Anker Nebula Capsule II Projector Review: Pocket Cinema

Wire­less speak­ers have already become com­mon­place gad­gets — for sure, and you have at least one in your house. The trend of the new time is devices that can broad­cast not only audio, but also video. These are portable pro­jec­tors the size of an aver­age wire­less speak­er, capa­ble of pro­ject­ing an image on any sur­face (as bright as pos­si­ble). We get acquaint­ed with anoth­er such mod­el: Anker Neb­u­la Cap­sule II with built-in Android TV.

Design and interfaces

The col­umn has a strict cylin­dri­cal shape and is slight­ly larg­er than a stan­dard 0.5‑liter can for drinks.

On the side sur­face there is a mesh nec­es­sary for the ven­ti­la­tion of the elec­tron­ic fill­ing. On the oppo­site side of the lens is a pair of but­tons (on and wire­less con­nec­tion), as well as an IR sen­sor for receiv­ing sig­nals from the remote con­trol.

The col­umn can be installed on any flat sur­face, but there is also a thread for a tri­pod. Here it is nec­es­sary to men­tion the weight of the device — and this is 680 grams. We mean that the tri­pod should be sta­ble enough, prefer­ably designed for pro­fes­sion­al cam­eras, and not for smart­phones or ring lamps. All con­trol is con­cen­trat­ed on the top pan­el, where there is a joy­stick with vol­ume con­trol but­tons and return to the pre­vi­ous menu item.

There is also a sim­ple remote con­trol, the main fea­ture of which is the pres­ence of a micro­phone and the abil­i­ty to use the Google Assis­tant voice assis­tant. We have repeat­ed­ly seen that the assis­tant great­ly facil­i­tates the search for con­tent in online cin­e­mas and oth­er ser­vices. To use it, you need to press the but­ton with the helper logo.

The range of ports is good: with their help, you can con­nect almost any video source. There are USB‑A, and USB‑C, and HDMI. A line out­put is pro­vid­ed for trans­mit­ting sound to exter­nal speak­ers.

Connectivity

App down­loads and con­tent load­ing are slow­er than on TVs. But the main thing is that there are no “brakes” dur­ing the trans­la­tion. We tried sev­er­al dif­fer­ent ser­vices (YouTube, KinoPoisk HD, ivi) and in gen­er­al did not notice any­thing crit­i­cal. Of course, much depends on the speed of the Wi-Fi con­nec­tion — by the way, both bands, 2.4 and 5.0 GHz, are sup­port­ed here.

Anker Neb­u­la Cap­sule II is capa­ble of pro­ject­ing an image up to 100 inch­es (2.5 m) in diag­o­nal. Like many oth­er “pock­et” pro­jec­tors, it still requires a lit­tle dark­en­ing of the room. Although the bright­ness has dou­bled com­pared to the first “cap­sule”, 200 lumens is still not enough to get a juicy pic­ture in day­light. The res­o­lu­tion of 720p is also small, but we should not for­get that we have a mobile device in front of us, and not a sta­tion­ary pro­jec­tor.

Sharp­en­ing is auto­mat­ic and quite accu­rate, and takes just a sec­ond or two. If you don’t like some­thing, you can cor­rect it man­u­al­ly.

Despite the pres­ence of only one 8‑watt speak­er, the vol­ume is quite suf­fi­cient. Even in a large room, there is no desire to twist it to the max­i­mum. Sound qual­i­ty is aver­age. For melo­dra­mas and oth­er gen­res with­out spe­cial sound effects, the pos­si­bil­i­ties of acoustics are enough, but fans of action movies are still bet­ter off con­nect­ing an exter­nal device. Too bad they can’t be con­nect­ed via Blue­tooth.

Chrome­cast sup­port allows you to stream con­tent from your smart­phone. A great option to watch vaca­tion videos with the whole fam­i­ly. You can also turn on the movie from a lap­top if it has an appli­ca­tion with movies, but not on the pro­jec­tor.

autonomy

With stream­ing play­back, the Neb­u­la Cap­sule II bat­tery lasts for a lit­tle over 2 hours (accord­ing to offi­cial fig­ures — up to 3). That is, an “aver­age” movie can be watched with­out being con­nect­ed to a pow­er out­let. The device is charged via USB‑C — if the adapter sup­ports Pow­er Deliv­ery (this is what is includ­ed in the kit), the process will take no more than 2.5 hours. If not, it may take more, up to 7.5 hours with a 10-watt adapter.

Our Opinion: Should You Buy Anker Nebula Capsule II

Neb­u­la Cap­sule II costs about 45,000 rubles. If you need a pro­jec­tor exclu­sive­ly for your home, for the same mon­ey you can buy a good sta­tion­ary ver­sion (with Full HD qual­i­ty and much high­er bright­ness), acoustics and a TV set-top box. The beau­ty of this pro­jec­tor is its porta­bil­i­ty and all-in-one con­cept. It does not require addi­tion­al acoustics or pre­fix­es. In addi­tion, with a portable device, you can watch movies any­where: at home, on the veran­da, or even in the for­est with a screen.

