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BARCELONA -- A projector jammed inside a smartphone may seem awkward or crazy to some -- and it's not a new idea -- but the Samsung Galaxy Beam may be the most elegant execution of the mash-up yet.
The concept is simple: take a full-powered 4-inch Galaxy smartphone and add a 15-Lumens LED-powered, nHD projector. The result is a yellow and black phone that at first glance looks like a slightly fatter version (it's 12.5mm thick and weighs 145.3 grams) of any of today’s top 3G phones.
Samsung didn’t skimp much to squeeze in the projector or, potentially, keep the price down. The Beam has a 5 MP camera (a tad less than the 8 MP we’re now used to), 8 GB of storage (upgradeable via micro-SD card to 32 GB) and 768 MB of RAM. It’s also running Android 2.3. The 480x800 screen looked clear and bright, but those specs and the screen are not the real story here. It’s reasonable to assume that the only reason someone would buy the Galaxy Beam is if you desperately wanted a dual phone/projector.
In operation, the Galaxy beam appeared flawless. It’ll play virtually anything you run on the small screen, and had no trouble shining a roughly 3-ft image onto an 8- or 9-ft ceiling. Images in a fully darkened room were very sharp and bright, but since it relies on the smartphone speakers for sound, you’ll want to hook up external speakers. Samsung execs told us that they’re working on a variety of docks and accessories.
The phone also worked well in presentation mode. Samsung execs projected a presentation on a nearby screen and changed slides by touching the Galaxy Beam’s screen.
Pricing has not been set, but Samsung will ship the Galaxy Beam globally sometime in Q2. It will also come pre-loaded with some mood videos (stars, for example) that run on a loop and should be upgradable to Android 4.0. Check out the photos and video for an up-close look at this interesting device.
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