Yaber K2s review: A budget projector bargain that falls short on colour

Having made its name in the low-cost projector market, Yaber seems intent on going mainstream with its latest models. Back in March, we saw the Ace K1 – a sub-£500, 1080p LED projector that could deliver decent pictures and perfectly acceptable sound.

Now we have the Yaber K2s, promising brighter images than the Yaber Ace K1 at the same native resolution, along with an expansive set of features, built-in streaming, and an integrated 10W Dolby Audio speaker system. The Ace K1 wasn’t perfect but it’s still one of the best home cinema projectors available at its price point. With the added features and a few improvements, the K2s could be an even better buy.

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Yaber K2s review: What do you get for the money?

The Yaber K2s is a compact home cinema projector with a 1080p native resolution, an 800 ANSI lumens LED light source and a 10W stereo speaker system, courtesy of JBL. However, it’s the extra features that really help this projector stand out. These start with a built-in Android TV streaming stick, which comes with its own remote control, and extends to Wi-Fi 6 support, Alexa voice controls and an NFC screencast feature, where you can cast stills or video from your phone with a quick tap.

The unit itself has a 291 x 270mm footprint and stands 120mm high, making it a little smaller overall than the Ace K1. It’s clad in matte black plastic with a darker fabric speaker grill on either side. At the rear you’ll find two HDMI ports, USB Type-A and Type-C ports, a headphone output, and a 3.5mm AV port.

This operates in tandem with the bundled AV cable to work as a composite video in; handy, if you still use vintage sources such as a VHS recorder or a retro console, although I had neither to test how well it works. Yaber also scores extra brownie points for throwing in an HDMI cable and a cleaning kit.

The K2s sells for around £470 through Amazon but Yaber frequently offers vouchers to bring the price down by £100. That makes it very close in price to the Ace K1, and a little cheaper than obvious rivals such as the Epson CO-FH02 and the XGIMI Mogo 2 Pro.

Yaber K2s review: What does it do well?

Up to a point, the K2s is very easy to set up. It has automatic focusing and trapezoid adjustment, flashing a checkerboard pattern up on screen and making adjustments. Meanwhile, the Android TV setup is almost seamless, whether you take it step by step manually or use the “set up my device” feature on an Android phone to copy across your Wi-Fi settings and accounts.

What’s more, the built-in streaming stick doesn’t put a foot wrong. It’s based on a stock version of Android TV 10 and supports most of the major streaming apps, including Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, itvX, My5 and Netflix, although not Channel 4, BBC iPlayer or Now TV. And when I say Netflix, I don’t mean some ghastly fork of the app that no longer functions properly or needs you to use the remote’s D-pad as a mouse; it’s the same Netflix app you’ll have experienced on other streaming sticks or smart TVs. All the apps worked flawlessly through the duration of testing, with no crashes or delays while content loads. This isn’t something you can take for granted.

Crucially, when it comes to picture quality, the K2s gets many things right. The image is slightly brighter than on the Ace K1, and there’s an impressive amount of detail on display, especially when watching 1080p or 4K content, which the K2s downscales to the native resolution.

And while I normally take the Dolby Audio branding with a pinch of salt on budget projectors, the sound here is surprisingly good. It’s rich, powerful and clear where it counts, and while you couldn’t call it fully immersive, the speakers do a respectable job of steering effects and dialogue left and right. I happily spent a few hours over several evenings watching movies and Netflix or Disney+ shows on the K2s without reaching for a soundbar and, if you want private listening, you can plug in headphones or connect a Bluetooth set.

The additional features are a bit of a mixed bag. The K2s supports Amazon Alexa, but there’s no built-in mic or voice recognition so you’re reliant on your own smart speaker. Still, it’s useful to be able to turn up the volume or switch source without reaching for the remote. Meanwhile, the NFC screencast enables you to share content from your phone at a tap but only once you’ve installed the required EShare app. This allows you to cast the screen or share content from the comfort of your sofa. It’s a feature but kind of superfluous.

It’s worth mentioning that the K2s is pretty quiet by budget projector standards, putting out around 37dB in normal mode and dropping by a few decibels more in “silent” mode, although you can hear the fan spinning up to cool things down from time to time.

Yaber K2s review: What could it do better?

Sadly, the K2s has two big issues that put it behind the Ace K1. First, it isn’t very flexible. The 1.54:1 throw ratio means you’ll need over 3m to fill an 80in screen, or 3.9m for a 100in image, which means you need a lot of space and you’re asking the LED light source to do a lot of work. The closer the projector is to the screen, the better the image quality gets but, then, you’re looking at a projected image that might not be much bigger than your TV screen. Not ideal.

A leg on a ratchet mechanism gives you some vertical tilt but that’s about it for adjustments, bar a digital zoom that only allows you to make the image smaller. And while the auto-focus is quite effective, I found it difficult to achieve a perfect, crisp focus on both sides of the frame unless the projector and the screen were perfectly placed at the right angles. Other projectors make a better job of quick-and-dirty setups.

More seriously, the colour performance isn’t as good as on the Ace K1 – itself not perfect on this front. I spent a lot of time tinkering with modes and colour settings but whites consistently looked grey and blacks a little muddy, while the image wasn’t as vibrant as on the sister model. In tests with a colorimeter, the projector supported less than 50% of the sRGB colour gamut, which is poor even by the standard of other sub £500 projectors. To put it in perspective, the Ace K1 covers 62% and the Epson CO-FH02 manages 85%.

Yaber K2s review: Should you buy one?

Maybe. With its detailed HD pictures, good sound and built-in streaming, the K2s makes for an enticing package, especially if you can pick it up for around £350. However, the colour performance isn’t quite where it needs to be, even at this price point. It isn’t disastrous, and picture quality is good enough for casual movie watching or an evening rushing through your latest Netflix addiction.

However, if I were looking to spend £350 to £500 on a new projector, I’d be looking at alternatives that could deliver more vivid and engaging pictures. In fact, I’d start with the Ace K1 or another favourite from our guide to the best cheap projectors.

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