This Old School Samsung Galaxy Phone Was A Mini Projector

Although Samsung today is perhaps not as prolific in trying out new form factors and interesting use cases in its smartphones, the company didn't shy away from experimenting with new concepts and launching unique smartphones that stood out in the market dominated by traditional phone designs. Over a decade ago, the company literally included a point-and-shoot camera with a motorized zoom lens in its Galaxy S4 Zoom and Galaxy K Zoom smartphones. Let's not forget the pop-up rotating camera setup of the Galaxy A80, which did the double duty of being your primary and selfie shooter — despite being one of Samsung's worst phones.

However, one of its quirkier offerings was the Galaxy Beam. It was an Android phone that came with a built-in pico projector, essentially putting a mini projector in your pocket wherever you go. It wasn't a concept or a limited run like Samsung's recent Galaxy Z TriFold smartphone. It was launched in 2012 and went on sale in various markets around the world, except for the U.S. The phone was priced around £400 in the U.K., with some retailers shipping it to the U.S. for $585.

Neither the specifications of the Galaxy Beam as a phone nor its projector capabilities stack up well against any modern devices; however, for its time, it was reasonably capable as a mid-range smartphone. For example, it had a 4-inch TFT LCD with WVGA resolution, a 1GHz dual-core processor, a 5MP rear camera, and 768 MB of RAM. It also came with a microSD card slot, 8 GB of onboard storage, and a 2,000mAh battery. But more importantly, it had a built-in Texas Instruments-made DLP projector that could push out a 15-lumen image on screens as large as 50 inches at 640x360p resolution. However, the phone received mixed reviews from experts.

CNET considered it to be a decent mid-range phone with a projector that worked reasonably well in dark rooms. However, it added that the projector software needed refinement. Projector Central called the phone's projector most suitable when one or two people are watching something. It also expressed frustration with its manual focus and the need for a pitch-black room. Folks at Engadget were more forgiving and noted that they were happy with its overall performance, but skeptical about it becoming anything more than a proof of concept. All in all, the general opinion was favorable toward Samsung's efforts in integrating a decent-enough projector in a phone.

The Galaxy Beam was hardly the first or last phone in which Samsung included a projector. Just a couple of years before the Galaxy Beam was launched, the company had introduced the Samsung Beam (i8520), which also had a built-in projector. The original Beam actually had better specifications than the Galaxy Beam, such as an OLED panel and an 8MP rear camera. Its projector was capable of 15 lumens of brightness.

Samsung also followed up on the Galaxy Beam with a Galaxy Beam 2. It had a more refined design, a bigger display, and a quad-core processor. However, unlike the Galaxy Beam, it was limited to China and never saw a global launch. The company even released a couple of phones featuring a projector before it primarily started using the Android operating system. One of the phones was a Samsung Show (SPH-W7900, also referred to as Haptic Beam), which was a South Korean model. It was released as the Samsung i7410. Unlike the Beam lineup, the Samsung Show could only output 10 lumens. The other phone with a projector was the Samsung W9600, which was also called AMOLED Beam because of its OLED panel.