Yaber Projector L2s Review

Yaber’s latest addition to its Home Cinema lineup, the L2s, aims to deliver an easy and affordable way to bring big-screen entertainment into your home. With its promise of simplicity and some key features that stand out in its class, it’s an intriguing option for people wanting to get into the home theater game. In this SoundGuys review, we’ll unpack the L2s to help you decide if it deserves a spot in your home entertainment setup.

What I like about the Yaber Projector L2s

The design of the Yaber Projector L2s is pretty lightweight and a good size for most living rooms. The all-plastic build is typical for most projectors of this price and is easy to install into any home theater setup.

The projector gives you the option to either plop it onto a table, nightstand, shelf or whatever surface you have, and you can adjust the tilt using a screw leg in the front—or you can ceiling mount it using the 1/4″-20 screw thread underneath the projector. In terms of mounting the projector, though it is nice that they included a pretty standard 1/4″-20 screw thread underneath the projector, there’s unfortunately only one mounting point which doesn’t give me a ton of confidence, and I would’ve liked to see a few more screw holes for mounting more securely.

The projector has a slot where you can clean its dust filter, as well as an accessible backdoor to wipe the inside projection elements for further maintenance, which is nice.

The power button is the only button on the projector itself. The rest of the controls are accessed via the included remote, which resembles any other remote for a smart TV or something similar. Each button is tactile and relatively responsive. There’s a dedicated button for triggering the auto-focus and auto keystoning as well as manually adjusting your focus forward and backwards.

There is no app for the projector, but that’s uncommon anyway since all of the settings can be configured within the projector’s menus. The menus are simple, with adjustments to change Image Modes (basically the projection picture profiles), turning the autofocus on/off, automatic (vertical) keystoning or manual keystoning, and screen scaling, which are all easy to control and comprehensive.

What’s great about this projector is that it does offer a handful of connectivity options, albeit not a lot of I/O on the physical projector itself, but lots of wireless options. In terms of wired connections, the projector has one HDMI port on the back, as well as a USB type A port, which allows you to connect USB memory to play media or to use it for wired casting from a phone. The projector also has a 3.5mm output for wired listening via headphones or external speakers.

As for wireless connectivity, you can cast via iOS or Android devices, and you can even connect Bluetooth speakers to the projector over Bluetooth 5.0. On the other hand, if you don’t have Bluetooth speakers but just want to listen to music, you can also use the projector’s built-in speakers as a Bluetooth speaker.

Unlike Yaber’s Anywhere Cinema lineup of projectors, the Yaber L2s does not have an internal battery. It is AC-powered only as it is part of its Home Cinema line of products. If you want a portable projector to take with you on the go, you’ll need to look elsewhere.

The sound quality of the stereo 8W speakers provided by JBL is surprisingly decent, especially when considering most built-in projector speakers are either terrible or not worth having at all. It’s capable of getting pretty quiet for when you want to watch a movie late at night without bothering your neighbors, to pretty loud for its size. When using the speakers in a small-to-medium-sized room, I found the speakers good enough to stay immersed in the content I was watching.

For example, the horns and brass section in Ludwig Göransson’s soundtrack “Can You Hear the Music” from Christopher Nolan’s film Oppenheimer comes through clearly with brilliance. That being said, the lower synths are missing the bass strength and presence to really bring that piece home, but the overall clarity is impressive for these tiny speakers inside the projector.

What I don’t like about the Yaber Projector L2s

When buying a home theater projector solution, one of the main things to consider is image quality and performance. The Yaber L2s fares okay, but it’s nothing to write home about. The image out of the box is desaturated, with low contrast, and overall the colors appear cooler. Our testing of the projector’s color accuracy in the Standard Image Mode revealed a measured color temperature of 8290K, highlighting this issue. Typically, most projectors should be projecting at 6500k.

Additionally, in terms of color accuracy, don’t expect to experience what any filmmakers or content creators intended for how the image should look out of this projector. Color accuracy is measured in dE which is a standard measurement that quantifies the difference between two colors that appear on a projection or screen. The scale of measurement ranges from 0 to 100, 0 having the least color difference, and 100 having the most color difference. The Yaber Pro L2s scored a ΔE (Delta E, or dE) value of 14.47 (dE value of lower than 2 is ideal).  For dE values from 10-20, the colors are very noticeably different, like comparing distinct shades that no longer feel similar.

