Nebula Capsule Smart Mini Projector, by Anker, Portable 100 ANSI lm High-Contrast Pocket Cinema with Wi-Fi, DLP, 360° Speaker, 100″ picture, Android 7.1, 4-Hour Video Playtime, and App

This is a revolutionary product — a very usable portable projector. It is decently bright; can work for hours on battery; can sit nicely on most surfaces and also comes with a standard tripod screw hole. It comes with Android 7.1, so it works as a portable smart TV on its own. It can also mirror screens of cell phones (I tested both IOS and android) and computers through wifi and bluetooth. Therefore, it has a very convenient and truly wireless setup. There is simply no other non-Anker/Nebula portable projector available today (Jan 2018) in its league.

The only projector worthy of comparison is the Nebula Mars. For not too much more money (especially when Mars has a discount), you get 500 ANSI Lumens vs 100, 1280×800 resolution vs 854×480, 19500mAh battery vs 5200mAh, 10W JBL speakers vs 5W unknown speakers. So Mars seems like a better deal. However, I simply cannot get over the portability of Capsule. In my mind, this single factor outweighs all the rest of them. Moreover, Capsule runs Android 7.1 now and probably will get an Android 8 upgrade, while Mars still has Android 4.4. That is another plus for Capsule. Actually, the two seem to have the same processor, RAM and ROM, so maybe Mars may also have the updated software one day?

The Amazon page is missing most of the specs mentioned above. Instead of brightness, battery capacity and resolution, it mentions picture sizes and playtime. But the specs should nevertheless be there.

I have been using this device for two days, for projecting my screen when working, and for movies. When projecting 100″ images, it is perfectly bright in a dark room at night, but is very dim during daytime even with the curtains closed. But I can always move it closer to the wall and make the projection smaller. At 30″, the pictures are visible even in a bright room. So in terms of brightness, I would say it is very usable. There are two modes: standard and “battery”. I assume the latter will make it dimmer. The battery life is amazing. The Amazon description says 4 hours, while the Indiegogo description says 2.5 hours. With the device set to standard mode, I could use it nonstop (steaming videos online) for 4 hours and still have about 30% charge left. It has automatic vertical keystone correction. There is no horizontal ones, but that is normal. It is suggested to work below a relative humidity of 85%, and does not seem to have any IP ratings, so using it in the bathroom may not be a good idea. To stream media from a USB flash drive, you have to use the provided micro USB male to USB A female cable that is about 2 inches long, like a tail to the device. While the setup does not look nice and the conversion cable is one more thing to carry, it is a pretty logical choice.

The device is very well packaged — better than Apple products, I would say. It also comes with high-quality accessories, including a travel porch with the same material as those for Anker batteries, an Anker micro USB cable and a nice compact charger with Quick Charge 3.0.

After comparison to the WOWOTO T8E: Bumping up one star. I wish I could settle at say, 3.75 stars. I really want a bit more ANSI lumens (200 would be solid); and 720P. But Anker/Nebula clearly balanced a lot of choices in the design here. Internal apps also need work, and we need Google Play Services stat. I also think Netflix needs a tweak to support higher resolution streaming as it seems to settle on 480p and lower bitrate than I’d like and I find connecting my phone via HDMI results in a better Netflix experience.

Overall I’m sticking with the Nebula Capsule over the T8e. My reasons being:

1) Fan noise on the T8e is way too annoying
2) T8e has a terrible internal speaker, and using a BT speaker is a huge problem because of a .5s-1s audio delay
3) No smartphone app for control – this is the the best part of the Nebula Capsule as the smartphone app is excellent. I hated using the touchpad on the top of the T8e.
4) <2 hours Battery life on the T8e means you will likely always need to plug in during a full length movie.
5) While the T8e is fairly portable – it’s not “toss in the pocket/bag” portable – and I certainly wouldn’t count on the battery of the T8e to last long enough

The T8e certainly provided a sharper, brighter, and overall better image – but also I found colors overly saturated and red. I’m debating the WOWOTO H8 for a permanent setup and sticking with the capsule for portable needs. The bottom line is that if you don’t need a BATTERY powered portable device with a very capable internal speaker, there are better choices than the Nebula for image quality. Anker/Nebula clearly focused on a truly capable stand-alone/no wires attached experience that can last well past a single full-length movie and provide a decent enough speaker to make sure a crowd can hear. The addition of solid connectivity, and bluetooth that is lag free are huge capabilities. And let’s be straightforward, the fact it runs Android 7.0 already is a huge advantage to app updates moving forward. A lot of companies (like WOWOTO) say they will upgrade, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.

I’m deducting 1 star in order to bring attention to an issue with Netflix. I’ve noticed that Netflix seems to cap resolution/bitrate to a pretty low level when using the built in app on the Capsule. I see lots of pixelation and compression artifacts that make the image quality severely reduced. When I plug in an HDMI stream of the same movie/show on Netflix, the image is decidedly sharper with no compression artifacts and noticeable higher bitrate. I’ve checked the youtube settings – but nothing in there other than for “high” quality downloads. I’m really loving this toy, but find the built apps really lack across the board and often have to plug in something to HDMI to improve the situation.