Soundcore Nebula P1 review

If you want to watch movies on the big screen without forking out thousands for a TV bigger than 85 inches, a coffee table projector can be a tempting proposition. That’s because they can offer a large screen size paired with an easy-to-carry design that gives added flexibility.

The Soundcore Nebula P1 is the latest model to enter the villa, offering a portable build and boasting promising tech specifications. And there’s an intriguing sound addition that is a unique proposition when it comes to the coffee table projector market.

This audio offering makes this projector stand out from the crowd, but as we’ll see, it is ultimately let down in another key category.

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Price

The Soundcore Nebula P1 launched at £700 / $800 / AU$1300, placing it in the mid-range lifestyle projector category. We have already seen some limited deals, which have dropped the price to around £595 in the UK, for example.

At a similar level is the Xgimi MoGo 4, a portable projector that is currently available for about £499 in the UK, although it launched at the slightly higher price of £509 / $499 / AU$1399. We gave this model a solid four stars for its punchy picture and compact design, and it features in our best portable projectors guide.

It’s worth noting that the MoGo 4 is not aiming at the same market as the Nebula model. The Xgimi projector has a built-in battery, unlike the Nebula P1, but it lacks separate speakers.

Design

Those separate speakers really make the P1 stand out from the crowd. The two wireless speakers sit on top of the projector and are secured by a magnetic connection and a cute lock switch on the projector’s body. You can charge the pair from here, or separately via their USB-C ports.

The speakers are lightweight and easy to carry, sporting a sleek grey finish with two rounded corners.

You can place them around your space “wherever you see fit”, as the brand claims when you are prompted to set them up. In our test room, we place the speakers on either side of the projector to achieve a degree of spaciousness and stereo separation, facing towards our seating.

There is no Dolby Atmos support, but they offer Dolby Audio to create 2.0-channel sound.

The projector itself feels practical and sturdy. There is a flexible cloth handle that makes it easy to carry around, especially as the complete package weighs only 2.4kg. You can tilt the body up to 130 degrees towards your screen or wall, and the body acts as a stand, which makes set-up simple.

The included remote control has a sleek, premium feel. You can use this to control power and volume, access auto-focus and streaming platform shortcuts.

Features

On the back of the projector, you will find an HDMI eARC port that supports up to 4K at 60Hz. You will also find a USB-A port and a 3.5mm aux jack if you want to connect your headphones.

As we mentioned, the P1 doesn’t have a built-in battery, but you can run it from a portable power supply via the USB-C port: Anker, Soundcore's parent company, sells specific chargers in a bundle on its website, or you can use a non-official one as long as it has a minimum power output of 100W.

Anker claims that its official 737 Power Bank delivers “one hour of continuous use” with the speakers attached to the body and the brightness set to full. That is, of course, not long enough for a full movie or even a football match, so we feel it’s best to think of the P1 as a compact mains-based projector, rather than a true portable one.

The P1 can output an image up to 180 inches in size, and it has a 1080p resolution and HDR10 support.

Nebula claims the projector can produce up to 650 ANSI lumens of brightness, which is brighter than its Xgimi MoGo 4 rival, which comes in at 450 ANSI lumens.

It also uses the Google TV operating system, giving you access to streaming apps such as Apple TV, Prime Video, Channel 4 and Netflix. There is no BBC iPlayer, although you can cast it from your phone as a workaround.

There is a range of smart features to help you get your picture looking straight. That includes auto-focus and auto-keystone, but you can also do this manually if you need to fine-tune. Once you have set up your projector, you can save settings into presets if you repeatedly use it in the same location.

You can also employ Nebula’s own “Vision Fit” tech to set up your screen. This is used via the Nebula Connect app, from which you take a photo of the surface where you’d like to project the image, and the projector will use it to optimise the results. It’s a neat idea in theory, but it is rather time-consuming, and we find ourselves sticking with the more traditional settings.

