Front projection vs. TV is a different world. It's as simple as that. A 120" projection setup is about twice the square inches as a 85" flat panel TV.

But, in reality, you should talk a bit more about the room.

Typically, you will want about 10" to 12" of image diagonal for each foot of viewing distance. So, from 12' away, you will want a 120" to 144" diagonal. A 133" diagonal wouldn't be that bad.

I will say that front projection doesn't match the black levels of flat panel TVs and can't reach the brightness by a long shot. In a dark room though, they can be extremely good. Where a flat panel works well in a brighter room, in a dark room a projector looks amazing.

Proper treatment of the room is strongly suggested with dark paint on walls and ceiling with a dark carpet of some sort.

At the end of the day, a 85" TV when viewed from 12' away, quickly just feels like a big TV and is not home theater.

Front projection, at the same 12' with a 133" screen, will feel much more immersive and much more special for movies and other viewing.

All this said, you asked about the quality of VAVA. I will say that ultra short throw has some inherent issues with setup, placement, and a great image. It deals with the ultra short throw lens requirements. A standard throw projector, towards the back of the room is a much better choice. Likewise, a much better choice is to use a proper surround sound setup with speakers instead of built in speakers or a speaker bar.

At the same price class as VAVA, there are similar DLP projectors which will produce a better looking image. They will have better image uniformity and better black levels and contrast. But, they will need to go at the back of the room.

Quote (Joe Simari on Dec 8, 2020 8:20 AM): I had no idea the DLPs are still better than the short throws.

To clarify:
DLP and LCD are projection technologies. Most ultra-short throw projectors, like VAVA, use the same DLP chip in them that standard throw projectors use.

The problem with UST projectors is the lenses used in them are radically different and more difficult to produce than standard throw lenses. So, they simply are not as sharp or capable of being as sharp as the lens on a standard throw projector.

There has been a lot of (well deserved) griping from the front projection crowd that BenQ and Optoma have not released a standard short throw (8 feet for a 120" image) projector like their 1080p versions. The HT2150ST from BenQ is an excellent 1080p model that is very well respected, yet they have no 4K version using the same lens.

So, the 3550 from BenQ may be about as short of throw as you can get.

Not sure where the ceiling starts to slant, so jump into the calculator to find out the distances.