Samsung has certainly been trying its best to distance itself from other competitors lately. The latest smartphone to come from the large Android phone maker is the Samsung Galaxy Beam. The Beam has just debuted at a Barcelona trade show, but it’s bound to hit North America sometime within the next few months. Spec-wise, the Beam has a 5-MP camera, runs on Android 2.3, and has 8 GB of storage – but that’s not why the Beam is getting so much attention over in Barcelona.

It’s a Phone – No! A Projector!

The Beam is a phone and a projector all rolled into one – really! Samsung has put a 15-Lumens LED projector inside of this phone. By touching something on your Beam screen, that same photo, video, Facebook post (whatever) can be projected onto a wall or a projection screen. So, hypothetically, you can share Facebook updates with your friends by pointing your Beam towards a wall or at the ceiling. Test reports coming in from Barcelona have all bee positive, and the Beam seems to operate with ease. In addition to being a fun phone to play with, the Beam also has great presentation potential and even come with a presentation mode.

Just think about all those times you wanted to share slides with someone in your office but you didn’t want to bother with a projector. Well, if you were to purchase the Beam, you could simply point and play any video or any other slide without bothering with a projector. Seemingly, teachers of all kinds could get a lot out of the new Samsung Beam too. Of course, you’d have to want a phone that doubles as a projector if you are to put the money aside to purchase this phone.

Availability

Samsung hasn’t said when the company will ship the new Beam, specifically. However, various reports state that the Beam will be shipping sometime in Q2. If you can’t think of any reason why you’d want a phone that’s also a projector, you should know that the photos of the Beam I’ve seen look pretty cool too (this phone is black and yellow and it certainly stands out!). You may also want to know that Samsung plans to load a few fun projection videos into the Beam prior to shipment. These videos include stars and other fun shapes that you can project onto a wall or on a ceiling (targeting parents, perhaps?).

So far this year, it looks like Samsung is no longer interested in coming out with phones that look and act like Apple phones (a good thing!). Instead, the company seems to be innovating and creating phones that are nothing like the phones already on the market. While a smartphone that has a projector isn’t entirely a new thing, it is something that Samsung seems to have perfected this time around (from first glance). When the new Samsung Beam does finally ship, I suggest that you head to your local electronics dealer and check out with the Beam can do. Even if you have no use for this type of phone, it will be fun to see what Samsung has been working on these past few months (the company has also reported that a few Beam accessories and docks are going to roll out following Q2 as well, so that’s something else to look for).