Digitimes yesterday reported the fact that mobile phone handset vendors might be easing off the idea of including embedded pico projector’s into their handsets. This news comes from the realisation that people would not really use the picoprojector part of the phone as they expected, because largely people do not want to share publicly (one of the micro projector benefits) things they have stored on their mobile. I can see this point but I am still not sure of its validity because I think a lot of things put on phones can be shared, like mp3 tracks with visualisations and videos.

Either way I think that picoprojector mobile phones will exist in one way or another from now on, they might not be as popular as the regular micro projectors or pico projectors embedded in other gadgetry but they will continue to be produced. I see this happening a lot more over the coming year, but what the resolution will be, what gadgets will truly take use of the pico projection technology is to be seen.

Here is the info from the ever interesting digitimes:

Although a number of branded handset vendors, including Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics (LGE) and RIM, have launched handsets with built-in pico-projectors, handset makers in Taiwan are conservative about the outlook for projector handsets, according to industry sources.

Handset vendors have successfully integrated music players and cameras with mobile phones, but the development of handsets incorporated with GPS, mobile TV and gaming functionalities have been far from satisfactory, the sources noted.

In addition, due to privacy concerns, handset users are unlikely to show their photos, videos and personal documents stored in their handsets through micro projectors in public locations, which in turn will limit the application of projector handsets only to the niche market segment, commented the sources.

Global sales of projector handsets could reach only several hundred thousand units in 2010, estimated the sources.