What won't your smartphone replace? Samsung is trying its hand at eliminating the pico projector-- which you've undoubtedly been lugging around to every family gathering-- with the Samsung Galaxy Beam. This striking new smartphone trades in the silver accents for a sharp yellow band that surrounds the 4.0-inch display. At the top of the phone is the light for the projector which will project an image up to 50 inches wide anywhere you choose. Unfortunately, that 4.0-inch display is the closest you'll come to finding a 4.0 on the Beam as it's powered by Android 2.3 Gingerbread.
The projector's brightness is rated at 15 lumens and to help facilitate sharing, there's a dedicated projector app included. Samsung says that in addition to instantly sharing pictures and videos with friends, family or colleagues, the Beam may also be used for gaming as co-players can watch each other's progress on the big screen.
The phone itself features a 1.0-GHz dual-core processor, 8GB of internal storage, 6GB of RAM, and a microSD slot. As we mentioned above, it's running Android 2.3, which is a let down since we're all screaming for Ice Cream Sandwich these days. Their press release gave no indication if it would be updated to Android 4.0 or not.
This isn't the first time we've heard "Samsung Beam" either. At the 2010 Mobile World Congress, we saw an iteration of the Samsung Beam, also called "Halo," that was headed to European, African, Latin American and Asian markets. This phone had a 1-GHz single-core processor, a 3.7-inch display and was running Android 2.1.
Still, while phones with built-in projectors aren't brand new, maybe Samsung's got the right mojo this time to make it successful.
Stay tuned for hands-on from Mobile World Congress.
