Specifications:
- 3.3" 16M-color Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, WVGA (480 x 800 pixels), multi-touch input support, scratch-resistant glass surface
- Solid 10.9mm-thin metal body
- Bada OS with Samsung Apps
- ARM Cortex A8 based 1GHz CPU
- Quad-band GSM support with dual-band 7.2Mbps HSDPA, 2Mbps HSUPA
- Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n connectivity with WPS support, Wi-Fi tethering app
- Built-in GPS receiver with A-GPS support, digital compass, Samsung Mobile Navigator
- 5 MP auto focus camera with touch focus, geo-tagging, face, smile and blink detection and LED flash
- 720p video recording at 30fps
- 390MB user available memory, 1GB Bada apps storage and 550MB messaging storage
- microSDHC card slot
- Standard microUSB port and Bluetooth v3.0 with A2DP
- Standard 3.5mm audio jack, TV out
- Stereo FM radio with RDS, FM recording
- Webkit-based Samsung Dolphin Browser 2.0 with full Flash support
- YouTube client, Facebook and Twitter integration
- DivX/XviD video support
Samsung announced it's new Bada platform for smartphones and Wave is the first one to hit the market with this new OS.
Build:
With a size of 118 x 56 x 10.9 mm and weighing 118 grams Samsung S8500 Wave is very compact and light. It's aluminium body looks top notch and feels tough and durable. It features a brilliant 3.3" super Amoled display covered with scratch resistant glass. It houses a 5.0 MP camera with LED flash, 3.5 mm headphone jack, proximity sensor, volume keys, micro USB slot and a camera key. Over all build quality is near perfect apart from the fact that it lacks a cover for camera.
Display and Interface:
The best feature of Wave is it's brilliant Super AMOLED 16M-color capacitive touchscreen which cannot be matched by any other mobile phone apart from it's Android cousin Galaxy S. Bada OS is new but looks promising however applications are limited at the moment but Samsung App store looks promising. Multitouch, proximity sensor and accelerometer are great and work flawlessly. It is equipped with a 1GHz ARM processor it allows applications and games like NFS shift, Kroll and Asphalt to run very smoothly. Facebook, Youtube, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and Twitter are integrated and it also supports exchange Active Sync. One can install a number of applications and widgets from Samsung App store.
Wave offers a Webkit-based Samsung Dolphin Browser 2.0 which can have multiple pages opened at the same time and supports Flash.
Camera and multimedia:
Wave is capable of taking 5.0 MP pictures and recording 720p HD video at 30 frames per second. Camera features image stabilization, blink detection, smile detection, geotagging, ISO and white balance manipulation. Images captured by Wave are brilliant with very low noise level and high detail. 720p HD video at 30 frames per second makes Wave stand apart from it's competitors and is simply amazing.
Video player of Samsung Wave is best till date on a mobile device. It playes DivX/XviD, MP4, MKV files on 720P and displays subtitles as well. Music player is great and Wave comes with Samsung’s proprietary DNSe sound enhancement technology that lets you pick among Wide, Concert Hall. Music clarity, Bass enhancement and Externalisation. It also features 5.1 surround and music recognition and FM player. Sound quality is above par.
Connectivity:
It supports GPRS, EDGE and 3G with HSDPA (7.2Mbps) and HSUPA (2.0Mbps). The GSM/EDGE networking of course comes in quad-band flavor and the 3G in dual-band - 900/2100MHz. The Wave is the first mobile phone to support the new Bluetooth version 3.0. Naturally, A2DP is also supported. Samsung Wave is also one of the few phones that support the latest Wi-Fi 802.11 n connectivity standard. It also features Wi-Fi with WPS for a hassle-free way to pair a wireless device with your secured network. Wave can also turn into a wireless router for connecting up to three Wi-Fi clients that will use its HSDPA connection for Internet access.
Wave comes with the Samsung Mobile Navigator, which is based on the Route66 mobile application. It has voice-guided navigation, but the goodies come at an extra cost and one needs to subscribe to Route66 after the trial period. However, there are some free navigation software's available for download at Samsung App store.
Verdict:
Wave offers everything that a smart phone should have. It has the fastest mobile processor, a brilliant touchscreen, good multimedia features and good interface. It’s slim and solid, with perfect build and great performance. I feel it is perfect blend of everything for the price (INR 19000, MYR 1500) and is a great buy.
