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TCL PlayCube Portable Projector Review: Twistable Rubik’s Cube for Better Pictures

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The TCL PlayCube is a 1080p portable projector with a clever design that’s somewhere between a Rubix Cube and the robot TARS from Interstellar. The twistiness is more than just for show: It lets you pivot the lens upward so it can project an image much higher than where it’s sitting. Inside is Google TV for streaming and a laser light engine that’s decently bright. Oh, and it has a 66Wh battery that’s good for a claimed 3 hours of playtime — some competitors struggle to get through a whole movie.

Overall, performance is quite good. The image is bright for a portable, the colors are reasonably accurate, and the contrast ratio is better than most portables. It even sounds decent, which is good since the unit can also double as a Bluetooth speaker.

There aren’t many downsides, other than a few software issues that will hopefully get patched out. The main one is the price, which is several hundred higher than our favorite portable projectors. Some aspects of its design and performance justify that higher price, but not completely.

Specs and such

The PlayCube looks vaguely like a variety of things: the aforementioned Rubik’s Cube, a tricorder from the original Star Trek, some sort of toddler toy that teaches shapes, or maybe massively oversized Legos. It’s small, boxy and yet lightweight, something that is easily carriable even by kids. It doesn’t have the Anker Nebula Mars 3 Air’s little handle, but it’s a little smaller overall. I think it’s a clever design since it’s also functional. You twist the larger portion to aim the lens upwards. Unlike the TCL A1, the PlayCube does have an upwards throw, so you’re not always reliant on keystone correction if you want to put the projector on a coffee table. There’s no optical zoom or other lens shift, but that’s not surprising given the price and size.

TCL claims the PlayCube puts out 750 lumens. I measured 452 in its most accurate mode, and 569 in its less accurate, and noticeably green, Business mode. That’s a little lower than they claim, but there are a variety of ways to measure brightness and the difference between 569 and 750 isn’t going to be particularly noticeable. For comparison, the Mars 3 Air only managed 252 lumens in its accurate mode. Contrast was also decent at around 492:1, basically the median of all projectors I’ve reviewed for CNET and slightly higher than the 3 Air’s as-measured 405:1.

One of the PlayCube’s best features is the combination of a big internal battery and USB-C charging. The former, TCL claims, is good for around 3 hours of playback, presumably not running anywhere near its brightest. The latter lets you charge from a portable battery bank for many hours of off-the-grid viewing.

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Connections

Inside the PlayCube is the standard Google TV interface, so you have access to the full versions of all the major streaming services. Generally speaking, portable projectors from major manufacturers like TCL have the full versions of the various apps, but smaller manufacturers have the mobile versions which can be annoying to use.

The 5-watt speaker sounds surprisingly decent. For something the size of a Bluetooth speaker it sounds, well, like a Bluetooth speaker. There isn’t a lot of bass, but it plays fairly loud and voices sound clear. You can adjust the sound with several presets, as well as increase/decrease treble and bass. It plays loud enough to fill a small room, but outdoors with lots of people it’d likely be a bit soft.

I encountered a few bugs during my testing that will hopefully get ironed out in future updates. For example, like all laser projectors it has an eye sensor to dim the laser so it won’t burn your retinas if you’re in front and happen to look at the lens. However, the PlayCube thought everything was an eyeball, including the reflection of the light it was creating on my screen. It flashed its eye warning every 2-3 seconds non-stop until I was able to turn the feature off completely. The automatic keystone correction can’t be turned off, despite a setting claiming otherwise. These are all mildly annoying, as well as unexpected and unwelcome for a fully-updated $750 product from a major manufacturer.

Lastly, and this isn’t a bug exactly but still odd behavior, when you press the power button it goes into a standby mode. That’s fine, but in this mode the internal fan turns on every few minutes. This will certainly wear down the battery and/or cause confusion when you’re trying to figure out where the fan noise is coming from. To actually turn it off, you need to hold the power button for several seconds until you see the on-screen notification that it’s shutting down.

Picture quality comparisons

Anker Mars 3 Air

The Mars 3 Air is the logical competition. Lesser portables can’t match either of these models on brightness, and more traditional home projectors vastly outperform them (even at the same or lower prices). Both are 1080p, reasonably bright, and have the option for battery-powered operation. However, the Anker’s MSRP is $150 cheaper, and it’s going for even less right now. I connected them to a distribution amplifier (aka an HDMI splitter) and viewed them side-by-side on a 102-inch 1.0-gain screen.

These are, overall, very well-matched projectors. Both are surprisingly bright for their size, the TCL even more so. The extra 200 or so lumens isn’t super noticeable, but it does look a little brighter. Yes, the TCL is technically nearly twice as bright but subjectively it doesn’t look twice as bright, just a little brighter. That’s eyes for you.

Contrast is evenly matched, as I mentioned earlier. You can’t see such a small difference between the two. The black bars on letterboxed movies look equally dark grey. The TCL’s 492:1 is better than several home projectors I’ve reviewed, and is solidly mid-pack for projectors I’ve reviewed in general. The TCL A1, despite some other weirdness, was actually a huge standout in contrast ratio, likely due to its simple lens design. Which is to say, the PlayCube looks fine for a projector and is neither impressive nor disappointing. As I mentioned in its review, the Anker would probably look a little better if it had a brightness control as it boosts shadows in a way that can’t be adjusted. The TCL has far more control over its image reproduction with multiple picture menus and settings.

Color is where these projectors differ the most. Neither are particularly accurate, but neither are overly bad either. The Anker is a little greenish, but skin tones on the TCL are a little warm/reddish. The TCL is a little more vibrant, so I’d lean slightly towards it vs the Anker, but it’s close. Like contrast, both are «fine» but neither are standouts.

Sound-wise, the Anker has better bass but is a little muffled while the TCL is a little louder and clearer. Both have the aforementioned EQ settings to help dial in a sound suitable for your environment and content.Subjectively, I’d say the TCL sounds 10-20% better.

The Anker has a handle, but the TCL has a twist. The TCL has USB-C, but the Anker is cheaper. Neither feel fast to use like a top-of-the-line phone, but the Anker feels slower and more sluggish. So overall, despite their differences, they’re both good choices just for different reasons.

Hip to be square

The PlayCube is great. It’s bright for its size, sounds good, and looks good. Its clever design works simply and well, and the battery is big enough for a long movie or a bunch of TV episodes. Having USB-C charging is the cherry on top.

Bugs aside, my only concern is the price. I’d felt the Anker Nebula Mars 3 Air was priced a little high at $600 when it was new. Everything is more expensive now for reasons but Anker has managed to drop the price of the 3 Air, which makes the PlayCube even more premium. For the extra few hundred you do get a brighter projector with better sound, bigger battery and USB-C charging. The PlayCube is a better portable projector, but I’m not convinced it’s nearly 50% better as the prices as of this writing suggest. So for now it’s not the king of the portable PJs, but if the price isn’t a concern to you, this is the one to get.

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