and the rest of the Google TV app catalogue, with official DRM certification ensuring compatibility with major streaming services. However, we used the Google puck streamer because of logged-in accounts in the device.
In daily use, navigation through the included remote felt responsive, and app load times were reasonable rather than sluggish. The fact that this is a separate dongle rather than a built-in OS is arguably a feature rather than a limitation. This means that the projector itself will not become technologically outdated even as streaming platforms evolve, since the dongle can simply be swapped or updated independently.
Not every home projector offers 4K resolution or fancy features; some like to keep it simple for those who just want to enjoy a big, bright image on the wall, offers access to Netflix without buying a separate streaming box, and use a remote that just simply works. That is precisely the territory the BenQ TH575i occupies – priced at Rs 56,500 on official website. After spending time testing it across movies, sports broadcasts and a few late-night gaming sessions, it largely delivers on that promise. But there are some hiccups, let’s find out.
Design and build: Functional, not flashy
The TH575i is a traditional lamp-based DLP projector, and it makes no attempt to disguise that fact. There is no sleek LED chassis here, no whisper-quiet operation, no pretence of being a compact lifestyle device. It is a white, fairly utilitarian box, with three M5 mounting holes on top for ceiling installation and adjustable feet for tabletop placement. The build feels solid rather than premium, which is appropriate given where this projector sits in the market.
Connectivity is handled through two HDMI 1.4a ports on the rear, a USB-B port capable of powering small streaming sticks, an analog audio output, and an RS-232 port for custom installation setups. There is no Wi-Fi or Bluetooth built into the projector itself because everything runs through the included Google TV dongle or an external source you plug in.
That brightness comes at a cost as it draws much power and to dissipate heat, it has a fan loud fan that throws the heat out. For example, if we are sitting close to the unit, the fan noise is noticeable enough which means that ceiling mounting or rear-of-room placement is the more comfortable option. The projector also gets 10W speakers, which are enough if you are watching a late night FIFA World Cup match alone. However, if you are watching in a group, you need to connect external speakers to get the ‘immersive’ feeling, given that the projector is made for home entertainment.
Picture quality: Bright, strong contrast
Brightness is BenQ TH575i’s strongest argument. In a market increasingly dominated by compact LED projectors, BenQ has gone the other direction with this model, and the logic is straightforward: raw light output. The TH575i is rated at 3,800 ANSI lumens – a figure that most portable LED projectors simply cannot touch.
Image quality on the TH575i is something of a mixed bag as it depends heavily on what you are watching and how much colour accuracy matters to you. Contrast is genuinely the standout strength. With a rated 15,000:1 contrast ratio, dark scenes hold real depth rather than collapsing into the grey haze typical of budget projectors. Watching a dimly lit thriller, shadows retained texture and detail rather than flattening out completely, even if the deepest near-blacks still show some limitations.
For example, we watched Padmaavat. The colours were fairly accurate out-of-the-box, and needed some correction before we could enjoy the grandeur of the sets, colours and shine of jewellery and low-light scenes. We also watched Day of the Jackal, which actually has an opposite tone of Padmaavat: Bright scenes in sunlight, lighter clothes shades, and colourful buildings and architecture. Overall, it was a pleasing experience altogether.
Colour gamut coverage reaches 88% of Rec.709 after calibration, which is adequate for standard HD content but it means HDR material looks washed out rather than punchy. This means that if you are expecting expecting vibrant, true-to-source colours straight from the box will need to spend time in the settings menu.
For example, the red saree that Deepika Padukone wore looked slightly washed out. Similarly, when watching Paraguay’s match in FIFA World Cup, their royal blue colour jersey looked black and details were lost. However, there is good news.
BenQ includes dedicated picture modes to compensate. Sports Mode adjusts colour temperature to make pitch greens and skin tones look more natural under brighter living-room lighting. During our testing, watching a football match in Sports Mode looked more balanced than the default profile. Cinema Mode aims for accuracy closer to what filmmakers intended, while Game Mode introduces Black Detail Enhancement.
Resolution tops out at native 1080p, which means the 4K content available on OTTs were scaled down to FHD resolution. On screen sizes up to 100 to 120 inches at a normal viewing distance, this is rarely a problem in practice. Push toward the upper end of that range, the limits of Full HD do start to show.
According to the official website, the BenQ TH575i gets a Google TV dongle, pre-optimised by BenQ for use with this projector. The dongle that plugs into one of the rear HDMI ports and provides access to Netflix, YouTube, Disney+, and the rest of the Google TV app catalogue, with official DRM certification ensuring compatibility with major streaming services. However, we used the Google puck streamer because of logged-in accounts in the device.
In daily use, navigation through the included remote felt responsive, and app load times were reasonable rather than sluggish. The fact that this is a separate dongle rather than a built-in OS is arguably a feature rather than a limitation. This means that the projector itself will not become technologically outdated even as streaming platforms evolve, since the dongle can simply be swapped or updated independently.
Next Story