Monologue: The Anker Nebula X1 Is The Best Projector I've Ever Used

You don't have to fuck around with it too much done to suspend it from a ceiling or sit perfectly in front of a scream inasmuch as poss but you could just point it out a wall or a screen and it would work, and you could just start watching stuff. And the X one is about as close as I think we're ever going to get. It's fairly compact. It's maybe the size of a subword for or half the size of a carry on suitcase, weighing in just under fourteen pounds, with a handle that pops up with a

satisfying click. It does four K resolution, uses something called triple laser technology that Anchor has a great deal of marketing material about that mostly just comes down to it looks very very good, and it bloody well should. Because the X one cost just over three thousand dollars with the wireless speakers, which you'll get to in a little beer. And yes, I bought it with my own money. I don't really spend money on myself outside of diet coke

and baseball tickets anyway. Really though, it looks really really good, like a very high end four K TV, though perhaps not as contrasty as a high end O LAD. It's clear, it's crisp and looks that way if you're projecting onto a wall or in my case, something called an EPSOM duo eighty inch screen. I chose the duo because I'm using this projector in a cramp New York apartment with no big water project onto and the duo literally clips

onto a tripod and pulls open in fifteen seconds. I'll link to it in the episode notes I love this screen. It's just you put the tripod down, you slide the thing on, and you pull it open. I had a few bolts pop out on mine, but you can just screw them back on. It's very much a working presenter type thing. You can imagine some horrible salesman wheeling it around and trying to sell you. I was going to say, ties, I don't think you really get door to door salesman

of ties. Anyway One, for the most part, just works. It runs on Google TV, meaning that it has all the apps you'd expect, like Netflix, Hulu, to b Poo Boo, brung Us and funt Of course, though I will say that while playback is great, the user interface lags and chugs far too often for a projector that costs as much as a gaming laptop. I'm actually genuinely calling this out as bullshit. I have an Apple TV even five

years ago, that runs smoothly. I don't know why the X one chugs so much, and I refuse to believe that there was no way of making it work. Well, they've crammed it full of crap. It's full of all of these classic Google TV like random windows of stuff from recommending me stuff I'm never gonna watch. I don't know if this is a Google problem or an anchor problem, but again, three thousand dollars, you need to get this right.

I can forgive this, though, because the X one also has several incredibly useful features, like this built in gimbal that allows you to move and adjust the image so that you can have the X one shooting from the side of a room rather than directly onto a surface, with the ability to digitally enhance enlarge and keystone, meaning you can pull the corners of the image to make it look right on a particular surface, to make it

project just about anywhere. And it really does work. When I was first using it, I quite literally had it crammed in the corner of the room, had it project onto the surface, it looked awful. But with digital keystoning, you could just pull the corners on so it looked like it was meant to be there. And when I say gimbal, I mean it quite literally has the focus element inside it, the actual lenses you can hear it go.

It's kind of cool. Genuinely, at a time when I bitch a lot about how bad technology has become, the X one genuinely is actually innovative. It's a cool piece of kit, and it really just it can go anywhere that you want it to. For the most part, you don't have to have this perfect setup, this perfect amount of space. This is why I've generally not liked projectors, because projectors require you to have, even with a good screen, exactly the right positioning. If you're off even by a little,

it can kind of look like a dog's dinner. I'm thinking of the various short threat projectors I've used, where the whole thing is They say, oh, it just projects them below it. Yeah. Maybe if it's not exactly the right height, the exact distance, even a small distance, you don't have the right table, you're screwed. With the X one. I had it on some random coffee table in the corner. I didn't do nothing fancy like, it was great. I really enjoy it, which is why I'm immediately going to

start complaining about something. Yes, the X one, and this is a marketing problem, has some automatic setup features, and seemingly every single reviewer that I watch said they were excellent, But in my experience they don't work. They just they don't work. It's crazy. Everyone would show you this thing, and I think it's the I'll get to the exact terms in a minute, but they would just point it, they'd click a button, and it would know the exact

screen size. This was not my experience. Perhaps it's that my projector screen is in front of two windows, or maybe everybody else testing this did it in some sort of ideal scenario. But these setup features are useful. I find to get you close enough to something you can digitally adjust to fit your surface. But they are not. It's a cure all thing. I will also say this is still the most single most versatile projector I've ever used, and I was able to project from the corner of

my room where no other projector would have worked. It does work, it just does not work as easily as Anchor says. And I only harp on about this because Anchor's website says and I quote set up in ten seconds, which is complete and utter bullshit. It's just nonsense. Anchor massively overstates their AI spatial adaptation as one click perfection, and other reviewers should have done a much better job

making sure this was true. That being said, once you've found a spot that works, the X one does generally remember it. However, if you adjust the screen or you are just where the projector is even slightly, it doesn't. And yeah, you can physically move it. I'm being a little bit of a prick about this because this costs so much money and Anchor's website repeatedly states that this is just something you click one butoner and it works.

