We were happy to see that the projector doesnt come with abhorrent motion interpolation running out of the box. But if you're concerned it might be, you can test the projector yourself. Paper Girls review: time-traveling, girl-power Goonies is good enough, The best movies on Disney+ right now (July 2022), Dell slashed the price of this 22-inch monitor to only $150 this weekend, This Dell Latitude laptop deal cuts over $500 off the price tag, Lenovos cheap 2-in-1 laptop just dropped to $300. Both models include the Cosmos Laser projector, a remote with batteries, and an Android TV dongle. Theoretically, automatic framing is on deck as well, but we couldnt get it to work in our testing. Still, if it compares well to other compact laser projectors, it could turn out to be a bargain. Setup is a snap, and it comes with a dongle which conveniently nests in the back of the projector that has the Android TV streaming platform built in so you can watch Netflix and more than 7000 apps. Prior to writing and translating for Notebookcheck, I worked for various companies including Apple and Neowin. Screen sizes supported: 60-150 inches | 8K: No | HDR: Yes | Optical technology: Laser DLP | Smart TV: Yes (Android TV 10.0)| Dimensions: 10.4 x 8.7 x 6.5 in | Weight: 10.7 pounds | 3D: No | Connections: HDMI 2.0 input, 3.5mm analog audio output; powered USB type-A, Bluetooth 5.0. Inputs are limited to one HDMI plus a powered USB type-A port. The Nebula Cosmos Laser 4K comes with a HDR10-capable streaming dongle that runs Android TV 10, so you can expect access to 7000+ apps including Netflix (in 4K), Disney Plus, HBO Max and more. The Nebula Cosmos Laser 4K is a complete package. Anker has announced its first portable 4K laser projector. Mark Knapp That said, if you want the brightest portable 4K projector on the block, the Anker Nebula Cosmos Laser 4K is it. Using the settings I chose for each, it puts out more brightness than the Horizon Pro to notice, and I saw fewer, and less obvious, rainbow artifacts, while the Horizon Pro does a bit better with HDR and costs about $500 less at this writing. The Anker Nebula Cosmos Laser 4K works for a lot of different scenarios, and is well-priced for all it can do. TheKickstarterlisting confirms more specifications too, including that the projector relies on DLP display technology. The Anker Nebula Cosmos Laser 4K has plenty of competition, but if you want a projector that will regularly work in a lot of different places around your home, there are few options that will do it as well and as easily as this one. There was a problem. Watching Captain America: Civil War, we actually noticed the projector struggling to keep the playback smooth during action sequences with a lot of character and camera movement going on. Keep in mind, also, that if most of what you watch is in 1080p SDR format, you can save even more by considering 1080p models instead, particularly the BenQ X1300i, the Xgimi Horizon, or the Epson EF-12. The Anker Nebula Cosmos Laser 4K has some quirks to be aware of. The keystone is also digital, meaning theyll cost you some of the picture quality if used, so it becomes a question of quality or convenience. As with the lack of both optical zoom and color management, this is typical for room-to-room portables, but less forgivable at the Cosmos Laser 4K's price. WIN 1 of 3 framed posters signed by ROBBIE WILLIAMS! Without battery power, the Anker Nebula Cosmos Laser 4K isnt exactly portable. Plus, the 30-watt speakers support Dolby Audio and AiFi technology to provide immersive 3D soundscapes. This wasnt the only issue we noticed in the picture. Our expert industry analysis and practical solutions help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology. What Hi-Fi? Please update for best experience. There are also bundles that include extra accessories, like the Cosmos Laser Cinema Package which includes the Cosmos Laser, Nebula Floor Stand, and Nebula 100-inch Projector Screen starting at $1299 (34% off). Ankers hardware handles a lot of the fuss for you. The EF-12 isn't quite as bright as either, but it has the advantage of being guaranteed free of rainbow artifacts. And the 2400 Lumens of brightness ensure that the picture is clear, bright, and vivid, exactly what youd want from a modern entertainment system. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product or service, we may be paid a fee by that merchant. It offers a distinctly rectangular, rather than squarish, footprint, while adding extra height to accommodate the audio. Drawing the blinds in a living room and dimming the lights is enough to make for a pleasant viewing experience in the middle of the day, while complete darkness results in a fantastic image that lets contrast and color come through more robustly. This 4K projector is bright, pricey, and (kind of) portable. Anker says this is inherent in the Android TV OS, but it might be addressed in a future firmware update. Meet Anker's smartest and sharpest compact projector. That makes for some truly free and limitless opportunities, like sharing personal content with friends and family, setting up a makeshift theater, or whatever entertainment youd like to partake of. That may be happy news for some, but it may stem from a lack of prowess in this area. Top 10 LaptopsMultimedia, Budget Multimedia, Gaming, Budget Gaming, Lightweight Gaming, Business, Budget Office, Workstation, Subnotebooks, Ultrabooks, Chromebooks, under 300 USD/Euros, under 500 USD/Euros, 1,000 USD/Euros, for University Students,Best Displays, Top 10 SmartphonesSmartphones, Phablets, 6-inch,Camera Smartphones. Unlike most streaming room-to-room portables, the Cosmos Laser 4K comes with a separate Android TV dongle, which you have to insert in a hidden compartment. No problem! Gamers, meanwhile, will note a Game mode with two different settings to minimize input lag, which Anker rates at 40ms for the setting with the shorter lag. The Anker Nebula Cosmos Laser 4K brings stunning performance for a projector so compact. HDR also can deepen shadows, which may make it harder to see content without reducing ambient light in the room. Please share our article, every link counts! Besides the 4K ultra-HD resolution, the differences between the standard Cosmos Laser and Cosmos Laser 4K are minimal. They wont be enough to power through a noisy room with people talking or a fan going, though. Heres why you can trust us. The Anker Nebula Cosmos Laser 4K's rear panel has a hidden compartment that conceals a streaming stick. Set-up can be achieved in "seconds", apparently. We're expecting more projectors to show up at CES 2022, so stay tuned. The brightness and resolution sure do pair well together, but if the 4K picture isnt as crucial, you can save wads of money going with the Xgimi Horizon (the 1080p variant) or even the 1080p Anker Nebula Cosmos Laser projector. With the dongle, you can access the Android TV 10.0 streaming platform, opening access to over 7,000 apps and millions of movies and shows. Last year, Anker launched the lozenge-shaped Cosmos Max 4K LED projector, complete with Android TV 9 and a brightness of 1500 lumens. A major plus for Netflix users is that the projector offers a Netflix app that both works well for streaming and will take commands from the remote. Whats more, the integrated speakers are 20 watts and support Dolby Audio and AiFi for immersive 3D sound. 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But know that it's a different animal: It offers 1080p rather than 4K resolution, and it isn't as bright. The unit is about the size of a small picnic basket and really feels like one with its boxy shape and handle cutting across the top. With it, you won't feel the need to lug an external sound system with the projector every time you move to another room or to the backyard for a movie night. Ask our team for a JB Deal. The Cosmos Laser 4K's higher resolution and higher brightness makes it very much worth a look if you can budget for it. Of course, its always best to use it as intended in more theater-like settings, but theres absolutely nothing stopping you from taking it everywhere you go. New York, 2,400 lumens is plenty for a lot of scenarios, such as a dark backyard, a living room with a bit of ambient light, and even a well-lit room as long as youre watching bright content like cartoons and sitcoms. By Anker rates the Cosmos Laser 4K at 2,400 ISO lumens (which is comparable to ANSI lumen ratings for most purposes). Sound is supplied by a built-in 30W speaker system with Dolby audio, which promises to "heighten the intensity" of a movie soundtrack. Built-in sensors provide automatic focus and keystoning, making it easy to get the projector set up without having to dial through settings to finagle the exact positioning. Anker doesn't go into too much more detail, but it does list the price. When the campaign is over, youll still be able to order both models but they will be full price, so keep that in mind! It features seamless autofocus thats always working to provide the best picture and gridless auto keystone correction in both horizontal and vertical fields. Given the number of times people got caught looking directly