In our testing, we found that the projector was able to cover 51.0% of the sRGB color gamut, whereas it can only cover 35.2% AdobeRGB, and 36.2% of the DCI-P3 color space. You can see our test results below.

What’s also unfortunate is that the advertised ANSI Lumens that Yaber boasted for this projector was 700 ANSI Lumens, but in our measurements, it came out to 328 ANSI Lumens. This means that to get the best performance out of this projector, you’d have to black out your room to make sure no ambient lighting won’t cast onto your projector screen or wall that you’re projecting onto. If there’s even a bit of ambient lighting in the room, the entire image will become harder to see and the contrast ratio will also worsen. Ambient lighting control is important for most of any projectors of course, but for the Yaber L2s, unfortunately, you won’t be able to use this in a living room with big windows during broad daylight, for example.

Though simple, I do wish the projector gave you more fine-tuned adjustability within the Image Modes to tailor the best color out of the projector since, out of the box, the Standard Image Mode is poor and not very vibrant, contrasty, or saturated as it should be. Below is my personal recommendation to use with the “User” defined Image Mode after futzing with the settings for a while to get it closer to what the image should look like:

• Brightness: 49
• Contrast: 53
• Saturation: 73
• Sharpness: 0
• Hue: 50
• Temperature: Standard

And, of course, with our bread and butter being sound, we couldn’t ignore some of the downsides of the sound quality of this little home theater machine. Even though the dual 8W JBL Sound speakers don’t sound awful, due to the projector’s size, it’s just not capable of producing any meaningful bass, and definitely no sub-bass whatsoever. At higher volumes, the mids become a bit muddied and unclear, while the higher frequencies can distort a bit. That being said, if you don’t have a home theater speaker system already for casual moviegoers and content-watching, these speakers will do just fine for most people.

For example, in Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack “No Time for Caution” from Christopher Nolan’s film Interstellar, the bass depth of the organ is basically non-existent, and the presence of the piece feels lacklustre. Although bringing up the volume does fill the room, when all of the orchestral instruments, including the organ, crescendo to the main climax of the piece, the string section especially gets distorted, making the mid-register instruments like cellos and piano harder to make out individually.

I would highly recommend pairing this lil’ projector with an actual speaker system to really get the best immersive experience out of it. It’s nice that the projector also gives you the option to use the device itself as a Bluetooth speaker, but the sound quality alone is not as impressive as something you can achieve out of some great Bluetooth speakers that cost a fraction of the cost of the projector. Unfortunately, when using a Bluetooth speaker, there is a noticeable delay to the audio, which can be distracting when watching content. If you are to pair it with a Bluetooth speaker, you can consider Bose SoundLink Flex Gen 2 ($149 at Amazon), or if you want to invest in something a little nicer, the Soundcore Motion X600 ($149.99 at Amazon) would be great.

Yaber Projector L2s Specs

Should you buy the Yaber Projector L2s?

The Yaber L2s is a solid budget projector for casual viewers looking to set up a simple home theater. It’s easy to use, with a lightweight design, JBL speakers, and features like wireless casting and Bluetooth connectivity, making it great for family movie nights or binge-watching shows in a dark room. Between picture and sound for the price, this is something you should definitely consider getting—even more so if you can find it on sale!

That said, it’s not without its drawbacks. The projector’s actual brightness falls short of its advertised claims, limiting its usability in rooms with any ambient light. Its color accuracy also leaves much to be desired, with muted tones and a cooler color temperature that won’t satisfy those seeking lifelike images. While the built-in speakers are better than most projectors in this price range, they lack bass and the higher frequencies can distort at higher volumes, so pairing it with an external speaker system setup is recommended.

If you’re a casual viewer on a budget, the Yaber L2s offers solid value, especially if you find it on sale. However, serious home theater enthusiasts or professionals who prioritize brightness, color accuracy, and sound quality should look elsewhere.

Yaber Projector L2s review: FAQs