Samsung Wave Review
Samsung released the first ever Bada powered mobile phone, the Wave. First impressions are good. It comes in a small box, which contains, a user manual, two mini CD's with drivers, the charger, data cable and of course the handset itself. You see the Wave for the first time and it exceeds all expectations, it looks stunning. It's made mostly of brushed aluminium which looks and feels amazing. Even the plastic looks good.
Dominating the front of the device is a generously sized 3.3" WVGA display, but this isn't your bog standard TFT screen, it's actually a Super AMOLED screen. What does this mean? Said short, it allows colours to be emulated just as you see them in real life. Blacks are deep, bright colours really are bright. It's one of the best displays I've ever seen. Above the display is the speaker for your calls and also a front facing camera for video calling and the Samsung Logo.
Beneath the screen are three buttons, in the middle is the main menu button, it brings up the app menu (which happens to look nearly the same as the iPhone Home screen), on the left you get an answer call button which also brings up a list of calls. Finally, on the right you get the end call button, which also closes the current app.
On the left edge of the phone there is nothing but a volume rocker, it's easy enough to use but lacks a satisfying click. On top is a speaker, a 3.5mm headphone input, and a micro-USB port. On the right is the lock button and a dedicated camera key that pushes half way to auto focus. The lock button also lacks a satisfying click. The microphone is situated at the bottom of the phone. On the back of the phone is the 5 megapixel camera and LED flash, both shaped like diamonds. The LED flash is very bright and the camera features auto focus and tap to focus. There is also a button on the back to release the battery cover.
Onto Bada itself. When you hit the unlock button you are met with a lock screen that contains the date and time and a message telling you to sweep to unlock.
When you unlock you are greeted by a home screen that looks very android like. At the bottom of the screen are three icons. Keypad, Contacts and Messages, these cant be moved or changed. There are three pages by default that you slide left and right to naviagte through, more pages appear when they're full.
At the top is the widget icon that allows you to remove and rearrange widgets. Widgets include, BBC iPlayer, Birthdays, Buddies Now and Samsung Apps. Our favourite widget was Buddies Now, it allows you to add contacts you want to a scrollable wheel which we found makes it easier to find more important people.
The status bar at the top of the screen pulls down to reveal quick access to WIFI, Bluetooth and Silent Mode, it also displays notifications such as emails and text messages.The browser within Bada seems to be very quick at loading pages, and uses the 1GHZ CPU effeciently. Pinch to zoom also seems to be smoother than on Android. The email app in Bada supports, Exchange, Google, Yahoo, Hotmail or you can manually choose your own.
The camera app seemed easy to use and fairly comprehensive, you can chose from a range of scenes, effects, ISO settings and can chose to have flash on/off or auto. It also supports touch to focus
Samsung Apps, Samsung's rival to Apple's App Store and Android's App Market, doesn't have nearly the amount of apps as its competitors but it provides an easy to use interface and a range of useful apps of which a good amount are free.
Overall we really like this device, it's build quality is fantastic and Bada OS seems like a hybrid of iOS and Android. We hope Samsung Apps recieves more apps, then this really could become a killer OS and a killer phone. However if you're an app maniac your best off sticking with Android and iOS until Bada becomes a more deadly rival.
However if you're an early adopter of this phone or the OS you won't be disspointed.
Dominating the front of the device is a generously sized 3.3" WVGA display, but this isn't your bog standard TFT screen, it's actually a Super AMOLED screen. What does this mean? Said short, it allows colours to be emulated just as you see them in real life. Blacks are deep, bright colours really are bright. It's one of the best displays I've ever seen. Above the display is the speaker for your calls and also a front facing camera for video calling and the Samsung Logo.
Beneath the screen are three buttons, in the middle is the main menu button, it brings up the app menu (which happens to look nearly the same as the iPhone Home screen), on the left you get an answer call button which also brings up a list of calls. Finally, on the right you get the end call button, which also closes the current app.
On the left edge of the phone there is nothing but a volume rocker, it's easy enough to use but lacks a satisfying click. On top is a speaker, a 3.5mm headphone input, and a micro-USB port. On the right is the lock button and a dedicated camera key that pushes half way to auto focus. The lock button also lacks a satisfying click. The microphone is situated at the bottom of the phone. On the back of the phone is the 5 megapixel camera and LED flash, both shaped like diamonds. The LED flash is very bright and the camera features auto focus and tap to focus. There is also a button on the back to release the battery cover.
Onto Bada itself. When you hit the unlock button you are met with a lock screen that contains the date and time and a message telling you to sweep to unlock.
When you unlock you are greeted by a home screen that looks very android like. At the bottom of the screen are three icons. Keypad, Contacts and Messages, these cant be moved or changed. There are three pages by default that you slide left and right to naviagte through, more pages appear when they're full.
At the top is the widget icon that allows you to remove and rearrange widgets. Widgets include, BBC iPlayer, Birthdays, Buddies Now and Samsung Apps. Our favourite widget was Buddies Now, it allows you to add contacts you want to a scrollable wheel which we found makes it easier to find more important people.
The status bar at the top of the screen pulls down to reveal quick access to WIFI, Bluetooth and Silent Mode, it also displays notifications such as emails and text messages.The browser within Bada seems to be very quick at loading pages, and uses the 1GHZ CPU effeciently. Pinch to zoom also seems to be smoother than on Android. The email app in Bada supports, Exchange, Google, Yahoo, Hotmail or you can manually choose your own.
The camera app seemed easy to use and fairly comprehensive, you can chose from a range of scenes, effects, ISO settings and can chose to have flash on/off or auto. It also supports touch to focus
Samsung Apps, Samsung's rival to Apple's App Store and Android's App Market, doesn't have nearly the amount of apps as its competitors but it provides an easy to use interface and a range of useful apps of which a good amount are free.
Overall we really like this device, it's build quality is fantastic and Bada OS seems like a hybrid of iOS and Android. We hope Samsung Apps recieves more apps, then this really could become a killer OS and a killer phone. However if you're an app maniac your best off sticking with Android and iOS until Bada becomes a more deadly rival.
However if you're an early adopter of this phone or the OS you won't be disspointed.