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545
3.9 out of 5 stars

Anker Nebula Solar Portable 1080p Projector (Open Box)

$330.59
$599.99 45% off Reference Price
Condition: New; Open Box
Style: Built-In Battery
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Top positive review
63 people found this helpful
Excellent full HD portable projector
By J. on Reviewed in the United States on November 18, 2020
First time projector buyer so this will be from a newbie's perspective. So far very impressed. The size of the projector is very portable. Not soda can portable, but reminds me of a mini-PC or Mac Mini. Can easily mount to a Joby Gorillapod (DSLR) or regular triped. It includes an Anker PowerPort III 65W as the charger and a 3-meter USB-C cable that I assume is also Anker so it should be high quality. The autofocus and keystone adjustability is really nice and quick and the picture quality is very clear even on a non-white wall (ours is a light eggshell color). I don't have a complete blacked out room/home theater but nightime viewing against a wall is very impressive and bright, and totally sufficient for movie nights. I would imagine a proper screen would improve things even more. Immediately updated firmware after initial setup. While it doesn't have fully native Netflix from the Google Play store, the Solar has a built in app called Nebula Manager that you can use to sideload Netflix and get most of the functionality of a native app. The only downside I've experienced to this solution is that you can't get a Netflix favorite to display on the Android TV homescreen (or their recommendations ribbon) and the Netflix app is best controlled by the Nebula Connect app on your phone (connected to the projector through bluetooth). When using the sideloaded Netflix app, you can't pause/resume the video with the remote control, but the phone/app controls work fine to engage pause/resume. Otherwise seems to tick all boxes. I've installed and tried out Amazon Video, Disney+, Vudu, Hulu, HBO Max, Movies Anywhere, Shotime Anywhere, FandangoNow, and Plex and they all install normally through the Google Play store onto Android TV. Chromecasting works well for everything except Netflix. The Nebula Manager app for AirPlay, AirPin(PRO), seemed to work fine for generic mirroring of an iPhone display but conked out when trying to play protected videos as well (i.e. Netflix). Pros: True HD USB-C power input so easy portable charging with a 65W battery pack Anker PowerPort III 65W charger ($40 value and multi-use) Netflix compatible-ish without having to plug in Chromecast/Fire Stick/Roku Cons: Bluetooth audio only allows for 1 connection at a time, so an external speaker is ok but 2 simultaneous headsets won't work. (Updated 3/31/23) - Nebula now sells a compatible carrying case. A bit expensive but does the job to securely store the projector, charging block, cables, and remote) No Carrying Case and Nebula doesn't sell an official one yet like they do for the Capsule and Mars. Need to store in box until I find a proper storage solution Would be nice to have a lens cover/protector Netflix controls are limited with remote, need to use phone/Nebula app for complete controls Play/Pause buttons on the remote would have been nice, or ability to switch to mouse controls on remote to resolve Netflix constraint Overall, very pleased with the overall quality and excited to use this more. Seems like an excellent all-in-one system for movie watching, especially if you have a solid wifi signal. Also have had good experience with Anker products and customer support in the past so I feel a little more confident with this purchase and their warranty coverage.
Top critical review
12 people found this helpful
Not worth it; extremely loud fan, AndroidTV OS too old for apps, battery questionable
By Ryan Sawhill Aroha on Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2024
My very first experience with this was bad. It arrived with the battery so low that even after plugging it in, it would shutoff within seconds of turning on. That doesn't bode well for this device -- it suggests that the device cannot get power directly from the plug and will always be cycling through the battery. Yikes. After 20 or 30 minutes of that initial charge, it finally was able to boot up and once it got some updates, it looked decent enough. Autofocus & auto-keystone: I knew before purchasing that this didn't have fully automatic keystone correction, but it's still a bummer to do it manually any time you need to project from the left or right of your screen/surface. Autofocus works well enough for me. Battery: You can choose between two brightness modes and your choice will dramatically effect how long the battery lasts. In my testing, it seems to be a bit worse than the manufacturer-provided numbers. A warning: the OS doesn't make it obvious that pressing the power button puts the device into a standby mode which uses the battery. To fully shut it down, you need to hold the power button and select "Shut down" from a menu." Remote: Terrible. Bad organization. No backlighting. Very little tactile feedback. Unnecessarily tall. Ugh. HDMI: I haven't had reason to test video over the HDMI port, though I guess it supports ARC, because I was able to use it to connect a soundbar and the projector automatically sent audio to the soundbar. Games: I haven't tested gaming via HDMI. There are very few decent games available in the Google Play store, but I was shocked how well Crashlands (one of my all-time favs) works. Using an 8bit Pro 2 controller via bluetooth, I don't notice any lag. I wasn't expecting this to work at all, but it was a lot of fun. Too bad there's such a limited game selection, at least for this version of Android. Brightness: If you're even considering this projector, hopefully you're already aware that it is not bright. You'll want to board up all the windows if watching anything serious. There's a noticeable difference in the brightness between the two power modes (though you can choose either mode whether you're plugged in or using battery). Noise: If you keep the projector in the less-bright "battery" power mode (whether plugged in or running on battery), the fan stays passably quiet; however, once you put it into the normal brightness mode, the fan gets way too loud. YOU WILL BE ANNOYED BY THE FAN NOISE ... unless you use a big speaker system & keep the volume really high or unless you have the projector mounted on a very high ceiling. For quiet watching or game-playing at night, the fan noise makes the projector unusable. Honestly, the loudness of the fan is the thing I hate most about this projector. Built-in video apps: Of course you could plug a Roku or Fire stick into this projector, but using the built-in AndroidTV OS, I was able to install and test YouTube, Amazon, Paramount+, Hulu, Disney+, and VLC. * YouTube & Disney+ have worked fine from the beginning. * Amazon worked for a while but suddenly one day the audio started being slightly delayed from the video... very annoying and reboots don't seem to fix it. * Paramount+ worked for a while but hangs indefinitely on the loading screen now. * Hulu loads and I can browse shows, but trying to play anything leads to an error or a never-ending loop of the 5-sec Hulu logo intro clip. * VLC worked great to browse & watch watch videos from a USB-C flash drive (via a USB-C to USB-A adapter). As explained elsewhere, Netflix merits special mention. The makers of the projector go out of their way to make it easy for you to effectively side-load it through another application that they provide... and it kinda works, but the remote can't control it. To control Netflix, you have to install their "Nebula Connect" app on a smartphone, get it to pair with your projector (and stay paired), and then you have to use your phone screen kind of like a mouse pad to move a cursor around the projected screen (all to tap buttons in the Netflix interface). I jumped through those hoops and was satisfied with it at first, but after a week, the Nebula Connect app stopped being able to connect to the projector and now after removing it, the app can no longer see the projector. .... So no more Netflix. That and all the other video app issues (plus lack of games) are probably caused by the very old version of AndroidTV this projector is running -- AndroidTV Pie 9.2. All around, I'm quite disappointed and would not recommend this projector, even for the half-off price at which I purchased it. If Anker had kept the OS updated and designed it to have more efficient passive cooling, it could be a nice product, even given the limited brightness .... but as it stands now, you shouldn't spend more than 100 usd for something like this. (And even then, you'll be very disappointed with the fan noise.)

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