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Our Samsung Wave Review

Samsung has announced its new smartphone, the Wave, and with it, the South Korean company’s brand new operating system. Except its not exactly brand new. Bada, as the new system is called, uses bits of previous platforms such as Android, Symbian and Apple’s iOS, to come up with something that works like a dream.

Most exciting is the 3.3 inch SuperAMOLED screen: smooth, fast with an impressive colour range and a quantum leap from previous Samsung models. Its responsiveness can’t be faulted, either, when switching from portrait to landscape.

There is much to commend this thin, light handset. First, its designers have opted for a sleek, metallic feel, a step away from the unremitting blackness of previous offerings. It feels just chunky enough in the hand to feel like it won’t fly off somewhere if you brush your fingers over the screen too vigorously, but not too heavy to annoy the pocket.

It’s a dream both to look at and to use this display. There is a maximum of ten fully customizable homescreens to use; cleverly, when one is crammed with widgets, another opens for your convenience.

If it is aimed at social networkers, there are still a few improvements to be made to aid ease of use. It can be fiddly to import and merge different contracts from, say, Twitter and Facebook. Once you have done a bit of legwork, though, the Samsung Wave allows you easy movement between apps.

The power in the Wave's 5 megapixel camera is more than enough to produce crisp, professional results, even when transferred to a PC. This is exactly what existing Samsung users will be used to. There are a number of shooting options, including panoramic, continuous and vintage. These useful innovations all work beautifully together and are helped by an LED flash and 720pp video capture is superb and lifelike. This is helped by good quality sound from the 3.5mm jack at the top of the handset, which can also be used as a TV out. Neat.

Battery life is very good when compared to other models in this class and price range, giving a solid couple of days before recharging was necessary, even when using the most power-hungry apps.

What We Liked

You’ve got to admire Samsung’s bold decision to introduce Bada. Existing operating systems have their plusses and minuses, as Bada does. The camera and video capture are awesome and video playback is a delight.

What We Disliked

While integrating bits of systems like Android and Symbian, Bada incorporates not only the best bits, but some of the worst when navigating.

Our Final Verdict

All new innovations have their teething problems. Samsung’s Wave and Bada have a few, but then again, too few to mention. In time, and hopefully very soon, the number of apps available will grow and if other manufacturers come on board and start using Bada (although its highly unlikely in the short-term), its reputation will grow and Samsung’s hoped-for ‘democratization’ will be among us.

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	Samsung Wave
General
Form Factor	Candybar
Dimensions	118 x 56 x 10.9 (mm)
Talk Time	900 mins
Standby Time	600 hours
Weight	118 g
Quad Band	Yes
Photo and Video
Camera	5.00 megapixels
Camera Flash	Yes
Video Player	Yes
Phone
Internal Memory	2048MB
Memory Card Type	MicroSD (max 32GB)
Messaging
Instant Messaging (IM)	Yes
Screen
Colour Screen	Yes
Connectivity
3G	Yes
Bluetooth	Yes
WAP	Yes
Web Browser	Yes
Wi-Fi	Yes
GPS	Yes
Music and Radio
FM Radio	Yes
MP3 Player	Yes
MP3 Ringtones	Yes
Additional Content
Downloadable Content	Yes
Downloadable Games	Yes
Downloadable Ringtones	Yes

Samsung Wave Full Specification

General

Photo and Video

Phone

Messaging

Screen

Connectivity

Music and Radio

Additional Content