ZTE's tablet-projector hybrid wants to replace all your devices
BARCELONA -- If you have a smartwatch, a smartphone, a tablet, a laptop and a TV, is there room in your life for any more screens?
ZTE believes its new tablet/projector hybrid, called the ZTE Spro Plus, is so versatile that it can push out most of the above and become your second-most-used gadget, after the smartphone.
I've spent an hour with a prototype, and although I'm not sure I'd be throwing away my tablet and TV if I bought one, I can definitely see some interesting use cases for the Spro Plus.
The Spro Plus is, first and foremost, a portable, battery-powered, laser projector. It can project a 300-inch sized picture onto a surface, and with 500 lumens of brightness, it'll look decent even in rooms that aren't very dark.
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It's all powered by a humongous 12,100mAh battery, which ensures 6 hours of projection time; though if you want full brightness, you'll need to connect the Spro Plus to a power socket.
Finally, the ZTE is a connectivity hub; besides the USB and HDMI ports and a headphone jack, it also has Wi-Fi connectivity, and one version will have a 4G LTE slot, so you'll be able to use it as a mi-fi-style hub.
ZTE is quite proud of the Spro Plus's size and weight, as it's quite a bit smaller than its predecessor, the ZTE Spro 2. We don't have the exact measurements, but it weighs around 1 kilogram, and is sized like a 10-inch tablet (albeit a very fat one).
So how do you use this thing? One possibility that comes to mind is filling it up with movies, and bringing it over to a friend for a movie marathon. Business users will use it for presentations, with the additional perk of being able to share its Internet with everyone in the room. The possibilities are many, but from what I've seen, it's still a bit too heavy and bulky to be a tablet replacement, so it'll probably stay much more of a niche product.
ZTE did not have the exact price or date of availability, but a company rep told me the Spro Plus should be available in early summer.
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Topics Mobile World Congress
Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He's got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.
