The expansion of multimedia capabilities has become the main motivation for turning a mobile phone into a smartphone. The consumer market enthusiastically accepted the new gadget. Of course, companies did not ignore the market’s expectations and quickly filled all the niches. As a result, in just a few years their range included camera phones with a set of good cameras, gaming models with a powerful processor and effective cooling, etc. The first smartphone with a built-in projector was the Samsung Galaxy Beam i8530 and was presented in October 2011 at the Mobile World Congress. The DLP projector turned the smartphone into a pocket TV and and harmoniously fit into its evolution.
But the idea remained only a promising concept until 2019 due to very low brightness (~15-20 lumens) and low resolution. Introduced in January 2019, the Blackview MAX 1 became the first hybrid with acceptable image quality. A year later, phone-projectors range included Moviphone, Qantum V, Movi, etc.
But at that time they turned out to be uncompetitive. The built-in projector added $ 300-$ 400 to the phone price, while the price of low-brightness LED pico projectors did not exceed $200. In addition, the relatively high power consumption in projector mode was an unaffordable luxury for smartphones with a battery capacity of only a few thousand mAh. As a result, they disappeared from the market for several years.
Phone-projectors
But in 2023, the concept was revived by Chinese Unihertz, which presented a rugged Tank 2 with a built-in projector.
The ultra-powerful battery in rugged phone for camping eliminated the problem of energy consumption for the projector function. Today, already several companies are actively working in this segment. This year, the list included Unihertz 8849 Tank 4 Pro, Oukitel WP100 Titan, Ulefone Armor 34 Pro, Uniwa Pj001, etc. In the summer, it was joined by Doogee V Max Play.
Unihertz 8849 Tank 4 Pro is rightfully positioned as the most competitive. Therefore, comparing Doogee V Max Play with it seems the most relevant.
For reference, Doogee was founded in 2013 and is a subsidiary of a large concern KVD International Group, Shenzhen. Since 2002, KVD has produced OEM products for many well-known phone manufacturers, has good technological and production potential, has its own research laboratories and full-cycle factories.
In accordance with Chinese tradition, the name Doogee has a hidden meaning. Doogee acronym can be deciphered as:
– ‘D’ is the first letter of the word ‘Do’;
– ‘OO’ is the infinity symbol ‘∞’;
– ‘Gee’ is an exclamation and approval.
Today popular Doogee V Max series includes Max S ($ 480), Max Pro ($ 570), Max Plus ($ 600), and new Max Play & Max LR. Max Play became the first Doogee phone-projector with DLP projector, Max LR is equipped with a laser rangefinder. Their other specs are identical.
Doogee V Max Play vs Unihertz Tank 4 Pro
Both models offer:
– brightness and frequency – 600 nits and 120Hz;
– screen to body ratio ~ 71,6%;
– Gorning Gorilla Glass 5;
– Android 15/14 OS;
– microSDXC slot;
– 4K@30fps video recording;
– front camera – 32MP f/1.8 and f/2.2 with 1080p@30fps video recording;
– no wireless charging;
– IP68/IP69 dust tight and water resistant;
– 5G, NFC (Near Field Communication), side-mounted fingerprint scanner, Bluetooth 5.4/5.3, WiFi 6e.
Design:
– 683 g vs 530 g;
– 30,5 mm vs 22,5 mm thickness;
– IceWing smart cooling vs fan with temp control.
Innovative IceWing cooling system uses two fans and a copper plate to prevent overheating during high-load operations, for example, in projector mode.
– no vs 3.5 mm jack;
– no vs stereo speakers.
Display:
– 6,78″ vs 6,73″;
– LCD vs AMOLED;
– FHD+ or Full HD (1080 x 2460) vs QHD+ or Quad High Definition Plus (1440 x 3200);
– 396 ppi vs 521 ppi.
Platform:
– 7300 vs 8300 octa-core 4nm Mediatek Dimensity chipset.
Pros of 8300:
– supports 166% higher memory bandwidth (68.2 vs 25.6 GB/s);
– performs 4x better in floating-point computations;
– AnTuTu V10 ~ 1406K vs 671K;
– 34% higher CPU clock speed (3350 vs 2500 MHz);
– higher GPU frequency (~34%);
– better instruction set architecture.
– GPU – six-core Mali-G615 MP6 vs dual-core MP2.
Battery:
– 20,500 mAh vs 11,600 mAh;
– 45W vs 120W fast charging + 25W reverse charging.
Projector:
– 100 lumens brightness, built-in laser auto-focus and smart auto-correction (both);
– VGA (640 x 480 pixels) vs HD (1,280 x 720) resolution.
Memory amd cameras
Memory:
– RAM – 16GB LPDDR5 vs 16/18GB LPDDR5x.
LPDDR5X is made with 16 GB chips в отличие от LPDDR5 with 8 GB chips. The new 5x memory provides data transfer at 8.5 Gbps, which is 1.3 times faster than LPDDR5 (6.4 Gbps);
– virtual RAM – 20GB vs 16/18GB;
– ROM – 512GB UFS 3.1 vs 512GB/1TB UFS 4.0.
UFS 4.0 significantly outperforms UFS 3.1 in speed (almost twice as fast), energy efficiency and data storage density:
– read/write speed – up to 2100 MB/s / 1200 MB/s vs up to 4200 MB/s / 2800 MB/s;
– energy efficiency – difference up to 46% in favor of UFS 4.0.
Cameras:
– 200MP, f/1.8 (wide) + 20MP, f/1.8 (night vision) + 8MP, f/2.2 (ultrawide) + dual-LED flash + HDR + panorama vs 200MP (wide) + 64MP, f/1.8 (night vision) + 50MP (telefoto) + quad-LED flash + HDR + panorama.
Unihertz Tank 4 Pro is lighter and thinner, has 3.5 mm jack and stereo speakers. In addition, it uses a better display (AMOLED/QHD+ vs LCD/FHD+), is equipped with a more powerful processor (Mediatek Dimensity 8300 vs 7300), a more powerful GPU (Mali-G615 MP6 vs MP2) and faster memory (UFS 4.0 vs UFS 3.1). Finally, its built-in projector has a higher resolution (HD/720p vs VGA/480p). But Doogee V Max Play is slightly cheaper (~$ 600 vs $ 640) and, most importantly, its battery capacity is almost twice as large (20,500 mAh vs 11,600 mAh).
Conclusion
The first Doogee V Max Play phone-projector has successfully entered the market. Its price-quality ratio is quite comparable with Unihertz Tank 4 Pro, which is one of the best models in this segment today.
Of course, the built-in projector significantly expands the multimedia capabilities of the phone, turning it into a pocket TV. But the user should soberly assess its capabilities to avoid disappointment. Formally, the focusing range of both models supports a screen size of up to 100 inches diagonally. But its color saturation is unlikely to be acceptable due to the low brightness of the models. Of course, image quality depends on personal perception. But for most viewers, the maximum image size with acceptable quality is unlikely to exceed 60-70 inches diagonally. But even this is achievable only in the dark. Even weak ambient light will require a reduction in size to maintain acceptable quality. However, darkness is not a problem for camping enthusiasts.
Given the battery capacity, the Unihertz Tank 4 Pro is ideal for a short weekend in the countryside, while the Doogee V Max Play is better for longer trips.
The video introduces the Doogee V Max Play rugged phone with built-in auto-focus projector.