into the beam during our testing, thats a handy feature to have. Beyond that, the auto-focus, auto-keystone, and auto-screen-fit features, all of which can be set to run automatically when you turn the projector on or move it, can help speed up ad hoc setup. That brightness is also coming from a laser light source with a specified longevity of up to 25,000 hours. The Nebula by Anker Cosmos Laser 4K, and Cosmos Laser, portable projectors will be available through the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. The Cosmos Laser 4K menus offer five predefined modes that you can't adjust at all, and one Custom mode that lets you change contrast, saturation, sharpness, color temperature, and gamma, but nothing else. It may make some trade-offs in the name of portability, but ultimately has a lot of merit. Sign up for Lab Report to get the latest reviews and top product advice delivered right to your inbox. Anker already makes some of the best portable projectors we've tested, including HD models such as the Nebula Solar. One exception is Anker's 4K Nebula Cosmos Max, which uses a flat oval shape instead to add extra width. For 3D, the Cosmos Laser 4K works with DLP-Link glasses, but it supports only side-by-side and under-over formats, and it requires manually switching to and from 3D. You can easily move it around your home too, setting it up in any room from a game room to your living room, bedroom, even patio or backyard. The Anker Nebula Cosmos Laser 4K is available for $2,199 (about 1,740, AU$3,055), while a 1080p model is available for $1,699. There's no optical zoom, which is typical for room-to-room portables. Replacing may be the more palatable move, as the streaming stick isnt all that impressive. Auto screen alignment delivers even more convenience, helping you correctly center and position the display on a screen or related surface. While the projector can have its pictures keystone and zoom adjusted, it would have been handy to have adjustable feet to change the angle of projection. As it is, we used a stack of small books to prop up either end for testing. David has significant expertise in imaging technologies (including printers, monitors, large-screen displays, projectors, scanners, and digital cameras), storage (both magnetic and optical), and word processing. Digital Trends Media Group may earn a commission when you buy through links on our sites. By providing your email you agree that your personal information will be handled in accordance with our, The Crown Jewels of British Entertainment. The Cosmos Laser 4K is another exception. That goes double for serious gaming, where the motion and noticeable input lag would stand in the way. NY 10036. That works too! It often left us waiting for it to respond to inputs for far too long. TechRadar is supported by its audience. If you're looking for a lighter weight and a lower price, the Epson EpiqVision Mini EF-12 is our current top choice for a room-to-room portable home entertainment projector. The DLP projector will retail for US$2,199; Kickstarter orders will ship in March. https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/anker-nebula-cosmos-laser-4k, Since 1982, PCMag has tested and rated thousands of products to help you make better buying decisions. At 2199 (around $3000 / AU$4150), the Nebula Cosmos Laser 4K is the company's new range-topper. The Anker Nebula Cosmos Laser 4K is a bright little beast thats easy to tote. Tom is a journalist, copywriter and content designer based in the UK. He has written articles for T3, ShortList, The Sun, The Mail on Sunday, The Daily Telegraph, Elle Deco, The Sunday Times, Men's Health, Mr Porter, Oracle and many more (including What Hi-Fi?). Heres why you can trust us. On the front are a number of sensors and a considerably large lens for projection. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. 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What about on a weekend trip to a ski resort or beach? 