The app gives you much of the same functionality as the remote control, but you can also access more detailed picture and sound settings.

Picture

When we first switch on the P1 in the default 'Nebulamaster' picture setting in our dark test room, we are greeted with an overly vivid and unpleasant image. We kick off with Sinners on Blu-ray as Sammie drives up to his father’s church, where his movements look exaggerated and too smooth, so he bobs around in the car like a giddy child on a seesaw.

Once we change to Movie mode and turn the MEMC (Motion Estimation and Motion Compensation) setting to low, motion looks much more natural and lacks distracting judder. Sammie enters the frame with a little bit of a bounce, but feels more grounded than in the default setting.

We also knock the sharpness and saturation settings down a few notches. With these adjustments, the picture is much more balanced. In Sinners, as the sun peers out from the clouds at the start of an ominous morning, the projector delivers a relatively natural-looking image, but the colours lack the degree of pop required to deliver a genuinely punchy picture. Instead, you get a slightly flat overall look. The shining sun, for instance, lacks the vibrancy to break through the rest of the picture.

Switching to No Time To Die on Blu-ray, as Daniel Craig’s Bond has a near miss with an explosive device, his skin tone also lacks much natural warmth, instead looking a little pale and unnatural. His features look overetched as well (even with the projector’s Sharpness setting dropped down to zero), exaggerating wrinkles and bumps to a clearly unrealistic degree.

This is a wider issue with the P1 – especially when it comes to wide scenery shots. In the sweeping footage of the Italian town, the projector exaggerates the outlines of the trees and bricks in the buildings. This makes the image look too busy, and in fact means the whole picture verges on grainy instead of clean and clear.

Shadow detail is not the strongest, either. In Civil War, as the journalist protagonists recover from a traumatic event, young photographer Jessie sits with her legs hanging out of a parked van. It is hard to distinguish the interior from her dark hair in the shadows. There is a differentiation between the inside and the outside of the van, but it does not go as dark as rivals.

Despite its claimed 650 lumens, the P1's brightness is underwhelming and lacks the punch we expect. When we test the projector in a lit room, the P1 is still usable, but it isn't impressive, and it loses some shadow detail and colour.

We compare the Nebula model with the Xgimi MoGo 4. Both projectors accept movies in HDR, and the P1 is certainly the better performer in this format. It looks less overcooked compared with the MoGo 4, and keeps the image more balanced overall.

When we switch back to SDR content, the MoGo 4 delivers an image with both deeper blacks and punchier highlights, resulting in a more three-dimensional overall picture that immediately grabs the eye.

While the Nebula P1 offers a reasonably balanced picture and performs acceptably in brighter environments, its lack of punch and brightness holds it back, and in picture terms it can't match the cheaper MoGo 4.

Sound

The P1’s speakers, each powered by 10W of amplification, really are the stars of the show. They deliver clean, engaging sound that adds much-needed energy to movies and TV shows.

In Civil War, as an army chopper takes off, each swing of the rotor blade is portrayed with an impactful punch that elevates the tension of the scene. The wide soundfield is impressive, too; the chopper moves from one side of the screen to another, giving a real sense of breadth.

Dialogue is also clear and emotive. Vocals take centre stage, as they should, but not at the expense of the rest of the mix.

The performance of the speakers will depend at least somewhat on where you can put them in your space, especially if you are outside, and they’re certainly not on a par with the best dedicated Bluetooth speakers, but compared with the speaker systems of most portable and lifestyle projectors, they’re a massive improvement.

Verdict

With the best sound we have heard from a coffee table projector at this price, the Soundcore Nebula P1 certainly offers something new. And its clever, compact design makes for a practical and flexible proposition.

It's a shame the picture performance isn't at the same level, but if you don't mind sacrificing some quality there in the name of much better sound, this is a compelling choice.

SCORES

• Picture 3
• Sound 5
• Design 4

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