Along with the Ch@t B3410W and the Beam i8520, the S8500 Wave was one of the new wave (sorry) of phones to be unveiled by Samsung at this year’s Mobile World Congress, currently underway in Barcelona. The handset is the first phone to use Samsung’s new Bada operating system that we have heard bits and pieces about over the last few months – and the super AMOLED display and powerful graphics on board, it is probably the ideal device for Samsung to show off this new system on.
Display
The Wave makes use of a 3.3? super AMOLED screen, with 16 million colours and WVGA resolution (480 x 800) that gives off some pretty impressive visuals. While AMOLED is about the best technology you can get in a screen today, the fact that Samsung has granted the Wave the honour of being the first SUPER AMOLED should tell you something the nature of this phone.
Not only is there a very high resolution and colour depth, making sure things are displayed in the highest quality possible on a phone, but the AMOLED technology means that it has a vibrancy and vividness that most phones lack. The super AMOLED screen takes mDNIe technology that had been developed for Samsung’s line of high quality LCD TVs.
The touch sensitivity is provided by capacitive technology which allows for multitouch support. Although this was not available for show on the model at the MWC this week as the phone is still in production, it did register with the interface suggesting that it will indeed be supported. The Wave also has an accelerometer so that you can auto-rotate the display between portrait and landscape to suit your needs.
Media and Entertainment
The Wave comes with multi-codec support for music and video, with DivX, XviD and mp3 being supported. The Wave’s media player also supports the playback of HD video – which is where that super AMOLED screen comes in handy. The display is also ideal for watching widescreen videos as they are meant to be, with Samsung incorporating mDNIe (mobile Digital Natural Image engine) technology taken from their LCD TVs.
Not only can you watch HD videos, but also record your own with the 5 megapixel camera with 720p video recording. This comes with a video light for recording videos in darkened environments, and also an LED flash for still photographs. The camera comes with some great features like geo-tagging, smile and face detection thrown in for good measure. On top of this camera there is a second camera on the front of the Wave that you can use for video calling through 3G.
For storing all this media there is an option of either 2GB or 8GB available and can take up to 32GB more with microSD cards. You can also listen to the latest music through the included FM radio which comes with RDS included – and you can also record directly from the radio to listen later.
With the visual power and hardware on board the Wave is an ideal handset for 3D gaming, and 3D effects are employed throughout much of the interface. Entertainment is enhanced by the inclusion of Digital Natural Sound Engine (DNSe) to enhance sound quality for calls and media, and also a 3.5mm audio jack so that you can pop in your own headphones while in public.
OS and Hardware
The Wave will be the first phone released by Samsung to make use of their new and much talked about operating system – Bada. Bada is Korean for ‘ocean’ and so it seems quite fitting that the first phone to make use of it will be called the Wave. While running on the new Bada the Wave will also come with the TouchWiz (3.0) interface over the top making the phone instantly familiar to anyone who has used a previous version of the Samsung interface before. With all the impressive visuals on offer the Wave will need a lot of power to provide a smooth ride – and it does. The Wave runs on an ARM Cortex A8 1GHz processor and supports 3D graphic.
Connectivity
The Wave is a quad band GSM phone with HSDPA providing 3G support. With GPRS and EDGE also available, the phone comes with Wi-Fi allowing you to connect to wireless networks in your vicinity. One of the other main points of interests for the Wave is that it is the first phone to come with version 3 of Bluetooth. This comes with A2DP so that you can use wireless headphones in conjunction with the phone, and you can also connect the Wave to other devices through microUSB.
Messaging
The Wave is a superb phone for all forms of messaging, from standard SMS to email and social networking. The Wave sees the introduction of Samsung’s new Social Hub, an interface that seamlessly integrates emails, social network accounts and instant messaging services.
Excellent instant messaging support is provided through Palringo IM. This program will combine all of your instant messaging accounts from separate services into one system, so that you can talk to your friends on AOL, Windows Live (MSN), Google Talk, ICQ and many others at the same time.
The Wave supports POP3, IMAP, SMTP and MS Exchange protocols as well as push email, so that you are notified on the phones homescreen when your account receives a new email. In this way you can ensure that you do not miss and important message because you did not think to go online and check your emails. This is a very handy feature for people who rely on emails a great deal for their occupation.
Summary
The S8500 Wave is set to make a wave (sorry (again)) of firsts in the mobile phone world. It will be the first phone to run on Samsung’s new Bada operating system that could become a rival to the likes of Android and Windows Mobile. It will be the first phone to come with Bluetooth 3.0 that offers significant improvements over existing versions, and it will also be the first super AMOLED phone.
With some very powerful hardware and one of the sexiest displays going this will certainly be a phone for those who love their entertainment. It is also one of the new wave (last time, I swear) of phones to come with social networking services like Facebook integrated into the interface. The Wave will be available in April in a choice of purple. Find out what Samsung S8500 Wave Deals are available if you like the look of this new phone, or read some Samsung S8500 Wave Reviews to find out more about the phone.