Samsung Galaxy Beam GT-I8530 Review

A couple of years ago, before Android hit the big leagues, there was a sudden craze of projector phones which had taken the fancy of many, all thanks to clever advertising. These were feature phones from companies like Spice that had a DLP projector and weren’t too expensive either, which explained the popularity. This didn’t last too long, of course, since the feature set was rather limited and the projection system wasn’t really up to the mark but more importantly, the phones were bulky and rather hideous-looking.

Samsung saw an opportunity here to try its hand at something different and thus we have the Galaxy Beam, its second attempt since the GT-I8520. The Beam, or GT-I8530, packs in a 15 lumen DLP projector that can be used at any time with just a press of a button. The Beam is not going to attract huge crowds since it’s targetted at a very niche audience and Samsung is aware of that. So, does it make real practical sense or are you better off with a dedicated portable projector like 3M’s MP180 for the same price? Let’s find out.

Video Review

Video Review of the Samsung Galaxy Beam

Design and Build 

There’s no way you’re going to get a slim phone if you have to fit a projector in it. The Beam still manages to be comfortably chunky and not too obtrusive. It measures about 12.5mm in depth and weighs around 145g. Even though it’s a bit on the thicker side, it feels very comfortable in your hand. The choice of plastic gives it a nice feel, especially the rear cover, which has a matte finish to it. The Beam is available in two colours, black and yellow; the latter shade being targetted at a younger crowd. The 4-inch (800 x 480) TFT screen is accompanied by a bunch of sensors above it along with the 1.3MP camera and Samsung’s usual arrangement of buttons at the bottom.

Sturdy construction

The SIM and microSD card slots are placed on the side, which means you don't have to remove the battery cover for anything. The power button and volume rocker take their usual spot along with a new shortcut button for toggling the projector. It’s a 15 lumen DLP projector with a native resolution of 640 x 360. We’ll get into the different projector modes in a bit. Around the back, we have the 5MP shooter, LED flash and the speaker grill down at the bottom. Overall, we are really impressed with the design and build of the Galaxy Beam. The phone is extremely well-built with no sign of cheap flexing plastic and feels rugged and durable. Most importantly, it still looks like a phone rather than a projector with calling capabilities.

Features 

Interface 

No surprise here, but the Galaxy Beam still runs Android 2.3.6 with a promised ICS update somewhere down the line. You also get TouchWiz 4.0, which is surprisingly smooth thanks to the ample 768MB of RAM. Instead of an Exynos CPU, Samsung has gone with ST Ericsson’s NovaThor U8500 SoC, the same one used in phones like the Sony Xperia U, P and Sola. The CPU runs at 1GHz and is dual-core. If you’ve used any Samsung Android phones, then the UI will be very familiar to you. We have toggle switches in the notification bar, custom icons and a bright, colourful theme that you’ll either love or hate.

Similar TouchWiz 4.0 UI

The only new addition here is the projector app. This lets you adjust the settings like brightness levels and other features. The first section lets you adjust the focus and rotation, which can also be accessed by tapping the shortcut button once. The projector works best up to 2m away from a screen and you can project up to a 50-inch screen. Now, even with the lamp set to the brightest, you’ll still need very little to no ambient light to get a clear picture. Given the right setting and company, you can have some real fun with this, especially on a lazy weekend. While the projected image is bright in a dark room, the colours are quite muted and sadly, there’s nothing one can do to improve this. Compared to the image or video on the screen, the one being projected is just about average. Now for a phone, this is not bad at all and given the size of the Beam, we’ve yet to see something beat this.

Various projector settings

Other features that can be used with the projector include ‘Quick Pad’, which lets you highlight and scribble over any anything being projected, which is handy during presentations. Visual Presenter turns the Beam into an OHP projector that uses the primary camera to show objects placed under it on the projected screen. It's quite clever of Samsung to incorporate this feature. Ambient mode lets you play a set of videos or images along with music to set the mood.

Media 

Samsung does not disappoint on the media front and the Galaxy Beam delivers good audio quality with a good pair of earphones. The music player supports various audio enhancements and equaliser presets as well as support for lyrics and folder view. You get 8GB of internal storage, which can be expanded further via the microSD card slot.

Good media capabilities

The video player supports MP4 and DivX HD formats, so MKV files will play back just fine. Unfortunately, video playback is restricted to 720p only as none of our 1080p test files would play, even through a third party player. We had a similar issue with the Sony Xperia U as well, which despite having a dual-core CPU, refused to play 1080p files.