Anker Nebula Cosmos 4K SE review: One-box 4K home cinema for less

The market for affordable 4K one-box home cinema projectors is hotting up. While it’s not unusual to find good 4K projectors for under £1,000, these have tended to be big, bulky beamers powered by traditional lamps. And as usual with traditional projectors, you get all the usual downsides: high power consumption, heat, noise and the cost of additional lamp replacements.

Recently, projectors like the XGIMI Horizon Ultra and Dangbei DBOX02 have posed an alternative, mixing LEDs and lasers as the light source, shrinking the size and adding speaker systems and built-in streaming for convenience. Now, Anker’s Nebula brand is getting in on the act with the Cosmos 4K SE, another LED/laser 4K projector with Google TV streaming and Dolby Audio stereo sound. What’s more, it’s cheaper than its rivals, costing £1,300 rather than around £1,500.

Are we looking at a new home cinema bargain, or do you need to lower your expectations to save that kind of cash? I’ve been testing the Nebula Cosmos 4K SE to find out.

Anker Nebula Cosmos 4K SE review: What do you get for the money?

The Nebula Cosmos costs £1,300 and that money gets you a 4K DLP projector with 1800 ANSI lumens of brightness and Dolby Vision support. It uses Nebula’s HybridBeam technology, combining LED and laser sources to deliver a richer 1.07bn colour palette than most projectors at this price.

Meanwhile, the NebulaMaster engine processes the image for improved contrast and colour reproduction, not to mention smoother motion. There’s also built-in Google TV streaming, along with dual side-firing 15W speakers for built-in Dolby Audio stereo sound. The LED and laser light sources should last for up to 30,000 hours of viewing.

As with most budget 4K projectors, you’re actually getting a 1080p native resolution from the DLP chip, but pixel-shifting techniques are used to create a 4K image. The effect is so convincing that it’s extremely difficult to tell the difference outside of detailed A/B tests. Meanwhile, with a 1.2:1 throw ratio, it can give you a 60in image at a distance of 1.58m from the screen, or a maximum recommended 200in at 5.32m. For a 100in picture, you’ll need 2.56m of space in your living room.

The Cosmos 4K SE looks like it should be a portable projector, with a carrying handle and a similar design to the Anker Mars 3 Air. It’s one of the most compact 4K projectors I’ve ever tested, at 263 x 165 x 265mm, and it weighs just 4.5kg. However, there’s no onboard battery, so it’s only useful in places where you can get a mains power supply.

Don’t worry if you have consoles or a 4K Blu-ray player to hook up. The Cosmos 4K SE also comes with two HDMI 2.1 inputs and a USB-A 3.2 port for connecting or powering external devices, along with a 3.5mm AUX audio in.

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Anker Nebula Cosmos 4K SE review: What does it do well?

First, the Nebula Cosmos 4K SE is extremely easy to use. Having worked with Google TV on a range of projectors over the last year, I’d say it’s the best software out there in terms of the basic setup, allowing you to get up and running with your favourite streaming apps in well under an hour. With practice and a decent internet connection, I can get up and running in under 30 minutes.

It also helps that Nebula’s Intelligent Environment Adaptation (IEA) 4 tech does a fantastic job of adjusting focus, size and keystone for you. As long as you point the lens at a roughly aligned screen or wall, you’re going to get a crisp and usable picture with no distortion. For the best quality and resolution, especially around the edges, you’ll have to get it as straight on as you can. Switch on the projector or move it while in use, and it will set itself up again.

In everyday use, Google TV works a treat. All of the major UK streaming apps are supported, with the exception of BBC iPlayer and Channel 4, which seem to be regularly missing in action on these machines. There’s no messing around with unofficial Netflix installations, and everything just works, especially if you already have the apps to sign-in with on your phone. You also have universal voice search across apps through the remote, and there’s enough processing power to keep things moving smoothly, provided you have a decent Wi-Fi connection in the room.

Best of all, the Cosmos 4K SE can deliver strong 4K picture quality, with vibrant colours and plenty of detail. At 1800 ANSI Lumens it isn’t as bright as the XGIMI Horizon Ultra or the Dangbei DBOX02 and the image isn’t quite as sharp and clean, but there’s not much in it. Colour reproduction is extremely satisfying, particularly on Dolby Vision HDR material, where the presentation is frequently stunning. In tests, the numbers aren’t spectacular – the Cosmos 4K SE reproduces 79.3% of the sRGB colour gamut and 64.7% of DCI-P3 – but you wouldn’t know it when you’re watching Shogun on Disney+ or a 4K stream of Dune Part II.

And while the Cosmos 4K SE isn’t designed as a games projector, I found its punchy presentation and HDR support particularly good for playing titles across my Xbox Series S and PlayStation 5. There’s even a specific Gaming mode if you want to minimise latency, however, even on the default NebulaMaster picture mode I didn’t find it a huge issue.

I’d also have to complement Nebula on its settings. There’s a specific Settings button on the remote that enables you to change basic settings quickly without losing sight of what you’re viewing, and the remaining settings are only a click away. What’s more, you get a good range of presets along with detailed options to tweak them further.

Anker Nebula Cosmos 4K SE review: What could it do better?

Like a lot of bright DLP projectors, the Cosmos 4K SE can’t really do dark and inky blacks. What you get is more of a dark grey, which can hamper contrast in some scenes. The NebulaMaster tech means things rarely get so muddy that you can’t make out what’s going on, but if you’re used to the contrast of an OLED TV, this might come as a shock.

The audio is also slightly underwhelming. It’s powerful but quite directional, especially if you’re not sitting directly in front of or behind the projector, and at times I found dialogue hard to follow and buried in the mix, both at lower and higher volumes. I still had a good time watching blockbuster action movies and it’s fine most of the time, but the XGIMI Horizon Ultra and the DBOX02 both have a more articulate sound with a little more clarity and finesse.

Finally, you’re going to want to fiddle with the Cosmos 4K SE’s MEMC motion compensation settings. On some of the presets this was set too high, resulting in the dreaded artificial “soap opera” effect that can make cinematic masterpieces look like cheesy daytime TV shows. Do yourself a favour and turn it down or off.

Anker Nebula Cosmos 4K SE review: Should you buy it?

This one really depends on your budget, and on the pricing of it and its rivals. The XGIMI Horizon Ultra is the superior projector on audio and picture quality, but it’s also £400 more expensive at the time of writing, while its streaming software isn’t as good. Dangbei’s DBOX02 is closer when it comes to picture quality with superior audio, but is also significantly more expensive.This makes Cosmos 4K SE a tempting proposition.

Image quality is still impressive, the sound is perfectly listenable and it’s hard to fault for convenience and ease-of-use. I’d still recommend some of the more traditional 4K projectors if you’re simply after bang for buck – the Epson EH-TW6150 and Optoma UHD38x are both fantastic value at under £1,000. But if you’re looking to cut costs and get a great all-in-one 4K projector, the Cosmos 4K SE is an excellent buy.