The Samsung Galaxy Beam is the latest in a long line of tech that attempts to introduce a bit of technological gimmickry to the standard mobile phone. Now, devices of this type usually fall by the wayside as said gimmick takes precedence over actual functionality, but this here Galaxy Beam looks as though it could buck that trend.
So does the handset and its projector measure up, and can it give other mobile phones a run for their money? Read on to see what we made of its main selling points.
Project my dear, project
The Galaxy Beam features a 15 Lumens projector, which is pretty basic compared to a high quality projection unit (that generally clocks in at around 2000 Lumens). However, when toying with projections and ‘beaming’ various pictures and applications from the device we were pretty impressed. The clarity of the images is more than acceptable, text is sharply reproduced and what’s being beamed is generally well defined. The user can stand up to 2 metres away from the projection surface and still create good images, with projections looking sharp up to a size of 50 inches. Of course, you’re not going to be able to start up your own cinema using the Beam, but if you need to project a presentation in a meeting at work, or fancy showing your mates a video at a home then you’ll have no problems.
It’s really easy to tweak the projection too, with adjustment options available to get the sharpest image possible. It’s quite a simple process getting the focus right thanks to an easy-to-use onscreen slide bar, and the rotation option allows users to flick between landscape and portrait modes without difficulty.
Extra features
Extra projection-related features on the Galaxy Beam include Quick Pad, which allows the user to annotate web pages, presentations, and pretty much anything else you can see on the display. As the display is a lot smaller than that of a laptop or PC, there are limits to how much you can draw on the screen, but it’s a helpful feature to have nevertheless.
Other projection-related goodies include the Visual Presenter function, which projects the view from the phone’s camera lens in real-time. At first this seems pretty pointless, but if used in a meeting for example, it could come in quite handy. Say you had some notes or a chart on paper and wanted to share it with colleagues; simply position the lens over the information and beam it onto the wall for all to see.
The projector can also be used as an alarm clock, as bizarre as that sounds, and the Beam can be set to throw out an image and audio of your choice to rouse you from your sleep. It’s not an essential feature but it makes a change from the standard incessant bleep alarms offered by other smartphones. Lastly, the Ambience mode offers projections of pictures and animations combined with a song, and is said to be an ideal night time aid for children. It seemed a bit useless however, and the pre-loaded projections and music were a bit tacky.
Without the projector the Samsung Galaxy Beam would still be a solid mobile though, both in its build and the quality of the features on offer. Putting a projector into a phone of the Beam’s size is no easy feat, and you’ve got to take your hat off to Samsung for pulling it off.
Although it won’t appeal to everyone, the Galaxy Beam manages to stand apart from the pointless gimmick-toting phones that have come before, and actually combines some top notch functionality with a cool projector that is handier than you’d think.
Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8Cj4dJnie4
Written by Abbi Cox of Phones 4u, who enjoys comic book films and all things tech, and currently totes a Samsung Galaxy Note.
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