Soundcore Nebula P1i Projector Review: New Design, Classic Pitfalls

Some might me miffed the projector doesn’t support 4K, but at this price, the industry isn’t there yet. And again, for casual big screen movie nights, you don’t really need it. Unlike their complaints about the lack of popcorn at movie night, my daughter and her mates have never complained at a lack of pixels.

Picture Quality

Photograph: Chris Haslam

The Nebula P1i produces an enjoyable 1080p picture for casual viewing, but, like so many cheap projectors needs a dark room to thrive. Ambient light will quickly wash out pictures, especially if you’re extending the display past 60 inches.

So while it’s not suitable for daytime use, at night, with curtains closed and lights off you can push the display to 100-inches with good results. Just don’t expect the color and contrast to pop like your TV. Dark scenes can suffer too, and it struggles with blacks and shadows, but again, this is par for the course with budget projectors. It’s not a design for videophiles, but it’s a fun alternative to the TV.

Take the projector outside and you’ll have the same issues with brightness. If you live in a rural idle with the only ambient light coming from the stars, you might be OK, but please take the marketing pictures of city roof terrace movie nights with a handful of salt.

You can easily tweak contrast, saturation, black levels, sharpness etc. as well as choose from various picture modes including Vivid, which boost color and contrast, and Movie, which punches up tone depth for dark rooms. The differences are noticeable but not remarkable.

Sound

Photograph: Chris Haslam

Each speaker can rotate 90 degrees side to side and 200 degrees vertically. They also work when sitting flush to the main body, and have a better-that-expected level of heft to them. It’s a bit boxed in, but that’s always the way with projectors.