The Anker Nebula Capsule Max is a compact, lightweight, and portable LED projector with a built-in battery that lasts up to 4 hours. It has a native 720p resolution and can project a 100-inch image from a distance of 9.4 feet, an 80-inch image from 7.5 feet, a 60-inch image from 5.6 feet, and a 40-inch image from 3.7 feet. It runs the Android 8.1 OS, and you can use it to mirror content from your iOS or Android device. You can also download apps from the Nebula Manager store. It has one integrated 8W speaker.
Our Verdict
The Anker Capsule Max is poor for watching movies in a dark room. The projector has outstanding coverage of the Rec. 709 color space used in SDR content, but it has awful color accuracy out of the box that you can't fix with calibration, so colors don't appear how they're supposed to. It doesn't get bright enough to make colors pop, and it has middling contrast, offering disappointing performance in any room context. It is, however, extremely portable due to its size and integrated battery pack.
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Exceptional portability due to its small size and lightweight design.
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Quick and easy set-up.
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Not usable in a room with lights due to its terrible peak brightness.
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Awful color accuracy that can't be fixed with calibration.
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No cast capabilities and is limited to screen mirroring.
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Middling contrast leads to disappointing performance in dark rooms.
- 4.6 Movies
- Updated Aug 05, 2024: Updated text throughout the review according to Test Bench 0.9, mainly in the Verdict, Compared To Other Projectors and Contrast sections.
- Updated Aug 02, 2024: We've converted this review to Test Bench 0.9. We've overhauled our Contrast tests, as we now measure contrast at various average pixel levels (APL). You can see the full changelog here.
- Updated Feb 26, 2024: Review published.
- Updated Feb 22, 2024: Early access published.
Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We bought and tested the Anker Capsule Max. There are other models in the Capsule lineup, including the Anker Nebula Capsule 3 Laser, which uses a laser instead of an LED light source.
| Model | Light Source | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| Capsule 3 Laser | Laser | 1080p |
| Capsule 3 | LED | 1080p |
| Capsule Max | LED | 720p |
| Capsule II | LED | 720p |
Compared To Other Projectors
Outside of its exceptional portability and easy set-up, the Anker Nebula Capsule Max is a bad projector, and we don't recommend buying it if you care about image quality. Its more expensive sibling, the Anker Nebula Capsule 3, has the same portability but uses a laser light source, has a 1080p resolution, gets a bit brighter, and has much more accurate colors that you can make even better with calibration. If you care less about portability and are more concerned with brightness, the similarly priced Epson EpiqVision Flex CO-W01 has excellent peak brightness that helps make colors pop and makes it useable in a room with lights on.
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 Anker Nebula Capsule 3 Laser is better than the Anker Nebula Capsule Max. The Capsule 3 Laser gets a bit brighter than the Max, which helps make colors pop more, but it's still not bright enough for a room with lights on. The Capsule 3 Laser has much better color accuracy that you can further improve with calibration, and this model has a higher native 1080p resolution. The Capsule Max only has automatic vertical keystone correction, but the Capsule 3 Laser also has automatic horizontal correction, so it's easier to set up. The Capsule 3 Laser features the Google Play store, which has many more apps to download, and you can cast content from your phone instead of being limited to screen mirroring like you are on the Capsule Max.
The XGIMI Halo+ is much better than the Anker Nebula Capsule Max. They're both small portable projectors, although the Anker is smaller than the already small XGIMI. However, the XGIMI offers better image quality due to its much higher peak brightness and superior color accuracy. The XGIMI also projects a sharper 1080p image, while the Anker is limited to 720p. The XGIMI is also cast capable and even has an eARC port in case you want to connect a soundbar.
In most ways, the Epson EpiqVision Flex CO-W01 is better than the Anker Nebula Capsule Max. The Epson has significantly better brightness, so colors pop more than they do on the Anker, and it gets bright enough that you can use it in a room with lights on. The Epson also has much more accurate colors, which you can calibrate to further improve. If you're after portability, the Anker has a built-in battery, is much smaller, lighter, and is easier to set up thanks to its automatic vertical keystone correction and autofocus.
The Anker Nebula Capsule Max and the BenQ GV30 are similar projectors that are both very portable and are better than each other in different ways. The Anker has better contrast, so blacks are a bit deeper in a dark room. The BenQ has better color accuracy, so colors are displayed closer to how they're intended, but it's still not very accurate, and you can't calibrate either projector to improve their accuracy further. The BenQ is cast-capable, while the Anker is limited to screen mirroring, so content from your phone looks much better on the BenQ.
Test Results
This projector has exceptional portability. The projector has a built-in battery pack that Anker advertises to last up to 4 hours, and its small and lightweight design makes it easy to carry around. It's easy and quick to set up thanks to its automatic vertical keystone correction, manual horizontal correction, and autofocus. It has an integrated 8W speaker, so you don't have to plug it into a soundbar. It doesn't have an adjustable stand, but you can mount it on a tripod via the tripod mounting screw hole.
The Anker Capsule Max is a DLP projector with an LED light source that the manufacturer advertises to last around 30,000 hours, so you likely won't have to worry about replacing it. It has a native 720p resolution.
This projector has terrible brightness overall. It's not nearly bright enough for colors to pop and too dim for use in a room with any light. Fortunately, the brightness uniformity is great, and the sides are only slightly dimmer than the center of the screen.
The Anker Capsule Max has middling contrast. The projector is dim in any scene regardless of how bright it is, so whites aren't very bright.
Unfortunately, this projector has awful accuracy out of the box. Blues are significantly overrepresented in whites, and green and reds are underrepresented. Gamma is very off the target of 2.2, with dark scenes slightly over-brightened and all other scenes being too dark. The color temperature is also much cooler than the target of 6,500K. On top of that, colors are so inaccurate that yellows are green, cyans and some purples are blue, and some reds are purple.
This projector has no calibration options, so white balance, color temperature, gamma, and color accuracy remain the same.
The projector's color gamut is excellent, and it has outstanding coverage of the Rec. 709 color space used in SDR content. Unfortunately, some colors are off the mark; whites are blue, yellows skew green, and blues are misrepresented almost entirely. Its coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space is good but is also significantly inaccurate across the board.
The Anker Capsule Max runs version 8.1 of the Android OS. You can't use Chromecast or AirPlay to cast videos on the projector and can only mirror videos from your phone, which performs much worse overall. Instead of using the Google Play store to download apps, you can only download popular apps from the Nebula Manager store, which has a much more limited selection.