1996-2022 Ziff Davis. The Nebula Cosmos Laser 4K is expected to go live on Kickstarter on 11thJanuary, before shipping in March. What if you could carry the worlds most compact laser theater just about anywhere? TechRadar is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. The Anker Nebula Cosmos Laser 4K is a surprising package. Please refresh the page and try again. New York, Starting January 11, early bird backers will see a huge discount on pre-orders. Win a signed Jurassic World: Dominion poster! Blacks weren't dark enough to give good contrast in darker scenes, which lead to muddy-looking images. The menus could also use a better design. Anker gets notable competition from the Optoma CinemaX P2 which weve recently seen running for $2,299 while providing an even brighter, laser-based picture, though its an ultra-short-throw model that isnt as portable or flexible in setup but would make a better dedicated home theater display. With lights on, the image was washed out enough that I couldn't see much of anything in the darkest areas of dark scenes. At 10.7 pounds and 8.7 by 6.5 by 10.4 inches (HWD), the projector is more luggable than portable, but it's easy to carry, thanks in large part to the handle, which is responsible for a little more than an inch of the height. Good-quality audio is an essential feature for a well-designed room-to-room portable projector. That means inconveniently using the projectors built-in buttons or its smartphone control app to navigate. Thats not a bad offer for a $2,199 gadget. JULIA JACKLIN COMPETITION - Win a Fender Player Telecaster! Its housing four speakers two full-range speakers powered by 10 watts and two tweeters powered by 5 watts. The lens doesnt have optical zoom, though, so youll have to settle for digital zoom to shrink the image down to fit a space, and that means lost pixels and picture detail. However, shadow detail held well enough so I could easily make out what was happening. With the Nebula by Anker Cosmos Laser 4K, you can do just that. Note that the projector also offers a Bluetooth speaker mode to use with other audio sources. Viewing the 4K HDR versions of the same movies on disc was disappointing. The streaming stick can link wirelessly to audio devices over Bluetooth 5.0 or the projector can connect to other speakers with a 3.5mm Aux cable. Anker claims this will "bring bright and stunning images even with lights on". However, the projector is also more expensive than its competition, making the lack of optical zoom a bit less forgivable. Its a projector thats made to be easily carried. Its like having a home theater system at the ready anywhere, anytime. And this is from our experience with the picture stretched well over 100 inches across our wall. In my tests using 1080p SDR movies on disc in a dark room, it delivered nicely saturated color along with good contrast and sense of depth in brightly light scenes. Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, Most models in the category, including the 4K Xgimi Horizon Pro and the 1080p BenQ X1300i, make space for a proper audio solution by designing the case as a near cube. It wasnt experience-ruining, but it was certainly falling short of its competition and would make it one to avoid if youre all about action movies. Its easy to bring from place to place, but youll still need AC power to use it. You will receive a verification email shortly. But it may fall short next to more purpose-built options. Notably missing is any way to adjust primary and secondary colors to improve color accuracy. Whether the Cosmos Laser 4K is worth the higher price depends in large part on whether you need the slightly higher brightness and how easily you see rainbow artifacts. The throne room fight scene in Star Wars: The Last Jedi was rich with the reds of the scenery and characters, and the assault on the rebel base shortly after kept up the excellent picture quality. Don't believe the hype: Bluetooth LE and the LC3 codec won't improve audio quality, Exposure adds preamplifier and stereo power amp to its 3510 series of hi-fi separates, Musical Fidelity MX-Stream aims to bring high-quality music streaming to your digital hi-fi system, HDMI ARC and HDMI eARC: everything you need to know, The best home entertainment buying advice, Issues delivered straight to your door or device. last updated 17 June 22. Electric toothbrush refills & accessories. However, the auto-focus worked well, delivering sharp focus and suitably fine detail. Its passable for casual viewing even with darker content in a somewhat dim room, while sitcoms and cartoons come through quite well without managing the ambient light. Visit our corporate site (opens in new tab). Now there are cheaper projectors that can get this bright, but Anker is bringing a 4K picture (still through pixel shifting) thats sufficiently sharp even when blown to large proportions and even if the image pixel count is shrunk down through digital zoom and keystoning. When calling up the menu, for example, the image dims and colors desaturate on the part of the image the menu's not covering up, as if adding a gray filter. This 75-inch 4K TV deal cuts over 50% off the price save over $600! There can be a