Our Samsung Wave Review

With established operating systems such as Android, Symbian and Apple’s iOS well established in the smartphone arena, it is a little baffling as to why Samsung would want to introduce their own OS, Bada.

Well, Samsung say that Bada is intended to ‘democratize’ the world of smartphones, but with the new operating system only available on this handset, it looks like they have a way to go yet.

This could be a rerun of the old VHS v Betamax battle. A better example would be people’s reluctance to buy a Mac ten years ago, because of buyers’ impression that nothing Windows would work on a Macintosh. Slowly, the two platforms became more compatible and Samsung will be hoping this is the same for Bada.

Is Bada different? Yes and no. It would be cruel to say that it has just cut and pasted elements of the above named operating systems; rather kinder to say it has cherry-picked the best bits. But if you forget that other operating systems came along first, Bada is a remarkable step forward.

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.

The Samsung Wave is fast. Its 1Ghz Hummingbird processor gives you all the speed you could ask for, especially when web browsing.

Its main attraction 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.

Video can be viewed in super clarity and smoothness, without any annoying juddering; the Samsung Wave works well as a little TV, although squinting at the small screen could induce headaches after a while.

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. And that’s its biggest failing, maybe its only failing. Until more third party developers come on board there’s not a lot of new apps to choose from.

What We Liked

The Samsung Wave’s 5 megapixel camera is as good as you would expect, but now comes with a startling array of options, like panoramic, continuous, vintage, coupled with a great LED flash.

What We Disliked

Bada is potentially a great operating system, but at the moment there is little third party support when compared to the massive Android and iPhone apps market. But it has to start somewhere.

Our Final Verdict

If previous OS’s hadn’t been invented, this phone would be a little wonder. What you get is a lite version of all the existing systems. Hopefully it won’t be standing all alone for long. When updates and more apps are available, the Wave could be ready to challenge the old order.

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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