BenQ GP520 Review: Just Point It, and Project a Solid Picture (2025)

Missing from the GP520 is a gimbal mount, which is becoming increasingly common for room-to-room portable projectors, but that helps keep the size and weight in the low end of the typical range for the category, at 5.9 by 9.5 by 8.9 inches (HWD) and 8.2 pounds. It's also one of a few models with an optional carrying case ($89) available, to help extend portability beyond carrying from one room to another.

As with every 4K room-to-room model to date, the GP520 is built around a DLP chip that uses TI's XPR fast-switch pixel shifting to coax 3,840 by 2,160 pixels out of the native 1,920 by 1,080 pixels on the chip. Its rated 2,600 ANSI lumen brightness comes from a four-channel LED source—red, green, and two blues. BenQ says the second blue channel boosts brightness and improves color accuracy. As expected for LEDs, the color gamut (the range of colors) is smaller than for most projectors that use triple-laser light sources, but still wide enough to deliver nicely saturated color. BenQ rates it at 98% of Rec.709, the standard for high-definition TV. The rated lifetime for the LEDs is 30,000 hours in Eco mode or 20,000 hours in Normal mode.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

If you've never set up a projector before, note that there is little in the way of written instructions included. Instead, you'll find a Quick Start Guide with a QR code that takes you to setup videos on BenQ's website. The process itself is simple. Position the projector, point it at whatever you're using for a screen, turn it on, and follow the on-screen instructions for the Google TV OS setup. As is common, Wi-Fi is the only choice for connecting to your network and the internet beyond. All the connectors for other video sources—including two HDMI ports, a USB Type-A port, and a USB Type-C port—are on the back panel.

Beyond these basics, setup can be as automated as you'd like it to be. The GP520 offers all the most common automatic setup features—including autofocus, keystone, rotation, obstacle avoidance, and screen fit—plus an Auto Cinema picture mode. That mode automatically adjusts for wall color and ambient light level, and it even optimizes the image based on the distance to whatever you're using for a screen.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

My ad hoc tests proved that all the features I tried worked well enough to be useful. But digital adjustments to image size and shape can affect brightness and add artifacts to some images, so for our formal tests, we turn most off. The only automatic setting we usually use is for focus, which also worked well enough most of the time. However, it was occasionally off by enough that it was worth taking the extra moment for a little manual tweaking.

The GP520 is designed to deliver a satisfyingly large image in ambient light. Using the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) recommendations for a dark room, the rated 2,600 ANSI lumens would be enough to light up a roughly 200-to-270-inch, 1.0-gain screen. In my tests, using the lower brightness of my preferred settings, the image was easily bright enough using my 90-inch screen for both SDR and HDR viewing. In a family room with windows and skylights on a bright day, bright scenes were watchable at that image size, though a bit washed out, and I could still make out what was happening in dark scenes.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

The audio system, built around two 12-watt speakers, delivered enough volume to fill a family room, with good enough quality to be useful. If you want to add an external sound system, you can connect it via the 3.5mm audio-out, the one HDMI port that supports eARC (and Dolby Atmos), or Bluetooth. You'll also find a Bluetooth speaker mode to let you use the projector with other audio sources.

Straight out of the box, the GP520 is set to Auto Cinema mode, which is designed to automatically control as much as possible, to the point where it leaves you with very few settings you can adjust. It won't even let you change the power setting (labeled Brightness, because adjusting power changes brightness in lumens). Instead, Auto Cinema automatically adjusts power based on both the current ambient light level and the distance from whatever you're using for a screen. (Greater distance means a bigger image size, which needs more lumens to maintain the same brightness.) Many people will see no reason to switch to any other mode.

