It’s not easy creating the ideal portable projector, as a company needs to balance brightness, software, and battery life. TheNebula Capsule 3gets close, but you’re going to need to dim the lights to see its full potential.
Nebula Capsule 3
The Nebula Capsule 3 is a portable projector with plenty to like about it, like built-in streaming services, a sizable battery, and easy setup. If you mainly watch movies in the dark, it’s a good option.
Pricing and Availability
The Nebula Capsule 3 is only available in a black finish and retails for $549. While older Capsule versions were also available in a bundle with a tripod, these don’t currently appear to be available. That said, it uses a universal tripod mount, so you can use the Capsule 3 with any tripod.
Although there is plenty of solid competition out there, many of the direct competitors to the Capsule 3 are other Nebula products. TheCapsule 3 Laseris quite similar to the Capsule 3, though, as the name implies, it’s brighter, thanks to the laser light source. If you’re looking for a projector better suited to outdoor use, theNebula Mars 3is a better and brighter, albeit significantly more expensive.
Specifications
Solid Build and Smart Mounting Options
Open up the box and the first thing you see is a cardboard and foam case carrying the remote and manual. Below this, you’ll find the projector carefully cradled on one side, with a cardboard box containing the charging brick and USB-C cable.
Despite the overall light weight (which we’ll look at more in just a little bit), the Capsule 3 feels solid to hold. I didn’t drop the projector while reviewing it, and I wouldn’t suggest you do, but I’ve tested projectors that feel far less solid than this one. Much of the backside of the projector is the same type of grill you’d find on a Bluetooth speaker, which makes sense as the Capsule 3 can also function as a Bluetooth speaker.
The bottom of the projector features a rubber ring to keep it from sliding around, and I found this worked quite well even on more slippery surfaces. If you want to give the projector some extra height, which is often useful, there is a threaded tripod mount on the bottom that makes this a simple process to take care of.
Perfectly Portable and Easy to Set Up
One of the key features of a portable projector is being able to use it anywhere, meaning it needs a few features you won’t find on other projectors. The first and most important aspect is a built-in battery, but that’s not all it takes. Being easy to carry around is essential, but so is being easy to set up and use.
The Nebula Capsule 3 is roughly 1.5 times the size of a 12-ounce can of soda or seltzer, meaning it’s easy to toss into a bag. That said, the lens feels awkwardly exposed, even if it is set back from the main body of the projector. Even something like a snap-on cap to protect the glass would help me feel better about carrying this around.
The good news is that when it comes time to set up the projector, it would be tough to make the process any easier. Simply find a place to set the projector and a wall or screen to aim it toward, then press the power button on the back.
From here, the process is almost entirely automatic. You’ll see a test pattern shown as the projector automatically judges distance and sets the focus. From here, you can use the remote (or, as we’ll see in the next section, the onboard controls) to fine tune the settings, if you want to. To be fair, I rarely found this to be necessary.
There are situations where I found that a tripod would be useful, if only to slightly angle the lens up or down slightly. That said, the automatic keystone correction lets you get creative with setup. For example, you can route the power cable underneath the projector to slightly tilt the angle without worrying about skewing the projection.
Onboard Controls and a Capable Remote
One interesting detail of the Capsule 3 is that, while it has a full-featured remote, it also has a decent set of touch-sensitive controls located on top. You won’t want to throw out the remote, but these make basic operations like changing the volume, pausing and resuming playback, or even basic menu navigation easy if you don’t have the remote nearby.
Unlike the spartan remotes you’ll find included with some projectors, speakers, and other gadgets, this remote is more full-featured. The best comparison might be a Roku, Fire TV, or other similar remote, considering this has built-in buttons for both Netflix and Prime Video. That said, the colorful voice assistant button doesn’t let you forget that this projector runs Google TV.
If you want to use this projector as you would a streaming box, Google TV is your only option. That said, if you plan to mainly plug in another device via HDMI, you can choose to run it in limited mode. This cuts many streaming apps, but still leaves you live TV via Pluto TV and the ability to watch YouTube videos in addition to HDMI.
Decent Performance, But a Little on the Dim Side
Brightness is everything in a projector, and the Nebula Capsule 3 doesn’t have too much to offer in this department, with a maximum brightness of 200 ANSI lumens. By comparison, the Capsule 3’s slightly more upscale sibling, the Capsule 3 Laser, features 300 lumens, while the significantly pricier Nebula Mars 3 features up to 1,000 lumens of peak brightness.
Indoors, 200 lumens is passable, though it means, in most cases, you’ll want to turn the lights either off or as low as you can bear. It’s winter as I write this, which means I wasn’t able to really do any outdoor testing, but with starlight and moonlight, not to mention other, more nearby light sources, that brightness may be more of an issue.
Google TV is capable as a platform in general, but apparently, the Quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU and 2GB RAM aren’t quite enough to handle it well. Everything felt slow and slightly laggy, from navigating menus to even stopping and starting playback. That said, volume adjustments seemed to feel mostly fine.
This sentiment appears in reviews from Nebula 3 buyers online as well, with some going so far as to say that turning off automatic keystone correction speeds up the interface. I tried this but didn’t notice any significant difference.
Audio Options and Connectivity
As far as smaller sized speakers go, the built-in 8W Dolby Audio speaker sounded fine, but people have come to expect more out of a cinematic experience. If all you’re looking for is to hear what’s going on, you won’t have any issues, but you’ll need to look elsewhere for some extra oomph.
You’ll find a 3.5mm aux output for plugging in external speakers right next to the HDMI and USB ports on the back of the projector. This is stereo-only, so you can’t expect surround sound, but it still lets you plug in some larger speakers. There is no digital output for sound, but considering the portable nature of this projector, I can’t say I was expecting one.
Bluetooth connectivity is available, but mainly so you can use the Capsule 3 as a Bluetooth speaker. Even if you could connect this way to other audio devices, the lag and subsequent lip sync issues would be bad enough that you’d likely want to turn it off immediately.
Battery: Leave the Charger at Home
The Capsule 3 features a 52Wh battery, which the manufacturer estimates is worth roughly 2.5 hours of movie playback time. Of course, there are a few factors that influence this, like how bright you have the projector set, what volume you’re listening at, and whether you’re playing back a movie via the built-in Google TV software, using the HDMI port, or casting from another device.
In my experience, that 2.5-hour estimate was about right, and maybe even on the safe side. All of my testing was using the standard brightness—not the eco mode—so if you’re using that other mode, you might even squeeze a few key extra minutes out of the projector.
Charging takes roughly three hours to fully top off the battery, which isn’t bad considering the overall size. Of course, you can also keep the projector plugged into an outlet or even a larger external battery or power bank, in which case you don’t need to worry about the internal battery at all.
Should You Buy the Nebula Capsule 3?
TheNebula Capsule 3has a few aspects that make it easy to recommend for the right person. It’s portable, easy to set up, and while the battery life isn’t mind-blowing, it’s enough to last through most movies without plugging in. The automatic keystone correction and other smart features also mean that little to no manual calibration is required, at least in many cases.
It’s difficult to get past the relatively low brightness, however. While this was something you might look past in a portable projector years ago, it’s harder to forgive when the competition is as fierce as it is. That said, if you’re always using this in a situation where the lights are all off, or at least very dim, that low brightness may not be as big of an issue for you.
If you’re looking for a portable projector to make for easy movie nights anywhere, the Nebula Capsule 3 is certainly an option worth considering. Just be sure that you’re aware of the pitfalls and that they won’t be dealbreakers for you.
