gadgets and technology devices: Samsung Beam (Halo) Android projector phone hands-on

Samsung Beam (Halo) Android projector phone hands-on

Well here it is, Samsung’s pico projector phone live and in the flesh here at Mobile World Congress. And surprise surprise it’s running Android 2.1 with a TouchWiz 3.0 skin just as we heard. The only difference is the name: Halo is the codename, the official product name announced today is Beam. As a smartphone with integrated pico projector it’s very impressive. However, as you can see from the pictures and video (it’s coming), the 6 lumen brightness struggles even under the semi-controlled lighting demonstration set up here on the show floor in Barcelona. Samsung tells us that the TouchWiz implementation is nearly identical to what you’ll find on Bada with “very small” differences. Unfortunately, the people we spoke with on the show floor weren’t able to articulate exactly what those were. To us, having only used the two devices for a short period of time, they do look identical. Beam features a nice pass through trick that allows it to project the image seen by the 5 megapixel camera through the TI pico. Not sure how we’d use that in real life but it’s a neat trick nonetheless. Now click into the gallery and prepare to be amazed at just how thin a smartphone with integrated projector can be while we wait for the summer launch.

Gallery: Samsung Beam hands-on