In the last few years education has come a long way from what we were accustomed to, present day classrooms coming with projectors, netbooks and other tools of that sort in order to provide students with interactive content, BenQ's MP780ST taking an innovative approach when it comes to this.

The concept behind this projector is actually quite simple, since it wants to replace the already familiar interactive blackboard/projector combo with a much more affordable solution made up of a projector and a pen like device that lets you write and draw anywhere on the projected image.

What is so special about this device is that at about 1500 Euros it comes a lot cheaper then most of the interactive blackboards available right now, while not requiring any sort of calibration between the pointer and projector, coming as an easy to deploy solution.



But let's move away from explaining how does this technology works and focus more on the real life performance of the MP780ST since we were able to spend some time with it during a local BenQ event, the PointDraw technology making quite an impression on me since there was no input lag whatsoever and the pen proved to be really precise.

The only downside that I could find is that it takes some time to get accustomed to using it, especially if there is some distance between you and the projected image, the pen also being quite large for a first grader's hand although I certainly didn't felt any discomfort while using it.



Apart from the PointDraw technology, the MP780ST is pretty much your standard DLP projector, although it comes with a series of add-ons that are meant for the education market such as the powerful built-in speakers.

Other features include 1280x800 native resolution, a 3000:1 contrast ratio as well as 2,500 ANSI lumens brightness while, in the connectivity department, we find all the features that someone would expect from a 1,500 Euro projector including Ethernet capabilities.



Brightness-wise, this should be more then enough to meet any classroom's needs, but, unfortunately, in the short time we got to spend with this projector, we haven't had the chance to experiment with it in really well lit environments since sun light was at a premium, being one of those typical rainy autumn days.

To give you a better idea about how BenQ's MP780ST works and what you can expect from it, I will leave you with a short video that demos some of the features of the PointDraw technology, although its possibilities are rather endless when it comes bundled with the right software.