Projector-phones from Spice, Intex

29th May 2011
Projector-phones from Spice, Intex
Project IT! Feature phones s with built-in projectors

The technology of digital image projection has shrunk so significantly, that the special chip which does the job, can now be squeezed into a mobile phone, at very little additional cost. Using one of two competing technologies – Digital LightProcessor (DLP) or Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) – Indian hand set makers have done just that – stealing a march over bigger global brands.
Spice Mobility has just launched the Spice PopKorn projector phone M9000, which can project movies, presentations or images on the nearest wall. The quad-band dual-SIM phone comes with an analogue TV tuner which means you can view live TV channels available for free. The video player is also a recorder and the camera is rated for 3.2 Megapixels. The Java-enabled phone has Bluetooth and GPRS connectivity with FM Radio and a 62 MB memory. You can buy a 16 GB MicroSD card separately to store your movies or presentations.

Very similar in its key specifications is the V.Show Mini Theatre model IN 8809 from INTEX. The dual SIM (GSM+GSM) quad-band phone has a 2 mega pixel camera and rates its video play at 25frames per second. The internal memory of 87 MB is expandable to 16 GB. Talk-time, Bluetooth, FM Radio and GPRS features are the almost the same as the Spice offering.

Keeping in mind the same user, both offerings enable the projection of office documents and presentations like Powerpoint. In addition to viewing movies on your hotel room wall, the ability to make quick business presentations to small audiences ( the projected image would be about a metre to 1.5 m in diagonal) seem to be the main plus point of these projector phones. And since both phones cost around Rs 6500 on the street, they are much more affordable than the stand-alone pico projectors which generally cost about three times as much, albeit with better image size and quality. May 30 2011