The Samsung Galaxy beam projector phone was launched yesterday at the Barcelona Mobile World Congress and was instantly coined as the "Galaxy S in life raft yellow". Whilst this might be appealing to some will the projection capabaliities live up to the mark and not drain the all important battery power Smartphones crave these days whilst providing a nice true image of the amazing photos or videos you just took.

Projector Phone capabilities are a bit of a damp squid...

- Its a 15 lumen projector but it doesnt appear to use DLP which means you loose a lot of contrast and pictures can look very dim when compared to an equivalent 15 lumen DLP projector, especially if they are not tweaked to get the max power like stand alone pico projectors are. Mobile phone companies are reluctant to do this as it drains the battery so the best performance is never obtained from a 15 lumen projector in a phone at the moment.

- The 2000 mAh battery would be our key concern as Samsung is not renoun for its long battery life and with a projector added in the battery wil die extremely quickly which is why we prefer companion projectors with their own battery or even better cases with external battery and a built in projector like the Pico Genie A100 so your projector has its own power supply and conversly it can also charge your phone if it runs out of power (iPhone 4 / iPod Touch 4).

Overall its a nice idea but you will need to compromise too much on the projection and battery for it to be really useful at the moment so the Pico Genie A100 or any of the ultra light pico projectors with their own dedicated battery that allow you to connect to just about any device from Smarphones, laptops to iPads, will be a better option for most.

If you’re interested in having an ultra portable projector for use with your phone, check out our Pico range for more info and the Pico Genie A100 if you have the iPhone 4/ 4s/ iPod Touch.