Samsung has confirmed that the Galaxy Beam pico-projector handset has become locally available in South Africa, carrying a recommended retail price of R5,499.

The latest version of the Galaxy Beam was revealed at this year’s Mobile World Congress and boast a built-in beam projector capable of projecting images “…at up to 1,300 mm in size at 15 lumens” according to Samsung Electronics SA.

The device’s other features aren’t exactly high-spec, being limited by inserting a projector into a 145.3 gram phone. A 1GHz processor, 4″ WVGA display at 480 x 800 and 5 megapixel camera are the major features. The Beam packs in 8GB of internal storage, 786MB of RAM and supports external storage up to 32GB via a microSD card slot. Samsung claims that this Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) handset has a battery that allows for up to three hours of projector time.

Director of Mobile Communications at Samsung Craige Fleischer said “The Galaxy Beam pushes the boundaries of what a smartphone can do and we believe that this product certainly demonstrates Samsung’s continued innovation within the smartphone market, both for the consumer and the businessman alike – epitomised by continued investment in research and development.”

“This phone is a sure indicator as to the future of smartphones – where built-in projectors will eventually become as commonplace as cameras- and at Samsung we are excited to be first to market with this functionality, offering consumers and B2B executives the convenience and seamless ability to share content with colleagues and peers.”