As nice as it is to have a projector hooked up to your home theater, it’s equally valuable to have the flexibility that a portable model offers. This means you can set up a makeshift big screen in your backyard on long summer evenings. But portable projectors also tend to be less than high-quality, or compromise, with less powerful sound and image. That’s exactly the problem Nebula is trying to solve with its latest flagship portable projector, the X1, which offers the power of a home projector in a mobile package.
The X1 is a triple laser device that promises 4K UHD, Dolby Vision video with 3500 ANSI lumens of brightness that should easily fill a 300-inch screen. You can place it on a stand, table, or floor, and the array can tilt 25 degrees to find the spot where you placed your screen. Inside the case is a 14-element glass array, which the company says should provide reliable image quality throughout the life of the device. The projector is also flexible, with optical zoom that allows you to project images on a screen up to 200 inches wide from a distance of 13 to 22 feet.
The other big problem with projectors is sound quality, but Nebula believes it has solved that problem as well. Not only does the X1 have a quartet of side-mounted internal speakers, but you can pay a little more and get a pair of wireless 20-watt satellite speakers with their own built-in batteries. Each satellite speaker connects to the X1 via Wi-Fi and has a rated battery life of eight hours, and they’re IP54-rated to ensure they won’t break if your movie night is interrupted by a downpour.
Nebula is also proud that the X1 is the company’s first portable projector to feature its own internal liquid cooling system. Liquid cooling is commonplace on top-of-the-line, higher-end projectors, and Nebula claims that its use in this projector can reduce fan noise by up to 26dB. This could be good or bad, depending on the talent level of your friends, considering that you can also buy a pair of wireless karaoke microphones with a rated battery life of 40 hours.
The rest of the specifications meet your expectations: The X1 supports Google TV and also has a pair of HDMI ports (one of them is eARC-enabled). It will be available in the US on June 20 for $2,999, while a separate accessory kit will cost you $999, but you can buy both for $3,298. The situation is similar in the UK, where it will be available on May 21 for £2,199.99 and the accessory kit costs £500, but if you order it between May 21 and June 15, you will get both for £2,350.
