First impressions
So far, projector phones have been a tough sell for Samsung. But the
Galaxy Beam is a darn sight better-looking than Sammy’s earlier efforts:
the bulky Pico and the Halo, which rocked a candy bar form factor that
meant it looked more like a superannuated feature phone.
Boosting the Beam’s appeal is that this time around the projector
promises to be more powerful than we’ve seen before. And offers some
modes that could transform it from a novelty into a handy tool.
Design
With its yellow trim, rubbery backplate, mostly metal construction
and weighty, chunky feel, at first glance the Beam appears to have
copped more than a few moves from JCB’s range of ruggedized tough
phones. Natch, this approach is surely due partly to the need to
protect the projector, which sits flush at the top of the handset.
But while those JCB handsets’ form factors sacrifice style on the
altar of shock resistance and solidity, the Beam has also been taking
notes from the iPhone 3GS. Most obviously in its single home button,
rounded corners and all-black slab-like frontage. As someone who -
controversially - thinks that the 3GS and not the iPhone 4 is Apple
designer Jonathan Ive’s finest hour, the Beam’s sharp looks come as a
pleasant surprise.
Features
Of course, the unique selling point of the Beam is its projector. So how does it shape up?
Well if you’re measuring it against a dedicated projector, not
brilliant. But for a neat additional function on a smartphone, it’s not
bad either.
For starters, it’s easy to use. Firing it up is just a case of
long-pressing the button on the side of the handset or touching the
built-in projector app. And we awarded extra points for being able to
project everything from a blockbuster to lo-fi YouTube clips.
With the Quick Pad mode, you can scribble or point at the screen –
rendering the handset a fairly smart tuition or presentation tool. Or if
you’re more of a party type, there’s the ambience option. This lets you
put together a montage of images – almost always smiley faces and clips
from ’70s Chop Socky movies - that you project in a space to give it
that warehouse rave feel.
The downside is that with a brightness rating of 15 lumens and quite
muddy sound, you’re not going to be blown away by the quality/production
values of any movies that you watch on the Beam. And you’ve got no
chance of being able to see anything you’re attempting to project in
bright, daytime conditions. But by the same token a night spent with the
Beam will be a film-watching experience that you’re unlikely to forget
in a hurry.
The handset is also home to a fairly standard four-inch screen, with
screen resolution of 480x800-pixels. Alas, there’s no sign of the Super
AMOLED display technology that has become a hallmark of Samsung’s
top-end Galaxy smartphones.
Elsewhere, you’ll find a dual-core processor that keeps things
ticking over smoothly and a passable five-megapixel camera with flash.
Software
The Beam runs Android Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) out the box rather
than the up-to-the-minute Jelly Bean iteration of Google’s OS, which
adds features such as the revamped notifications bar and the
Siri-rivalling Google Now. The good news is that despite the Beam’s
relative lack of power, Samsung plans to make Jelly Bean available for
it later this year.
Of course, as with all Android phones, you’ll get to choose from tens
of thousands of apps and games up for grabs as the Google Play download
store. You’ll also get multiple home screens to fill with apps and
games and whathaveyou.
Ease of use
While the dual core processor and ICS version of Android aren’t going
to combine to set any new chipset benchmark records, they do make for a
relatively snappy smartphone experience.
As we’ve mentioned, the projector is very easy to get to grips with.
It’s just a shame that the projector doesn’t really come into its own in
anything but really dark conditions.
Verdict
The Galaxy Beam deserves to be applauded for trying something out of
ordinary and, with the inclusion of some cool, value-adding bonus modes,
represents by some distance the best example of a projector phone so
far.
At not far shy of £400, though, whether that’s enough to sway you
away from cheaper phones running the software and similar spec sheets
but with no projector is something you’ll just have to decide for
yourself.
Specifications
- 5 MP camera
- 4.0″ TFT capacitive touchscreen
- 8 GB internal storage
- microSD card support up to 32GB
- Dual-core 1 GHz Cortex-A9 processor
- Android OS, version 2.3.6 (Gingerbread)
- 1.3MP secondary camera
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