Anker NEBULA Mars 3 Outdoor Portable Projector, 1000 ANSI Lumens,40W Speaker, Up to 5 Hours, Autofocus, Keystone Correction, Backyard, 200 Inches image, support 4K Projector with WiFi and Bluetooth

Product Information

I have owned three or four portable projectors over the years. My family loves to go on road trips, and to have neighborhood movie nights in our front yard by our fire pit or out by the pool. The Nebula Mars 3 is the best portable projector I’ve ever owned by a mile. The picture quality is great, even if its only 1080p. Its bright, has excellent auto-focus and auto-keystone, and includes Android TV right on the projector. The sound quality is impressive, a

Firstly, setup is really easy. It takes you through connecting the projector to your home Wi-Fi network and setting it up with your Google account, and you can either do this manually or use the ‘set up my device wizard’ on an Android phone. After that, it’s just a matter of installing apps from the Google Play store and adding your credentials – anything stored with your account should just pass through. Then you’re ready to point the projector at a screen. The Mars 3 is a DLP-based portable projector with a 1080p resolution and a 1,000 ANSI Lumens maximum brightness level – specs which put it squarely in the top tier of portable projectors. It also features built-in Android TV 11 streaming, with access to the Google Play store, and a 40W Dolby Audio sound system, giving you everything you need in one box, as long as you’re in reach of Wi-Fi. Crucially, it has a 185Wh battery, enabling you to run the projector for up to five hours without needing to plug into the mains.My only gripe is the projector’s Android TV operating system. It is incredibly sluggish, to the point that it can be frustrating to use, which is really a shame considering all of the other wonderful things about the projector. In addition to being sluggish, you have to install the Netflix app through Anker’s weird Nebula app, and you get what appears to be the same experience you’d get on a phone, not on a TV. You have to use a virtual “mouse” to move around the app, which is annoying. I am sure that this has to do with Netflix restrictions, not Anker, and good on them for coming up with a solution, but it doesn’t make it any less annoying. There’s a motion compensation option, too. While I’m not a massive fan of this technology, on a large screen and with DLP tech, a little bit of compensation can help smooth out the image. Performance

Physical setup requires little more than pointing the projector at whatever you're using for a screen and turning it on. Connecting a power cord is optional, as long as the battery is charged, as is connecting cables from a video source to the one HDMI port. There's also a USB-C and a USB Type-A port available for charging or powering other devices. Initial Android TV 11 setup is standard, and requires a Wi-Fi connection to the internet. Note also that in addition to serving as a Bluetooth speaker itself, the Mars 3 can connect to another Bluetooth speaker for output, and it includes an audio delay adjustment should the video and sound fall out of sync. In addition to the speakers, you can use Bluetooth headphones for audio. For wired headphones or speakers, you can use the 3.5mm audio output. And finally, I tested the USB-C port for audio out and found that it is indeed compatible with your USB-C headphones.

Testing the Nebula Mars 3: Good Image Quality

Inside the box, there's a 1,920-by-1,080-pixel DLP chip and an LED light source rated at 25,000 hours in full-power mode. Also inside are the already-mentioned sound system and the battery. The sound system takes advantage of a 40-watt, three-way speaker (meaning there are separate drivers, or components, for high, midrange, and low frequencies) plus Dolby Digital Plus. The battery is rated at 2 hours in full-power mode for video, 5 hours in Eco mode, and 15 hours for audio only when serving as a Bluetooth speaker. The projector can also serve as a power bank to charge other devices. There’s also a built-in “intelligent sensor” that Anker boasts can perform keystone correction, autofocus, and screen fit in three seconds, so you can project on a range of flat surfaces, even if you don’t have a projector screen. Oh, and the Mars 3 will throw an image up to an impressive 200 inches, but Anker recommends 80 to 150 inches for the best image quality. Like the previous Mars projectors, the Mars 3 is a portable single-chip DLP projector with an LED light source. It's rated for fewer light source hours—25,000 vs 30,000—but at 1,000 ANSI lumens, the Mars 3 has double the rated light output of the Mars II Pro in its brightest mode. In its Eco, the 185Wh built-in power bank allows for up to five hours of viewing on a charge, although it also lowers the brightness to 300 lumens.