little rainbow effect, but we hardly noticed it. It can keystone and focus automatically and shrink the picture down manually, making it a set-it-and-forget-it device. The brightness rating is 2,400 ISO lumens (equivalent to ANSI lumens). The issue didnt crop up in any other content we saw, but it persisted across episodes from all three seasons of Sneaky Pete from both the included streaming stick and a Chromecast with Google TV, and it would happen the same way if we rewound to watch the scene again. (Anker doesn't specify a power level for the rating, so the life may be somewhat shorter if you use full power.) However, there's no audio lag adjustment, which makes the Bluetooth connection best avoided. Your subscription has been confirmed. The long lag between calling up the menus and finally closing them makes it all but impossible to spot differences between relatively similar modes, much less tell which one, if either, gives you the better image overall. You want a powerful projector you can carry around. The new Cosmos Laser 4K should provide a serious boost to picture quality thanks to its higher resolution and 2400 lumens light source. Built-in options for the Nebula Cosmos Laser 4K encompass many popular apps and include Netflix -- a rare find on a streaming projector. The issue went away with HDR disabled, but that leads to a significantly duller picture with a lot of the life sucked out of it. There are some projectors that you can get in the same ballpark with a brighter 4K picture, but youll struggle to find any that have the flexibility of the Anker Nebula Cosmos Laser 4K at $2,199 (about 1,740, AU$3,055). In your backyard? While a number of other projectors weve tested like the Hisense L9G can serve as a home-theater-in-a-box, the Anker Nebula Cosmos Laser 4K is a home theater to-go option. The Cosmos Laser starts at $1599 for early birds (31% off), while the Cosmos Laser 4K starts at $2199 (35% off). Live chat with us or call 13 52 44. For the movies in our test suite, brightly lit scenes held up well enough, but they were dim in comparison to the 1080p SDR versions. The Cosmos Laser 4K is a portable laser projector capable of outputting a 4K resolution picture, with seamless autofocus, and at 2400 Lumens of brightness. Anker has also detailed the projector's SoC, which we have reproduced below. In addition to the HDMI port used for the included streaming stick, theres an HDMI port on the back for an extra video source. Dont worry, the dongle tucks into the back panel of the projector, out of sight, while leaving the HDMI port free on the back of the unit. You still get the seamless autofocus, gridless keystone correction, auto screen alignment, and Android TV 10.0 support, as well as built-in Wi-Fi. Thank you for signing up to TechRadar. As with the lack of an optical zoom, this is typical in this category of projector, but disappointing for the price. I saw no crosstalk in my tests, and only the typical level of 3D-related motion artifacts for current-generation projectors. I measured both settings with a Leo Bodnar meter at a slightly higher 59ms for both 1080p 60Hz and 4K 60Hz, which is still suitable for casual gaming only. Apple Music vs. Spotify: Which music streaming service is the best? Its not all bad for the HDR picture, though, which most of the time can be fairly lush. Sign up to get breaking news, reviews, opinion, analysis and more, plus the hottest tech deals! (, 4K resolution using TI's XPR fast-switch pixel shifting, Laser light source rated to last for the life of the projector, Suitable brightness for a large family room, No optical zoom or settings for adjusting color accuracy, Read Great Stories Offline on Your Favorite, PC Magazine Digital Edition (Opens in a new window), How to Free Up Space on Your iPhone or iPad, How to Save Money on Your Cell Phone Bill, How to Convert YouTube Videos to MP3 Files, How to Record the Screen on Your Windows PC or Mac, Read Our Epson EpiqVision Mini EF12 Smart Streaming Laser Projector Review, Read Our AAXA P7 Mini HD Projector Review, Read Our Anker Nebula Solar Portable Review, Read Our Kodak Luma 350 Portable Smart Projector Review, How to Choose the Right Screen for Your Projector, How to Create the Perfect Backyard Movie Night on the Cheap, Vankyo Leisure 495W Dolby Audio Projector Review, Testing the Cosmos: Decent Color Accuracy (But No Settings to Improve It), The Verdict: A Little Pricey, But Worth Considering, 3840 by 2160 using 1920 by 1080 DLP chip with XPR fast-switch pixel shifting, Bluetooth, HDMI, Bluetooth speaker input, Wi-Fi (in Android TV dongle).