The humble mobile phone these days is anything but *just* a phone. Even the most basic £20 prepay device usually offers something like a built in LED torch, FM radio and PIM services. Whilst at the top end, as well as being a phone, most devices are also cameras, music players, GPS enabled SatNav devices, the phones play games, browse the web, access email, instant messaging, social networks, and so on. There comes a point when you have to ask, just what comes next? What more can the ‘humble mobile phone’ offer to consumers?
Well, in the opinion of Samsung, the next feature that may become more common place on the phone is a built in projector!
The Samsung i8520 Beam offers a built in Pico projector, which will project media from your device onto a nearby suitable surface. As well as projecting media from the phone, you can also project what is on the display of the device, and also anything placed in front of the device’s built in camera, similar to the way the overhead projectors at school would work, with a documents placed in front of a camera that projected the image onto a display screen. The main difference here, of course, is the i8520 is nowhere near as powerful, and unless you are in a fairly darkened room the image projection appears very washed out. Considering the projection is actually coming from a phone, this is understandable, yet still an admirable feat nonetheless.
The Pico projector may be the stand out feature of the i8520, but this device is no one trick pony, the handset also boasts a whole host of other top end options too. We’ve already mentioned the camera, the imaging device on the handset is a high quality 8.0 Megapixel camera, with autofocus and LED flash, with support for face, smile and blink detection in the settings. The i8520 comes with a built in GPS receiver with aGPS support, which allows you to add geotagging information to captured images. The handset is also enabled for video capture, with the i8520 capturing high quality video at 30 fps. There is a light available, to help with capturing video in low level lighting conditions, plus on the front of the device is a secondary VGA camera for video calling.
The Samsung i8520 Beam, which has also been known by the name Halo, is running on the latest current version of Android OS, v2.1. Powered by an 800 MHz processor, the device is snappy and menus appear to load well, with no noticeable lag. A strong media device, the i8520 has a full media player, which supports multiple audio and video files, including support for XviD and DivX video formats. The i8520 includes support for Samsung’s proprietary DNSe sound system, and a 3.5mm audio jack is included, too. Social networking access is tightly integrated to the device, and you can set it so live updates from the most popular services are shown directly on the main handset display. The display itself is a superb AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, supporting up to 16 million colours, with a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels, and measures in at a whopping 3.7 inches. The display supports multi touch input, and is covered by a scratch resistant surface, which helps to maintain the full glory of the screen.
Internal storage on the phone is set at 16 GB, with 512 MB ROM and 384 MB RAM, and memory expansion is supported via MicroSD memory cards, with the i8520 handling cards up to 32 GB in size. Connectivity features strongly on the handset; the quad band GSM device is 3G enabled, with support for Tri Band HSDPA. Download speeds up to 7.2 Mbps are possible, with uploads at up to 5.76 Mbps. The i8520 includes WiFi 802.11 b/g/n and supports DLNA connectivity which enables easy connectivity to your home WLAN. Local connectivity on the phone is via Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, and there is a v2.0 micro USB port for connecting to a PC via data cable.
Clearly the Samsung i8520 Beam is no slouch, and nor is it a gimmicky handset. Instead this device is a serious product that would sit at the top of the tree in its own right, regardless of the built in projector. The inclusion of that feature is bonus, though, and if the feature proves popular with users it would be no surprise to see more handsets in the future including a built in projector. Which leaves us to wonder, just what will be next in the world of mobile?
The Samsung i8520 as yet has no confirmed release date, but expectation is the device will be launched at the end of Q2/beginning of Q3 2010.
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