If you still decide to buy a large home the­ater pro­jec­tor, take a look at our selec­tion of the best mod­els. If, on the con­trary, you need an even more com­pact mod­el, there is a ver­sion of the Cin­emood film cube.

On the side sur­face there is a mesh nec­es­sary for the ven­ti­la­tion of the elec­tron­ic fill­ing. On the oppo­site side of the lens is a pair of but­tons (on and wire­less con­nec­tion), as well as an IR sen­sor for receiv­ing sig­nals from the remote con­trol.

The col­umn can be installed on any flat sur­face, but there is also a thread for a tri­pod. Here it is nec­es­sary to men­tion the weight of the device — and this is 680 grams. We mean that the tri­pod should be sta­ble enough, prefer­ably designed for pro­fes­sion­al cam­eras, and not for smart­phones or ring lamps. All con­trol is con­cen­trat­ed on the top pan­el, where there is a joy­stick with vol­ume con­trol but­tons and return to the pre­vi­ous menu item.

There is also a sim­ple remote con­trol, the main fea­ture of which is the pres­ence of a micro­phone and the abil­i­ty to use the Google Assis­tant voice assis­tant. We have repeat­ed­ly seen that the assis­tant great­ly facil­i­tates the search for con­tent in online cin­e­mas and oth­er ser­vices. To use it, you need to press the but­ton with the helper logo.

The range of ports is good: with their help, you can con­nect almost any video source. There are USB‑A, and USB‑C, and HDMI. A line out­put is pro­vid­ed for trans­mit­ting sound to exter­nal speak­ers.

Connectivity

App down­loads and con­tent load­ing are slow­er than on TVs. But the main thing is that there are no “brakes” dur­ing the trans­la­tion. We tried sev­er­al dif­fer­ent ser­vices (YouTube, KinoPoisk HD, ivi) and in gen­er­al did not notice any­thing crit­i­cal. Of course, much depends on the speed of the Wi-Fi con­nec­tion — by the way, both bands, 2.4 and 5.0 GHz, are sup­port­ed here.

Anker Neb­u­la Cap­sule II is capa­ble of pro­ject­ing an image up to 100 inch­es (2.5 m) in diag­o­nal. Like many oth­er “pock­et” pro­jec­tors, it still requires a lit­tle dark­en­ing of the room. Although the bright­ness has dou­bled com­pared to the first “cap­sule”, 200 lumens is still not enough to get a juicy pic­ture in day­light. The res­o­lu­tion of 720p is also small, but we should not for­get that we have a mobile device in front of us, and not a sta­tion­ary pro­jec­tor.

Sharp­en­ing is auto­mat­ic and quite accu­rate, and takes just a sec­ond or two. If you don’t like some­thing, you can cor­rect it man­u­al­ly.

Despite the pres­ence of only one 8‑watt speak­er, the vol­ume is quite suf­fi­cient. Even in a large room, there is no desire to twist it to the max­i­mum. Sound qual­i­ty is aver­age. For melo­dra­mas and oth­er gen­res with­out spe­cial sound effects, the pos­si­bil­i­ties of acoustics are enough, but fans of action movies are still bet­ter off con­nect­ing an exter­nal device. Too bad they can’t be con­nect­ed via Blue­tooth.

Chrome­cast sup­port allows you to stream con­tent from your smart­phone. A great option to watch vaca­tion videos with the whole fam­i­ly. You can also turn on the movie from a lap­top if it has an appli­ca­tion with movies, but not on the pro­jec­tor.

autonomy

With stream­ing play­back, the Neb­u­la Cap­sule II bat­tery lasts for a lit­tle over 2 hours (accord­ing to offi­cial fig­ures — up to 3). That is, an “aver­age” movie can be watched with­out being con­nect­ed to a pow­er out­let. The device is charged via USB‑C — if the adapter sup­ports Pow­er Deliv­ery (this is what is includ­ed in the kit), the process will take no more than 2.5 hours. If not, it may take more, up to 7.5 hours with a 10-watt adapter.

Our Opinion: Should You Buy Anker Nebula Capsule II

Neb­u­la Cap­sule II costs about 45,000 rubles. If you need a pro­jec­tor exclu­sive­ly for your home, for the same mon­ey you can buy a good sta­tion­ary ver­sion (with Full HD qual­i­ty and much high­er bright­ness), acoustics and a TV set-top box. The beau­ty of this pro­jec­tor is its porta­bil­i­ty and all-in-one con­cept. It does not require addi­tion­al acoustics or pre­fix­es. In addi­tion, with a portable device, you can watch movies any­where: at home, on the veran­da, or even in the for­est with a screen.

If you still decide to buy a large home the­ater pro­jec­tor, take a look at our selec­tion of the best mod­els. If, on the con­trary, you need an even more com­pact mod­el, there is a ver­sion of the Cin­emood film cube.