The Samsung Beam, one of the first of a new generation of all-in-one pocket projector cell phones, has a brief write-up in PC Magazine.  We look forward to seeing this device in the second quarter of 2010.

samsung-beam-projector-phone

Compared to the LG Expo:

That means the Beam is a lot slimmer. The projector lens is right on the top edge of the phone, with no unsightly bump. (There’s still a manual focus lever on the side of the phone.) That means the Beam is brighter, generating 10 lumens as opposed to 6 on the Expo, according to TI OMAP product management director Robert Tolbert. And the displayed image is higher-definition – 800-by-480 as opposed to 320-by-480.

But:

The Beam’s projector struggled with the awful lighting conditions at the trade show, and some of its projected images looked washed out. That’s just life with a pico-projector. But I was impressed by its thinness and the brightness of its screen. Unlike the Expo, which mounts its projector in a huge, detachable hump, this is really a go-anywhere projector that doesn’t make you sacrifice convenience for the ability to play TV shows on a nearby wall. Also, Android 2.1 is just a more current and forward-thinking OS than the Windows Mobile 6.5 on the LG Expo, and the new TouchWiz 3.0 user interface overlay looked a lot more finished than the hideous quasi-beta version on the Samsung Behold II.