Looking for a portable projector with a twist - quite literally - as the R150 by Nomvdic (pronounced Nomadic) has a handy twistable side to allow you to project at multiple angles. It's adjustable up to 90 degrees, so if you're looking to watch movies in bed on your ceiling, then this will do the job.
**The R150 was reviewed using hardware provided and sent to us by Nomvdic, but in no way influenced the review.
DESIGN
Adopting a pill shaped design, the R150 very closely resembles a bluetooth speaker - which is handy, as it has customized speakers by Harman Kardon, and they sound terrific. There are a few tradeoffs with the sound, and that's mostly down to the size of the projector which limits the bass a bit - but overall it sounds really good.
The entire body is made of a steel-black matte finish, with a dynamic purple strip separating the twisty element. It's a striking looking projector, and even with the compact design, it feels a fairly premium product weighing in at 720g - which isn't too heavy to put in your bag and carry around, but substantial enough that it doesn't feel cheap.
The aforementioned twist/swivel section allows you to move the projected image depending on where you want to view it, but there is a thread adapter so you can also just use a tripod if you so desire.
There's a vent on the left hand side of the projector, and it does a great job of pushing hot air out from the internal fan to prevent overheating, and it runs pretty silently as well.
Connectivity wise, there's a handy rubber tab that gives you access to:
3.5mm jack
HDMI port
USB-A
USB-C (both charging and input)
DC Power
Power switch
On top of the R150 are some touch sensitive buttons for volume control and play/pause, as well as LED indicators for battery. The R150 is equipped with a built-in 4,800 mAh rechargeable battery, and this will see you through 4 hours of video playback in Eco mode, and around 1.5 hours of video playback at maximum brightness.
Something that was a surprise opening up the box, is it comes with a very robust carry case, elevating the experience a little more, and it even has a handy storage slot for the remote.
SPEAKERS / SPECS
In terms of specs, the R150 is way above projectors in its price range when it comes to audio - those Harman Kardon speakers really are great, surprisingly so given the compact design. The inclusion of these customised speakers really elevates the R150 over other standard projectors in terms of audio quality - there's a reason almost every recording studio uses Harman Kardon equipment, they're fantastic.
Focus on the R150 is manual, and the scroll wheel can be found next to the lense, and whilst I've grown accustomed to auto-focus projectors as of late, it is really quick to focus - although you need to do this every time you move the projector, which will likely be a lot, as it's portable.
The R150 includes auto keystone, but this is vertical only, and it does a decent job, and as far as portable projectors go, it's super easy to project and watch a movie in a matter of minutes.
The remote is a modern designed thin slab, similar to something like the NVIDIA Shield or Apple TV remote and allows for navigation of the Android based OS - note, this is not Android TV, but a skinned version of Android that reminds me of a classier version of the Xbox 360 blades dashboard.
Navigation is straight forward, and whilst I didn't suffer any hiccups or freezing when moving between apps, the 'OK' button is the companies 'V' logo, and sometimes didn't register a press (a circle button would alleviate this I would assume), but for the most part it works with no issues.
INPUTS / MEDIA
From here you can access HDMI or USB (both USB A and USB C) inputs as well as apps you can download from the App Store available. It's not the Google Play Store, but there's a wide selection of entertainment apps (Netflix, Disney+ etc) and means once you're downloaded and signed in, you can access content wherever you are - providing you have internet access, otherwise USB content will see you through those internet-free locations.
You also have the ability to stream content from your iOS or Android device - but be forewarned, any apps using HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) such as Netflix won't work via casting, so you'll need to connect a device like a Fire Stick, Playstation or Xbox using HDMI in order to watch - or use the apps available on the R150 itself.
PICTURE QUALITY
As with most projectors, the R150 is better used in a dark environment, but even more so in this case, as we're only talking 360 lumens - not the brightest projector on the market - but again, at this price point and compact design, these are the tradeoffs of a portable projector compared to a larger stationary one.
Even just projecting onto a plain white wall will yield positive results in the dark, but using the R150 onto a 100-inch 16:9 electric projector screen with 1.1 gain, the R150 really showed a lot of strength for such a compact projector.
[NOTE] The footage shown in this review is not indicative of the real world projection ability of the R150 - any artifacts, rainbow effects or scan lines are from the camera. This is an effect all DLP projectors suffer when being captured on film.
Obviously compared to a dedicated stationary projector, the R150 will come off worse in terms of quality - but that isn't the point of this little gem, it's made to be moved around, to be placed in your bag when you go camping - it's an incredibly versatile projector and taking that into account, it's a pretty positive viewing experience.
Whilst not being the brightest option available, the R150 exhibited a fairly uniform appearance, white and black images showed uniformity, whilst also displaying impressive color reproduction of red, green, and blue images.
Scaling the projected image up, the R150 is capable of going all the way up to 100-inches, however, because of the R150 being a 480p native projector effectively upscaling the image to 720p or 1080p (depending on the app and video source), you will want to keep the thrown projection a bit smaller in order to keep the image clean and crisp. The image quality is surprisingly really good - but if you did a side-by-side with a native 1080p projector, you will notice the difference.
Still, for a projector that you can throw (not literally) into a bag and watch movies anywhere there's a flat surface, it's a fairly decent tradeoff.
OVERALL
The R150 whilst not perfect, is a fantastic portable projector, and its versatility gives you a great experience wherever you are. The built in app store gives you access to a heap of entertainment apps, whilst the inputs let you plug pretty much anything in to either watch movies or play games.
The native resolution of 480p is disappointing for the £349 asking price, but the picture quality is genuinely really good for such a compact and portable projector, plus the Harman Kardon speakers are an excellent addition.
Check out the R150, and from March 18th 2024 - March 31st 2024, get 50% off using the PVP deal HERE
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