While large TVs are great since joining the world of the home-cinemared, (OK, not actually a word) I’ve somewhat lost interest in them. This is because for delivering sheer cinematic spectacle in the home, nearly everything, perhaps bar gaming, is better on a projector.
Sure, you can now buy 100in TVs at relatively affordable prices, but projectors go bigger for less. The Nebula Cosmos 4K SE is a case in point, offering an image up to 200in for £1,299 – or a bargain £999 at time of writing for Black Friday. What’s more, it does something that you can’t do with a TV or a dedicated home cinema projector: you can easily pick it up and move it around. That’s because it weighs only 4.5Kg and has a handle. In fact, the handle is arguably its most critical feature – as long as you have access to a power supply (there is no battery) and Wi-Fi you can quickly set it up to watch in any room, even outside.
Google TV Built In
As it runs Google TV giving the Cosmos 4K SE is effectively a smart TV, with everything you need to watch is included in the box (even batteries for the remote). Google TV has an intuitive interface and has built-in access to multiple streaming services including Disney Plus, Apple TV+, 4K Netflix, Prime Video and YouTube and the remote control offers dedicated buttons for the latter three.
As its name suggests the Nebula Cosmos 4K SE provides 4K resolution, via upscaling from the DLP chip, powered by what Nebula calls a “hybrid engine” that combines an LED and a laser light source that boasts 1800 lumens of output. It even offers Dolby Vision capabilities, which is unusual even for dedicated home cinema projectors.
Rated at 30,000 hours and as a sealed box, the light source isn’t designed to be user replaceable, which as I’ve just replaced the lamp in my home cinema projector initially concerned me. However, I replaced the bulb with 2,244 hours of use on, which took me around three years to reach. My back-of-the-envelope calculations indicate that at that pace 30,000 would equate to 40 years of use, so if you’re still using your Cosmos 4K SE then feel free to get in touch.
A bonus is that unlike bargain basement projectors I’ve tried the Cosmos 4K SE wasn’t outrageously noisy. My phone app indicated around 43db close up and 33db two meters away, making it acceptable to use, even in a small room.
Sound wise, the built-in speakers on many projectors are often not worth bothering with, but those in the Cosmos 4K SE offer 15 Watts of power and surprised me with the volume and clarity of its output. No, it’s not real home cinema, but for casual use, it is perfectly acceptable. At the rear of the unit are two HDMI 2.1 ports, so you can hook up external streaming devices should you wish to. One of these is eARC capable, so you can even use an external sound system to get surround audio from streaming service.
No Lens Shift
The Cosmos 4K SE is not a short throw projector and you’ll need a minimum distance of 1.69 meters, generating a 60in picture. It also offers no lens shift of any kind, so you’ll have to physically move it up and down to get an ideal picture. As such, the official desktop stand accessory or a third-party sturdy tripod should be considered as essential purchase alongside this, and a standard mount screw is present on the underside to accommodate these.
To make up for the missing lens shift, Nebula offers what it calls IEA 4.0 Intelligent Setup. This means that with a single button press it will place a correctly shaped image that even avoids obstacles, such as door handles or light fittings.
Of course, pointing straight on at a screen is best for image quality, but for a quick and easy solution this will get the job done. There’s even a calibration option to optimize the colors based on the surface it’s pointed at if it’s not an ideal-colored surface but this didn’t make a huge difference to my eyes. The Eye-guard feature will cut out the picture if anyone walks in front of it to protect the eyes from the bright beam – which is useful if you have little ones wandering around.
Set-Up And Casting
When it came to setting up a good hour or so was devoted to connecting to Wi-Fi, upgrading the firmware and logging into Google to set everything up. This also involved installing the dedicated Nebula app onto the projector and smartphone, which means you can control it without the remote.
These apps are required if you want to be able to cast content to the projector direct from your phone. As an iPhone user I can report that Airplay does work, but it wasn’t a robust experience compared to my Apple TV 4K. If I interrupted playback of the content to go back to the menu, I could restart the stream on the Cosmos SE 4K without restarting the app manually, which was quite annoying. Therefore, if you want to cast Airplay to it regularly an external solution would be recommended.
Impressive Performance
When it came to performance, I was pleased by the images, which were sharp, clear and colorful. Dipping into Netflix gave good results. In Sing: Thriller the 4K resolution was evident with plenty of detail and its Dolby Vision prowess was evident. The costumes of the animated characters were suitably color rich with the shinier outfits giving off a pleasing golden hue. In dark scenes the contrast ratio was acceptable, with space scenes in shows such as Lost In Space showing a touch of grey, but dark enough to be convincing.
Overall
The Cosmos Smart 4K SE proved to be a highly usable projector that offers surprisingly good picture quality for the price and powerful in-built speakers. The lack of lens shift means you will need either a stand or tripod to use it – or at the very least shift a table around. Its Dolby Vision capabilities, built in Google TV and top-mounted handle are a great combination. If you want something even more portable a smaller unit with a built-in battery might be a better choice but if you want a big image at home, or for holiday travel where you’ll have access to power and Wi-Fi, the Cosmos 4K SE is a great solution.
