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people found this helpful, as of 2023
ranked #113,753 most helpful
out of 571,544,897 reviews
★★★★☆
Cool projector, not sure if the small size justifies price tag
I own the original 500 lumen nebula mars, and was always interested in the capsule, but the 480p and the inability to use usb otg and charge it at the same time, made me hold off on it.
So what do I think? The only reason you should choose this 600$ (value w/ tax) projector is if you plan and moving it alot! and you need the smaller form factor.
Its true that this is the smallest form factor available for a portable 720p projector, but you can get the Nebula mars Lite (300lumen) for half the price for the same quality plus! 3d. For the same price you can get other projectors from optoma or lg that have much higher lumens but its either they need to be plugged in, not as portable (like the mars) or the speakers suck.
Pros:
~Smallest projector in its class (720p portable)
~Brightest projector in its class (pico projectors)
~Full sized hdmi, alot of other pico projectors use the smaller variants
~Can charge off a regular power bank (while in use, says to use anker charger instead, but it still works fine, dont get this issue if you use USBC PD power banks)
~usb c charging port, can share with modern phone chargers (I use the same anker charger for my laptop, tablet, and nintendo switch)
~ great for travel, and easy to move around
~loud perfect for personal or couple use
~doubles as a bluetooth speaker
~autofocus and keystone pretty accurate
~can use STEAMLINK W/O ANY OTHER DEVICES
Cons:
~Expensive! i think 400-450$ is a much more reasonable price. Its actually double the price of the nebula mars line. If your willing to sacrifice the size and portability get a different projector
~No 3d function
~No Netflix or Amazon Prime. Its stupid, they even have stuff like crunchyroll and viki, but not prime? their primary distributor is amazon.
~Easy to tip over. Happened to me, someone bumped the table, fell on its side and rolled right off the table. Use a tripod.
~no included lens protection, exposed at all times (coming from the mars, which has a built in lens cover)
~during use there is light spill around the frame of the projected image. Like the rectangle image and a blob of dark grey light around the frame. its not that noticeable.
~i wish the ports was 1inch higher, some of my USB end up below the lowest point of the projector, ended up needing to use an extender for some devices.
~no quick access setting option (on the mars, hold home, and you get brightness, color, orientation, and 3d w/o exiting the app. On the capsule you need to exit app to adjust anything everytime.)
This has fully replaced my nebula mars as my portable projector. Although its half the brightness (its a big difference). The size and ability to charge off usb vs proprietary chargers, made it a huge win for me. But for parties and such id rather bring the Nebula Mars instead, for its brightness and sound. too bad at this time there are no dedicated cases for the capsule 2
Update: 5/23/19
Battery life is:
Standard: 1 1/2 hours
Standard + Firestick4k: 1hr10min
Battery: 3 hours
Battery + firestick4k: 2hr30min
I've been using it for about a week now, and noticed a couple of things. Tried sideloading netflix both the normal android and android tv version. neither work. Nice feature with pointing up to the ceiling still keystones correctly. And lastly still annoyed there's no way to quick access settings, (i change the projection settings pretty often) Its nice though that unlike previous versions of the nebula projectors when you exit the app to change a setting, it still runs in the background so you can pick up where you left off. For me with how often i move it around, i dont regret the purchase.
Update 9/14/19
I've owned the capsule 2 since the first day of its official release, and only noticed now that there is a cheaper version of the capsule 2, that would actually fix one of the gripes that i had (netflix support and ios airplay). At first i regretted my purchase and wished that i could return it and get the cheaper version, but i was way past the return window.
As for the ios airplay and netflix, you can get them working, but netflix is cumbersome to use and airplay tends to disconnect when you lock your device after 10-15 minutes sometimes, but other times it works just fine, i dont get why it acts up.
Despite the fact that the Capsule max is 100$ cheaper id still probably get the capsule 2 all over again just for the usb c, over the capsule max's dc barrel connection. the convenience of only having to bring one charger for my phone, laptop, switch, and projector, doesn't quite make up for the 100$ difference but it's a sacrifice for convenience.
So my recommendation is if you REALLY need the portability with quality image and brightness, get the max, if you think the convenience of usb c is worth 100$ get the capsule 2. If portability is important but you can sacrifice a decrease in image quality and brightness get the original capsule (or other pico projectors there are several under 200$ but with poorer battery life and bad gui) if you dont need portability look elsewhere, there are brighter, higher-res projectors out there for the same price or cheaper.
May 2019 · Electronics · verified purchase