Competition has been a way of life since prehistory. Societal tendencies among humans progressed to the point that communities of men and women started living together and comparing everything and anything to everyone else’s.

                                             Well, maybe not the size of the clubs...
 

I can imagine a graphical depiction of this kind of competition from a century to century basis (or perhaps I have a lingering recollection of exactly such a depiction from somewhere around the web) – perhaps it started from comparing the size of their prehistoric clubs – down to who’s medieval armor was crafted better, to how many titles one had preceding his actual name during the age of exploration. Or something like that.

                                              The 80's arms race was the worst (and most dangerous) form of one-upmanship.

These days, it’s done with status symbols that shows how well-off you are (or perhaps how good your financing is!) to other people with the same kind of product. These status symbols cum products are of the convenience / entertainment variety usually, of which the best example would be cars and home appliances. With cars its obvious – newer and better cars from better-known manufacturers will always lend a certain amount of boasting capital to expend on your fellow motorists / neighbors / co-workers. With appliances it’s a bit more complicated – mainly due to the many types of appliances that exist. There is one very iconic symbol for home-appliance one-upmanship these days though – and that is the large-screen TV.

Current commercially available large screen LCD’s (the most common type available) tops out at around 100+ inches of screen space – something that will definitely shock the Joneses who thought a 70-inch screen tops everyone else in the neighborhood. But what if you’re the so-called Joneses, and you’ve already brought the biggest size available, emptying your wallet at the same time? Do you wait for the next iteration or the next big break-through, something that will fit your diminished budget and your desire to trump the Smiths in the next house over? Well, there’s an option that’s rarely exercised but fulfills all of your requirements for one-upmanship – the projector.

                                              Large screen TVs - a great way to splurge.

A projector only requires a large-enough blank wall or a roll-up screen of some kind, plus enough distance between the “screen” and the device itself to trump the biggest – sized TV by more than twice the screen size. Of course, certain requirements must be fulfilled – the aforementioned distance is a direct result of the projector’s “throw distance” – how far the projector can throw out the image and still produce good results. In the case of the BenQ MP622, this distance stands at nearly 8 meters – which produces a screen size of around 190 inches (!).

That’s the most important thing right? Your club is already bigger than the other guy’s, never mind technicalities like the actual screen it has (none) and how good looking it is (not so good). Not! Of course these things matter. And you can forgive your neighbor for not accepting your right to boast of the biggest “screen” on the block.

                                              Projectors for the home has the potential to reach this scale... eventually.

The BenQ MP622 is actually marketed at the suits, and is meant to be used in office settings / boardrooms. Thus its specs is designed with this brief in the first place – its brightness rating is pretty good, especially for a small, semi-bright room (like a boardroom), but can’t be expected to perform in an auditorium or a bigger-than-average room. Contrast of 2000:1 is in line with this model’s brightness rating, and similarly cannot produce a sharp enough picture for nearly 200” size screens. But this is actually another boasting point for the buyer of this product.

                                              The intended setting for the MP622.

Flexibility is another boasting trait of projectors. The above mentioned shortcomings are actually just symptoms of the upper limit that the MP622 can approach. This product can scale down to manageable levels, meaning a point where its throw distance (how far away it can be set up to produce how big a screen), its brightness, and its contrast combines to give a picture that’s bigger and better. Setting up this projector from 16 feet away roughly equates to a viewable picture 120” large, and at a resolution / brightness that will give the TV screen a run for its money (lots of money).

One other thing to consider – the complexity inherent to this kind of product is both a negative, and another boasting point for the buyer – that is, if you’re like us and like to tinker around with settings and buttons. Having a projector marks you down as an alpha geek – or at least a rich geek with enough money left over from not buying the 100-plus TV screen. Besides, at below a thousand dollars, the MP622 is by no means expensive for a capable, mid-range projector.

These complexities must of course be taken into consideration before purchase. A proper projection screen is best, but a large-enough piece of wall will suffice. BenQ includes a wall color correction function that automatically adjusts output to better make use of the background color I.e., the wall. Adjustments for each color independent from hue, saturation and brightness gives the user absolute control over output as well as increase the tinkering that has to be done. These are however offset by excellent specifications such as a 2700 ANSI lumen rating, XGA resolution (1024 x 768), a robust compression feature for clean conversion from higher and lower resolutions, and well-designed thermal management that directly results in this model’s biggest trump card: its very low 26.0 dB noise rating.

                                              Eeny, Meeny, Mieny, Moe...

Purists among those people addicted to one-upmanship will protest that this is not a fair contest for the “real deal”, but most people are more practical than that. This is simply a product that represents a smarter approach winning over straightforward comparison – like having guns go up against the prehistoric man’s wooden club. With the BenQ MP622’s feature set, flexibility, geek factor, and very reasonable price-to-result ratio, most people will gladly set up that roll-up screen for bragging rights that’s way more attainable than the average big-screen TV.

 
P.S. Of course the time will come when everyone will be considering projectors for their home entertainment systems, and when the time comes, competition will not be based on inches of screen space, but rather throw distance and lumens. Such is progress. I’m sure BenQ will still be around to give a better than average performance from that front, if this product is anything to go by.