The Anker Nebula Capsule 3 Laser is a compact laser projector designed with portability in mind. It has a compact, lightweight design and great features that allow for a variety of screen setups, as well as a built-in battery pack designed to last up to 2.5 hours. It also has built-in speakers and Android TV 11.0, so you can easily pair it to a wireless hotspot and stream your favorite movies anywhere you want.
Our Verdict
The Anker Capsule 3 Laser is disappointing for watching movies, even in a pitch-black room. It's not very bright, so everything looks a bit dull and muted overall. Dark scenes lack punch, and you don't get much separation between shadows and mid-tones, so finer details tend to blend together. HDR support also doesn't add much, as HDR10 and HLG signals are tone-mapped down to SDR with no real boost in highlight brightness. Its small size and built-in streaming make it convenient for a quick movie night on a wall, but if you're building a dedicated home-theater setup, there are far better options for both brightness and image fidelity.
- Built-in battery pack.
- Android TV OS built-in for easy streaming.
- Low peak brightness.
The Anker Capsule 3 Laser is a sub-par choice for serious gaming. Its input lag at 60Hz is on the high side, so fast-paced shooters and competitive games feel sluggish, and there's no 120Hz support to help smooth things out. It only accepts up to a 4k @ 60Hz signal, which it then downscales to 1080p, and the limited brightness means HDR games don’t really pop. On the plus side, colors look alright, so it's suitable for slower single-player titles or turn-based games when you just want something small and easy to set up. However, most gamers will be better off with a faster, brighter projector.
- Low peak brightness.
High input lag, even in Game Mode.
No 120Hz support.
Changelog
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Updated Nov 14, 2025:
We've added Imaging, Optics, Noise, Supported Resolutions, HDR Format Support, 3D, Input Lag, and Audio Passthrough boxes as a result of our latest test bench. We've also added a Gaming usage in the Verdict section.
- Updated Nov 12, 2025: We've converted the review to Test Bench 0.10, which updates our Design tests, and adds a whole new suite of Inputs tests. We also added new gaming-oriented usage scores in Our Verdict. See the 0.10 changelog.
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Updated Aug 15, 2025:
We mentioned the newly reviewed XGIMI MoGo 3 Pro and added a mention of it in the Color Gamut section.
- Updated May 21, 2024: Updated text throughout the review according to Test Bench 0.9, mainly in the Verdict, Compared To Other Projectors and Contrast sections.
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We bought and tested the Anker Capsule 3 Laser. There are other models in the Capsule lineup, including the Anker Nebula Capsule 3, which uses an LED lamp instead of a laser light source.
| Model | Light Source | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| Capsule 3 Laser | Laser | 1080p |
| Capsule 3 | LED | 1080p |
| Capsule Max | LED | 720p |
| Capsule II | LED | 720p |
Our unit was manufactured in July 2023.
Popular Projector Comparisons
Regarding portable projectors, the Anker Capsule 3 Laser is a convenient but compromised choice. Its tiny soda-can form factor, built-in battery, and automatic focus/keystone make it easy to toss in a bag and quickly watch something on a wall or in a hotel room. However, its picture quality lags behind other premium portables like the XGIMI Halo+ or LG CineBeam Q: it's dimmer and has weaker contrast, so movies and games look flatter and less vibrant, especially indoors with any ambient light. It's also quite expensive for the performance you get, and traditional compact projectors offer much better image quality if you don't need the ultra-portable design.
Check out our recommendations for the best portable projectors and the best outdoor projectors. If you'd prefer to shop for another product in the same price range, look up the best projectors under $1,000 instead.
The XGIMI MoGo 2 Pro projects a slightly more vibrant image than the Anker Nebula Capsule 3 Laser due to its slightly better peak brightness, but the Anker is much more accurate out-of-the-box and has slightly better contrast. The Anker is also even more portable than the XGIMI as it is lighter and smaller and has an integrated battery, which the manufacturer advertises to last up to 2.5 hours.
The Anker Nebula Capsule 3 Laser is a bit better than the XGIMI MoGo 3 Pro. The Anker is brighter, has better contrast, and is more accurate out of the box. The XGIMI has a wider color gamut, but it doesn't matter, as neither projector is bright enough to make colors pop.
