4 Best Budget Projectors of 2023

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Set up your homemade silver screen for less.

We've gone on record as saying smart projectors are the next big thing. We've done the home theater era. We've swung back towards TVs (there are some amazing TVs on the market). But the most exciting area of entertainment innovation is the projector. If you pay thousands of dollars, you can get short-throw laser projectors that are legitimately capable of replacing your TV.

But for indoor and outdoor movie nights, we really just recommend one of these affordable projectors. They're not great in bright light, but they can absolutely replace a bedroom TV. And if you have an open exterior wall, or want to throw up a projector screen, they're great for outdoor movie nights as well. If you pair them with a great sound bar or outdoor speaker system, your little home setup can rival AMC's silver screen. So to help you get started, we did testing on a handful of models, and these were the best affordable projectors we found—all under a $500 budget.

The Nebula Capsule Max, a beefed up version of the Capsule, is the best value-for-money projector that we've found. Portability is one of the main selling points of a lot of these budget projectors, and Anker gets it right with this one. It's barely bigger than a drink can, has a four-hour playtime on a full charge, and is great at auto adjusting its frame.

All that makes the Capsule Max a great little indoor-outdoor projector. I'd use it as an alternative to a TV in the bedroom, storing it a bedside drawer when not in use. Then, for any al fresco movie nights, just bring it outside.

The only issues with the Capsule Max are seen across this category of affordable projectors. First, it's really tough to watch anything during the day. If you've got any amount of bright sunlight, good luck. The second issue is the native Android operating system. It's fine... but I just treat it like a regular TV and use a separate Roku or FireStick, as either option has an infinitely better user interface.

XGIMI makes an ever-so-slightly-cheaper projector that does everything Anker's Nebula Capsule Max does. It's portable, does well on battery life, and does a great job orienting the screen on its own. And surprisingly enough, the MoGo 2 beats Anker's model on sound. This thing has double the audio capacity of Anker's model, so if that's what you're into, this is the model I'd suggest.

Still, I'd suggest the Anker before it because this XGIMI requires AA batteries to take on the go, and its square shape makes it a little less portable. As far as the user interface goes, it's the same thing: I'd suggest using a Roku or FireStick for connected TV.

Smart projectors can connect to Wi-Fi on their own, they can cast your phone screen, and they can auto-adjust their screen size to fit whatever wall you point them at. But if you want to save some money in favor of something a little more barebones, this AuKing projector does what you need it to.

You have to adjust the screen manually, but it can project up to a massive 200 inches. You can use the HDMI port to pump in whatever TV device you're using. And since none of these projectors fare well in bright light conditions, the performance of this one really won't be all that different.

We set ourselves a $500 budget to qualify as affordable. Over that budget, but cheaper than high-end TVs, is Samsung's Freestyle. Once again, there's very little that differentiates this projector from the Anker or the XGIMI. It's great at auto adjusting its screen. It stores easily, and it's portable.

The Freestyle upgrades on the other models with a better user experience. Samsung's own user interface is a lot better than those of Anker or XGIMI. It's so good that you don't even need a separate TV or connected TV. The Freestyle has all popular streaming services pre-downloaded, and the interface is as good as anything else out there.

Another plus for The Freestyle comes for Xbox fans. If you're a game pass member, you can stream games direct to The Freestyle, which really helps when using this as a "take everywhere" projector.

Let us take this space to talk about what you can reasonably expect from an affordable projector.

Brightness: First of all, we have to address brightness. Brands will try to lure you in with big numbers of ISO or ANSI lumens. But at this price point... none of that matters a whole lot. None of these projectors are going to work in bright light. For that, you have to triple your budget and start looking at HD laser and short-throw projectors. For under $500—even under $1,000—projectors are still going to require darkness to really work.

Portability: The good thing about affordable projectors is that they're all quite portable. All of the options on this list—besides the budget AuKing—can be tossed in a bag and set up anywhere. This is the main draw of these projectors, as they don't replace TVs but give you an additional, more flexible, way to watch.

Resolution: Some people will say "Don't buy anything less than 1080p," but we think that's kind of dumb. For a budget projector that's a fun option for movie night, we think 720p is enough. Will you and your friends care if you can't see Ryan Gosling's pores during your backyard screening of Barbie? Nope! Save yourself some money and don't freak out about resolution.

Luke Guillory is the Associate Commerce Editor at Esquire.

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