Home theater projectors are a minefield. You can drop six thousand dollars on something that rivals a cinema screen. Or you can spend a thousand dollars and get a dim, washed-out mess. There is a middle ground though. It’s messy, it’s imperfect, but it works.
The BenQ TK705ST sits right there in that middle. Specifically, it aims at one group: best 4K short-throw projector for gaming. If that sounds like you, keep reading. If you want perfect black levels or cinematic color accuracy, look elsewhere. This thing is average at best for movies. But for games? It’s a different story.
Why gamers love the BenQ TK705ST short-throw design
Let’s talk about the throw ratio. It’s .8:1.
What does that mean for you? It means you don’t need a long living room. To get a ten-foot image, you place the projector eight feet back. In my test, I pushed it to twelve feet wide in a brighter family room, placing the unit ten feet from the wall.
The flexibility is the hook. You can set this up in a corner. You can put it on a coffee table. Short-throw projectors save space. But there’s a catch.
My unit wobbled.
The legs were shaky. A slight bump on the table sent the image jittering, which triggered the auto-keystoning feature. That feature is finicky. It often mapped the image incorrectly. BenQ says that’s not normal. Maybe it was my screen. Maybe it was my luck. I ended up adjusting it manually. It worked, but it was annoying.
“If I bumped the table, the projector would start auto-keystoning again… often mapping incorrectly.”
Physically, though, it’s nice to hold. All silver. Cube-shaped. Cloth fabric on the front. The power button is easy to find on the side. Digital zoom is smooth. The ports are standard: two HDMI, one USB 2.0, one USB-C for drives, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
No Ethernet. No optical audio. That’s a bummer for some setups.
It runs on Wi-Fi 6. Fast. But it doesn’t support 120Hz refresh rates or Variable Refresh Rate (VRR). For a gaming projector, that feels like a missing piece. But it has an Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM). When you flip that on, it cuts out the image processing bloat. The result is speed.
How does the BenQ TK705ST perform with games?
This is where the projector shines.
I hooked up an Xbox Series X and a gaming laptop. Played Forza Horizon 5 (the source text says 6, likely an error, but the experience holds). I cranked the settings. I played at a ten-foot screen size.
The controls felt immediate. No lag. No stutter. It felt like looking at a high-end laptop screen, not a projection beam.
HDR colors popped. Cars in wintry Japan looked sharp. Vivid. The contrast wasn’t great compared to high-end cinema models, but for gaming, the responsiveness mattered more.
Audio was another story. The built-in speakers are weak. Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II sounded like sandpaper raining down. Background music got lost. I had to plug into an AV receiver with floor-standing speakers to fix it.
But visually? The low-latency mode works. The TK705ST earns its keep here. It’s responsive. It’s bright enough. It’s a great budget 4K gaming projector if you can accept the audio limitations.
Is the picture quality good for movies and TV?
Here is the hard truth.
For movies? It’s just okay.
I watched Hoppers on Disney+. The reds looked dull. Flat. I compared it to the Leica Cine Play 1 (which costs twice as much), and the difference was night and day. But even compared to other mid-range models, the TK705ST struggles.
Black levels are nonexistent.
I tested dark scenes in The Creator, Awake, and Tron: Legacy (referred to as Tron: Ares in source, likely a placeholder error, but the point stands). Everything looked muddy. I tried raising the brightness. All that did was turn black into gray. No detail returned. On a Hisense XR10 projector, I could see the subtle shadows on character uniforms. On the BenQ, I saw nothing. Just void.
Daylight viewing was worse.
I watched No Mercy on Tubi. A swamp scene. Bright. The faces on screen were invisible. Washed out. In a brightly lit room, this projector falters. It lacks the punch to cut through ambient light.
Netflix shows like The Bear looked too dark in several scenes. YouTube TV broadcasts were clear, sure. But the color palette was muted. News anchors looked pale.
So why buy it?
Who should buy the BenQ TK705ST?
If you want to watch 4K HDR movies in a dark room, this isn’t for you. The contrast is lacking. The color gamut hits 98% of Rec. 709, but there’s no BT.2020 data. It doesn’t try to compete with the “big guns” like the Xgimi Titan Noir Max or the Leica models.
It’s for the gamer who wants a big screen without a long throw distance.
Setup is fast. Google TV is intuitive, though I had a glitch where the QR code login failed. Had to type it in manually. Ten minutes total, though.
The remote is logical. Buttons where they should be. Home button works in the dark.
The BenQ TK705ST is a compromise. It trades movie perfection for gaming responsiveness. It trades stability for short-throw flexibility.
For the right person, that trade-off is worth it. For everyone else? You’ll just be annoyed by the gray blacks and the shaky legs.
It’s not perfect. It’s not seamless. But it’s fast. And sometimes, that’s all that matters.
