[got]A Smartphone That's Also A Projector? I Tested It, And It's Surprisingly Good[/gpt3]

ZDNET’s key takeaways

The Oukitel WP100 Titan will be available on Amazon in mid-April for around $599.
With a built-in projector, massive battery, rugged chassis, and powerful light, this phone is ideal for outdoorsy types.
It’s also massive, and weighs nearly 1.5 pounds.

I have in my hand the single heaviest phone I’ve ever reviewed. It’s beefy in a way I never imagined a phone would be. This phone weighs 1.93 pounds. Pounds! To put that into perspective, my Pixel 9 Pro weighs 0.438 pounds, and the Asus Zenbook A14, a standard-sized laptop we recently reviewed, is 2.1 pounds.

Yeah, this phone is chonky. But it’s also pretty cool. It’s the Oukitel WP100 Titan, and it’s aptly named.

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I received the Titan to review and when I pulled it from the box, my jaw dropped to the floor. I had no idea what this phone was all about. I intentionally left myself in the dark, so my impression was neutral. But I quickly discovered the reason behind its monumental size: it includes a built-in projector.

That’s right, you can project whatever’s on your screen onto a wall (or whatever flat surface you have) to share with those around you. Before you get too excited, the projector isn’t perfect. Getting the display large enough, in focus, and keystone properly. It takes a bit of fiddling, but it works. There are even two buttons on the side of the device that are dedicated to projector focus.

There’s some serious fun to be had with this.

My experience

First off, it’s an Android device, so setting it up is about as simple as they come. After about five minutes, the WP100 Titan was ready for the big test.

Obviously, the first thing I did was fire up the projector. To do that, there’s a matching icon on the home screen. Tap that and you’ll hear a fairly loud fan spin up and the phone will project the Android screen onto whatever surface you’re facing.

The projector is fairly simple to operate, and does a good job of displaying whatever’s on your screen. When I was testing it, however, I realized the projector did have some limitations. First off, getting it to focus isn’t quite an exact science.

To focus it, you click either one of the rectangular buttons on the left side of the device. What I discovered is that the ability to get the focus right depends on what you’re watching, how far you are from the projection surface, and how much ambient light you’re dealing with.

The WP100 Titan phone projecting its home screen on a wall. — A quick idea of how well the projector on the WP100 Titan works.
Jack Wallen/ZDNET

It took me a while, but after an OS update, I found the projector to be much easier to work with. I was able to successfully project whatever was on the Android display to a wall or a screen.

Okay, let’s get beyond the projector and examine the actual phone.

One of the first things I did was to enable the Android App Drawer. I have no idea why any Android phone manufacturer would disable this feature out of the box, but fortunately, it can be enabled by long-pressing a blank spot on the home screen, tapping Home Settings > Launcher Style, and then selecting Default.

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The WP100 Titan has a few other interesting tricks up its sleeve. There’s the Camping Light that produces 1200 lumens and can be used as an SOS light, a super-bright flashing pulse of light, or just a regular (albeit incredibly bright) flashlight. I made the mistake of switching on the Camping Light with the bottom of the phone facing me and I saw spots for a minute. This beast is bright; far brighter than a standard phone’s LED.

Some other features that impressed me were:

The massive 33,000 mAh battery that can go weeks without a charge.
512GB of internal storage.
The display might not beat the Pixel 9 Pro, but it can hold its own with most mid-range phones.
The ruggedness of it all.

ZDNET’s buying advice

The Oukitel WP100 Titan is not for everyone. This isn’t a phone you slip in your pocket and carry around with you. If, however, you regularly need to project your Android display so others can see it, this is the phone to have. You could even adopt it as a second phone for the specific purpose of carrying around a mobile projector.

Another reason this phone might appeal to you is the battery life. I used the projector for an extended period, lit up my office with the Camping Light, and upgraded the OS, and the battery barely depleted. Try that on a standard phone with an average battery and you’ll see that percentage drop fairly quickly.

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Finally, if you regularly find yourself in situations where the environment isn’t exactly friendly to electronics, the WP100 Titan will happily shrug off inclement weather or rough terrain. It’s mighty and it won’t back down.

Currently the WP100 Titan is only available via Kickstarter but will find its way to retailers such as Amazon in mid-April. The early bird pricing starts at $599.