Dangbei Mars Projector Review: Cinema at home

Projectors are inherently space-saving devices, and they seem to be growing in popularity for those living in dorms, apartments, and other smaller living spaces. Mounting a TV is tiring, and damaging a wall that isn't yours can be expensive.

The Mars saves time, space, and money with its quick turn-on times, useful features, and huge projection area.

Dangbei Mars - Design

Out of the box, the Mars comes with a remote control (batteries not included), power adapter, power cable, microfiber cloth, and manual. Installation is straightforward, with the most inconvenience coming from finding batteries for the remote.

Most projectors have a common flaw of needing a dark room to be used well, but the Mars is very bright, at 2100 ISO Lumens. You can enjoy movies and television throughout the day and night, and the automatic brightness adjustment helps keep the screen visible and sharp if the lights are suddenly turned on and off.

The Mars is a 1080p laser projector, with its Pro counterpart offering 4K images. Still, the visuals are sharp, and a good backdrop can further elevate the visual experience.

Even without an ideal background, the Mars makes the best of most situations with adjustable keystone correction, obstacle avoidance, and an automatic focus feature whenever it's turned on or moved. All of these are adjustable settings, making optimizing your viewing easy.

The Mars has two USB-A 2.0 ports, two HDMI ports, one DC port, and 1 LAN port. It also has a S/PDIF output for audio. You can also pair Bluetooth devices to the Mars, including your headphones or speaker.

Dangbei Mars - Specs

Dangbei Mars - Usage

Prime Video, YouTube, and Netflix are installed onto the Mars automatically, and there are native apps for streaming on your phone, as well as a Bluetooth speaker function. Still, we find that a projector like this is best used for its technical features and using your streaming stick or device for entertainment.

The Mars is not a light or portable projector, but you can fit it in a tote bag and haul it to another location. Projector stands can be potentially expensive, but we repurposed a laptop stand to adjust the angle and orientation of the projector in our living space.

We mentioned previously that projectors are great at saving space, but the Mars requires up to ~17 feet to take advantage of its full 180" projection size. Dangbei recommends ~6 feet for 60" and ~9 for 120", so measure your living space accordingly before purchase.

As for our listening experience, the built-in Dolby Audio speakers work well but lack bass, especially if you have the Mars on an elevated surface and are looking for a booming audio experience to accompany the large projector screen. Connect your soundbar or audio system of choice if you want fuller sound.

Still, there are Standard, Music, Movie, and Sport audio modes, depending on what experience you want from the built-in speakers, all of which have performed accurately.

As mentioned, the autofocus feature makes it easy to quickly turn on the Mars and optimize image quality before use. However, you can still turn off autofocus upon start for an even faster turn-on time.

As bright as the Mars is, it can run for hours without overheating, and we haven't encountered any heat-related issues. Dangbei reports it has a 30,000-hour light source lifespan, so you could theoretically leave it on for three years without a problem.

We have encountered a few problems with the Mars device. One of the issues is that it sometimes faces difficulty connecting to WiFi after being moved to a new location. Another problem is that the projector turns itself on and, displays color bars tests, and then turns off without any input. While resetting the device can fix the WiFi connection issue, we have not found a solution for the projector turning itself on and off.

Dangbei Mars - An adjustable movie theater

With a host of adjustable screen features and a large projection size, the Mars can be really powerful given the space. You can connect your consoles and streaming devices to it for game or movie nights, and even without it you can still enjoy the Netflix, Prime Video, and YouTube libraries.

We recommend an external speaker, streaming device, and potentially a projector background for a maximized experience, but some of these items are needed for a TV setup as well.

We've had some minor hiccups that were all software-based, but all the physical features can boost your entertainment setup if you switch from a TV to another projector.

Dangbei Mars Pros

• 2100 Lumens for all use cases
• Adjustable screen size settings, up to 180"
• Autofocus and obstacle avoidance
• Pre-installed streaming apps

Dangbei Mars Cons

• Potential issue of the projector turning itself on and off
• May require significant space for full use
• Fully optimized with external streaming device

Rating: 3 out of 5

Where to buy the Dangbei Mars

The Dangbei Mars is available on the Dangbei store for $899 (10% off), and on Amazon for $799 (20% off at publication date).