The Anker Nebula Capsule 3 Laser and the Samsung The Freestyle 2nd Gen deliver very similar picture quality, but the Nebula is a slightly better portable projector. It has a built-in battery that Nebula advertises to deliver up to 2.5 hours of movie-watching. It also supports USB-C data delivery, so you can project directly from your laptop or smartphone.
The XGIMI Halo+ is much better than the Anker Nebula Capsule 3 Laser. The XGIMI is much brighter, has better contrast, and has a much wider color gamut, so it projects a more vibrant image than the Anker. The Anker is more accurate than the XGIMI but not nearly enough to compensate for the XGIMI's edge in image quality.
We've independently bought and tested over 60 projectors, and we've published all the detailed results for each so you can decide which one to buy. These have all been tested under the same standardized methodology, allowing you to compare them side by side. We still have all these projects in our lab so we can continually go back and compare them to ensure our reviews are still accurate. All our test methodology is also public on our website, so you can validate the results yourself.
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Test Results
Unfortunately, the brightness of this projector after calibration is very low, with both colors and pure white. The brightness uniformity is fantastic, but on a 100" screen, it's just not bright enough for an enjoyable movie-watching experience, even in a pitch-black environment.
The Anker Capsule 3 Laser has passable contrast. Blacks look good in a dark room, but contrast is low as whites aren't very bright.
Out of the box, the Nebula Capsule 3 Laser projector has mediocre accuracy. The white balance is decent, with very few noticeable issues; however, the color temperature is slightly cool. Colors aren't very accurate, especially reds and blues, but even green is a bit off.
The overall image accuracy is great after calibration. The white balance and gamma are nearly perfect, and the color temperature is close to ideal. Since it lacks a color calibration system, colors are still noticeably inaccurate, especially pure blues and reds.
This projector has an okay color gamut. It covers most of the Rec. 709 color space used with SDR content. It can't display anything beyond that, though. If you want a similar projector with a wider color gamut, check out the Anker Nebula Capsule Max, but it's even dimmer than this model, so the difference won't be noticeable to most people. You could also check out the XGIMI MoGo 3 Pro, although that unit is generally a bit worse than this Anker.
This compact projector uses a single-chip DLP imaging system paired with a laser-phosphor light engine. The laser source is designed for a very long service life (tens of thousands of hours), and there's no user-replaceable lamp module. As with most single-chip DLP designs, some viewers may notice slight rainbow artifacts (RBE) on high-contrast edges, especially in bright scenes.
The projector keeps things simple with no optical zoom and no lens shift, so placement is all about distance and angle. Still, focus is fully automatic, and it also supports automatic keystoning, which helps square the image if you're off-axis. Use our throw calculator if you want to calculate your throw distance.
The Anker Capsule 3 Laser has a compact design that's easy to carry around. Its auto keystone correction and autofocus features make it a breeze to set up, so you can quickly jump into your favorite movie and spend less time adjusting settings every time you move it. It also has a built-in battery pack that Anker advertises to last about 2.5 hours, and it has built-in speakers. There's also a travel case available for this model, but it's sold separately.
The Nebula Capsule 3 Laser is pretty quiet. As with most projectors, you'll hear a soft whir from the fan in a silent room, more so if you're sitting close to the unit, but it's not too hard to camouflage with audio volume.
You can use the USB-C port for charging or as a data port. If you're using it as a data port, connected to a laptop or mobile phone, you're limited to the built-in battery pack.
The projector's input lag is disappointing. It does have a Game Mode, and it lowers the unit's input lag a lot, but it's still too slow for any competitive or multiplayer games. Still, it's suitable for slower single-player titles, especially if you're not latency-sensitive.
The Nebula Capsule 3 Laser accepts HDR10 and HLG signals over HDMI and tone-maps them to SDR. Still, the unit is too dim and its dynamic range is too limited for true HDR playback, so highlights don't get any brighter than in SDR, and HDR content doesn't really look any better than SDR.
The Nebula Capsule 3 Laser includes an HDMI eARC port, so you can send audio from its built-in apps to a soundbar or AVR. It can pass basic surround formats like Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital Plus up to 7.1, and LPCM 2.0 from its internal apps. Because the projector has only one HDMI input, eARC only works with its internal apps, so you can't route external sources through the projector.