However, those who are picky or just want to experiment have other choices. The menus offer a total of six preset picture modes for SDR content (including Auto Cinema) plus a User mode, which is the only one that lets you set contrast, saturation, sharpness, hue, color temperature, and wall color. None of the modes offers a conventional brightness setting (which actually sets black level). The black level of our review unit was permanently set just a touch high. Most modes offer acceptable or better color accuracy, but in my preliminary tests, I quickly narrowed my preferred choices down to Auto Cinema and Cinema.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

Between the two, Auto Cinema offered better shadow detail with default settings, but it exhibited some blue shift (which most people don't find bothersome). Cinema offered better color accuracy. Although it didn't hold shadow detail as well with its out-of-box settings, changing the Local Contrast Control setting from Off to Medium (which Auto Cinema uses by default) largely erased the difference on that score, giving Cinema the edge overall. For formal testing, I used Cinema with the Local Contrast Control set to High. The only other change I made was to turn off frame interpolation. Even at the default setting of Low, it still added a digital video effect.

For HDR input, the GP520's menu offers a picture mode named after the current HDR connection type—HDR10, HDR10+, or HLG—plus a User mode in each case, and two more modes on the HDR10 list only: HDR Auto Cinema and HDR Game. For HDR10 movies on disc, the choice between HDR10 and HDR Auto Cinema was close to a toss-up, but Auto Cinema delivered a slightly brighter image overall, making it my preferred choice.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

In my formal tests with SDR input, the GP520 delivered good image quality across the board, scoring nicely on everything from color accuracy to shadow detail to contrast in both dark and bright scenes. For the HDR10 versions of the same movies, the same was true for color accuracy, shadow detail, and contrast in brighter scenes, but the darkest scenes in our test suite had middling to poor contrast. As I've noted in other reviews, poor performance in these scenes won't generally be a deal breaker for most people, since few movies or TV shows have more than one or two scenes that dark, if they have any at all.

The 3D support works with DLP-Link glasses and requires manually switching to 3D mode, with choices of Top-and-Bottom, Left-Right, and Blu-ray 3D (available only when connected via HDMI and playing a Blu-ray disc). I didn't see any crosstalk in my tests, and 3D-related motion artifacts were at the low end of typical for current-generation projectors—enough to notice, but not enough for most people to find annoying.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

In my testing, I saw a few rainbow artifacts (the red/green/blue flashes that DLP projectors can show). However, I'm pretty sensitive to them. If you don't see them easily, you may not see them at all. Even so, if you're concerned about seeing them, it's always best to buy from a source that allows free returns so you can give the projector a test run yourself.

Gamers will appreciate the projector's support for automatic low-latency mode (ALLM). Using the Game Boost setting (which turns off keystone correction to offer the shortest lag), I measured the input lag with a Bodnar 4K Lag Tester at 17.8 milliseconds (ms) for both 1080p and 4K input at 60Hz.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

Note that I ran into an intermittent problem when connecting to a PC. The first time I tried, the GP520 negotiated a 1080p connection, with Windows 10 showing1080pas the recommended choice, and giving no option for switching to 4K even in Advanced settings. Tricks like turning everything off and back on sometimes gave me a 4K connection, but not always, leaving me with no reliable way to make the problem appear or disappear. At this writing, BenQ is trying to replicate the issue so that it can address it.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

The GP520's appeal lies mainly in its low weight and optional case, making it easily portable, combined with automatic setup features that let you just turn it on and watch. If you're considering it for its portability, though, be sure to also look at the Anker Nebula Cosmos 4K SE and the Epson EpiqVision Mini EF22. Neither is as bright as the GP520, but both are less expensive. The Cosmos 4K SE is our top pick for a low-cost 4K room-to-room portable. It is only a little heavier than the GP520 and has a built-in handle on top. The EF22 offers only 1080p resolution, but it is also the least-expensive model mentioned here, and the lightest.

If portability and price aren't key considerations, you should also consider the 4K Hisense C2 Ultra, our top pick in the category overall. It's the heaviest model mentioned here, but it's also the brightest and the only one that supports Dolby Vision.

Despite the competition, the GP520 can be a compelling choice. For those who want a projector that automates settings as much as possible, even adjusting brightness automatically for the current lighting and image size, it offers what may well be the most straightforward setup currently available. Some may want to tinker with the settings. But those who don't can simply plug it in, turn it on, point it in the right direction, and watch.