MWC 2010 – Samsung Beam projector phone is official
Something tells us 2010 is going to be the year of the projector phone. Joining the likes of LG's Expo and the recently announced Wave, it's the Samsu
Something tells us 2010 is going to be the year of the projector phone. Joining the likes of LG’s Expo and the recently announced Wave, it’s the Samsung Beam, or Halo as it was previously known. The clue is in the name (and the first sentence) making Samsung the latest manufacturer to grab a piece of phone/pico-projector pie.
Samsung may have been busy putting the finishing touches on its Bada OS, but it has still managed to squeeze out a new Android handset. And unlike Motorola’s Quench, there’s Android 2.1 underneath the hood with the more intuitive TouchWiz 3.0 UI. That means as well as getting the latest Android instalment there’s plenty of customisation options too with 10 home screens for housing all your apps and shortcuts.
So the star feature of the show is the built-in pico projector and with specs such as a 3.7″ AMOLED screen, 5MP camera, 720p video recording, a front facing VGA quality camera and DivX and Xvid playback support, with the additional bonus of running the latest version of Android, the Beam could potentially give the Google Nexus some serious competition. Sadly it’s just the video capture that’s in HD, the projector isn’t.
The projector will be a handy tool to have around especially as the handset can open Microsoft Powerpoint documents, so you could potentially slap them onto the nearest available surface and much to the annoyance of your colleagues (probably) have an impromptu meeting. You can do the same with photos and videos too.
It’ll keep you connected with the faster 802.11n Wifi standard, Bluetooth 2.1, 16GB on board storage as well as microSD slot and that all important 3.5mm jack.
If a Samsung flavoured smartphone with an integrated projector sounds like your kind of thing you’ll have to wait for its launch in summer. And that’s about as much info as we can squeeze out at the minute.
We’ll be getting some hands-on time with the pocket sized portable cinema tomorrow, so keep those eyes peeled for some pics and first impressions. In the mean time why not tell us your thoughts in our MWC 2010 Live Blog.
We’re still expecting loads more mobile-shaped news and hands-on pics so keep it here for all the latest MWC announcements as they happen.
Dan Grabham
Editor-in-Chief 
