The Samsung Galaxy Beam 2 was recently unveiled on the company’s Chinese website and will soon be available through China Mobile. The main feature of the device is its built-in projector, capable of beaming images at up to 50-inches in WVGA resolution to any flat surface. Having a mini projector and a smartphone in one package might seem like a good idea to some but Samsung’s projector-phones never enjoyed much popularity.
The Samsung Galaxy Beam i8520 was the first phone made by Samsung to feature a built in projector. It came out in 2010 and it was already considered outdated. In 2012 Samsung released an updated version of the original Beam, but like it’s predecessor, it wasn’t a big hit.
Now Samsung is adding a new member to its projector phone family. The Samsung Galaxy Beam 2 has a metallic finish and the looks of a typical Samsung device. It ships with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and comes with a 4.66-inch display capable of 800×480 resolution. It’s hardware capabilities can’t be considered top-of-the-line, sporting a 1.2 Ghz quad-core processor and 1 GB of system memory. It also has microSD support up to 64GB. The Galaxy Beam 2 uses a 5MP camera rear camera with autofocus and a 0.3MP front camera. It’s powered by a 2600mAh battery and its connectivity features include Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 3G, micro USB, GLONASS and AGPS.
Looking at its specs the Samsung Galaxy Beam 2 can’t be considered a high-end smartphone but with its built in projector, it’s certainly an interesting device. Unfortunately we don’t have any information about its price-range or its release date outside China. It remains to be seen if Samsung will decide to go global on their new projector smartphone. It’s good to see that Samsung invests in new ideas even though they haven’t met much success with their previous attempts, maybe now the time has come for the projector phone to shine.
Would you find such a device useful? Please share your opinion with us.