Soundcore, the Anker sub-brand that sells the Nebula projectors, began shipping the Nebula X1S in the United States this week. The projector alone lists at 3,299 dollars. A bundle that adds two wireless satellite speakers lists at 3,998 dollars, and one that adds those speakers plus a 100-inch screen lists at 4,167 dollars. Through September 20 the company is selling all three at introductory prices of 2,499, 2,799 and 2,899 dollars on its own store.
The headline specification is 6,000 ANSI lumens, up from 3,500 on the Nebula X1 that arrived last year. Anker gets there by adding a fourth lamp to the three-lamp RGB laser assembly it calls LaserForge, a change Projector Reviews confirmed in its launch coverage. Almost everything else carries over: a 0.47-inch DMD, 4K output, a 14-element all-glass lens with 1.67x optical zoom, Dolby Vision, Google TV, two HDMI inputs with eARC, and the motorized micro gimbal that lets the body tilt through 25 degrees without a stand. Rated native contrast stays at 5,000:1, with a dynamic figure of 56,000:1. Color coverage is quoted at 106 percent of Rec.2020.
Four lamps, and a fan that has to keep up with them
Adding a laser lamp to a sealed portable chassis is mostly a thermal problem, and Anker’s own specification page is unusually direct about how it solved this one. The X1S ships with two brightness profiles that are quoted separately. Nebula Master Mode, the default, is rated at 3,000 lumens and 28 decibels. Conference Mode is the one rated at 6,000 lumens, and it runs at roughly 43 decibels.
Fifteen decibels is not a rounding difference. It is the gap between a projector you forget is running and one you can hear over dialogue from ten feet away. Conference Mode is named for what it is meant to do, which is fill a lit meeting room with a readable image, and Anker recommends Master Mode for film viewing. That is a reasonable engineering choice and a defensible way to publish both numbers. It also means the figure printed on the box and the figure you get during a movie are not the same figure, and the difference between them is a factor of two.
This is worth spelling out because 6,000 lumens has become a crowded claim this year. Hisense rates the XR10 at 6,000 and two independent labs measured it closer to 3,900, a discrepancy we went through in detail last week. Anker is not doing that. It is publishing the peak and the practical number side by side, in the same table, which is the more honest version of the same marketing decision. Buyers still need to read the second row.
The same projector costs 800 dollars more on Amazon
Anker sells the X1S through its own store and through Amazon, and today the two channels are a long way apart. On soundcore.com the projector-only configuration carries the 800-dollar introductory discount and rings up at 2,499 dollars. On Amazon the same ASIN is 3,299 dollars, with no promotion applied. The speaker bundle is 3,998 dollars on Amazon against 2,799 dollars direct, and the screen bundle is 4,099 dollars against 2,899 dollars.
That is not a regional pricing story or a grey-import story. It is one manufacturer running a launch promotion on one of its two sales channels and not the other, in the same country, in the same week. Amazon’s own listing has been live since the machine went on sale. Anyone who buys through the marketplace out of habit pays roughly a third more than a buyer who clicks through to the brand site, and there is nothing on the Amazon page that says so.
Promotions expire, and the September 20 date is public, so the sensible reading is that the two channels will converge at 3,299 dollars in about three weeks. Until then the price is a matter of which tab you have open.
What the X1 is doing at 2,299 dollars
The older X1 has not been withdrawn, and it is currently 2,299 dollars on Amazon against a 2,999-dollar list price. So the practical spread between the two machines today runs anywhere from 200 dollars, if you compare the X1 on Amazon with the X1S bought direct, to 1,000 dollars if you compare both on Amazon.
What the extra money buys is 2,500 lumens in a mode most owners will not use for films. What it does not buy is a better contrast rating, a different imaging chip, a different lens, or any change to the audio hardware, which remains two 15-watt drivers, two 5-watt tweeters and a pair of passive radiators. The X1 also carries something the X1S announcement does not mention: TÜV Rheinland verification across brightness, color accuracy, contrast and blue light. Third-party verification of a 3,500-lumen claim is a stronger document than an unverified 6,000, and shoppers comparing the two lines should notice which one has it.
The satellite speakers are the part of the bundle that actually changes the product. They are rated at 150 watts combined, carry an IP54 rating and an eight-hour battery, and pair wirelessly to give a 4.1.2 layout. On a lawn, that matters more than any of the lumen arithmetic above.
Where it lands
Anker has spent two years building the Nebula line into something that competes on optics rather than on price, and the X1S continues that. A 0.47-inch DMD fed by an RGB laser through an all-glass lens, with a gimbal and Google TV, is a serious portable machine at any of the prices quoted here. The 300-inch maximum image is marketing; the useful range is the 13 to 22 feet of throw distance that produces up to 200 inches, which is a realistic back-yard geometry.
The competitive picture at this money has also changed since the X1 launched. Ultra short throw units with triple lasers now start below 2,000 dollars, and the brighter long-throw portables from Chinese brands have been closing on Anker’s optics for four seasons. What Anker still has that most of them do not is a distribution network, a service operation and a habit of publishing numbers that survive being checked. The X1S keeps that record intact, which is more than the 6,000-lumen headline on its own would suggest.
Whether it is worth 1,000 dollars more than the machine sitting next to it on the same retailer’s shelf is a different question, and one that gets easier to answer on September 21, when the introductory price ends and both projectors are priced by the same logic again. Readers weighing an outdoor setup this season can compare the field in our 2026 outdoor projector guide.