It does not do that. It does not, and all the other if I don't know how any of the other reviewers who have reviewed this would hear this, But if you were one of them, you fucked up. You fucked up bad here. You really haven't sold people something dangerous. It's still a great product. But stop doing marketing for these companies. Try these products when I am eventually going to get into more regular hardware reviews, and when I do, I am going to try and set stuff up in

the unideal space. We should not be trying to do these things, these reviews in a space that exactly fits the marketing request. No no, no, no, no no. We need to be harder on these people, especially companies that claim one click setups. But I should also be clear that compared to literally any other projector I've ever used, this the easiest to set up and most adaptable projector I have ever seen. And you also get these wireless stereo speakers with it, where you have to pay for them,

and they truly do set up in seconds. The ones that I think they even came pared, you just put them down in the corners. They have L and R on them, So if you're like me and you forget they just have it in a big letter and you hit a button and bang that cat and they create a really convincing surround sound environment. Combined with the speakers that are actually baked into the X one's body, they

sound fantastic. And when you've found a consistent spot for the projector and the screen, yes, you can be up and running in ten seconds. Also is another thing I'm gonna harp on about as on the side. Anchor should absolutely be ashamed of themselves for keeping motion smoothing on. It's on by default. What year is this anchor? Is it two thousand and seven? Is it two thousand and nine? What are we doing? It's motion smoothing? Nobody likes? Who wants this? Tom Cruise is going to get very angry

when he hears this. I assume Tom Cruise is a better offline listener. Anyway, If you buy this thing, and I do recommend it seriously, it's called me EMC, go into the settings. It's in there. I do not know why this feature is present. It's so annoying. It's so very annoying, and again, would not be this harsh if this was not three thousand dollars anyway, Anyway, I know I've gone into a lot of negatives here, but I

truly adore the X one. I do not recommend it for gaming, as the input leg is bad, but for everything else, it's one of the single coolest pieces of hardware I've ever used. It looks good, it works well, it's beautifully engineered, it feels nice and hefty, has its wit like. The kit is all nice, it's smooth surface, and the UI generally is great, and when you've set it up in the right place, it really is as

turnkey as Anchor says. But that's a big if. And while I've been quite critical of the auto set up in general, the X one will work in many, many more environments than any other projector. I've watched several films and TV show episodes on it. They looked and sounded great. I even watched the Steven Seagal movie called A Good Man. It was a very bad movie. But if you want to laugh, if you want to really just laugh, laugh yourself silly. I recommend I don't know pirating it. You

shouldn't give them any money anyway. It's also relatively portable fourteen pounds it's thirteen point seven based on their website. It has the lovely little handle. Everything runs off a single power adapter, and Anchor sells a chunky carrier case

that fits both the X one and speakers. I also recommend anchors gimbal, which is just a fancy way of saying thing you click it onto, which lets you tilt and turn it to make it even more adaptable, in my case, allowing me to project up from the floor rather than the table in the corner of my apartment. So I really do love the X one. I adore it. I'm so glad I bought it. It's great, great value for money. I know that sounds weird at the price point,

but it just works. I'm going to take it with me on a little romantic trip going on, going to the woods, going to project onto the screen, and with the duo, you could just block it up there. I use it to watch all sorts of movies and TV. I really do like him, and especially at a time when tech has become so negative, when I spend so much of my time complaining about the tech industry, with good bloody reason, it's nice watching a company build something cool. Now.

I haven't done too much of a deep dive on to Anchor, so I'm sure that there's something someone won't like, but I've used a lot of their products. I like a lot of their products, have a bunch of their battery packs. In general, it's nice watching a company build things that actually help people and that people like. I'm sure people email me saying they found something they don't and of course I do want to hear about that easy at better Offline dot com. But I look forward

to doing more hardware stuff in the future. Thanks for listening.