UPDATE:: Read up our Samsung Wave S8500 Review.
Samsung’s first smartphone running its proprietary OS, the Wave S8500 will hit Malaysian stores this week. There’s nothing new to report about the Samsung Wave running the bada mobile OS accept for the retail price, which is around RM1700.
That’s pretty good value for money considering the fact that you get a 3.3in Super AMOLED screen (800 x 480), a 1GHz processor that runs the same ARM Cortex A8 core as Apple’s A4 processor and a 5MP camera with LED flash that has face and smile detection along with blink activation. The Wave also packs aGPS, WiFi n along with an accelerometer and a proximity sensor all wrapped in a thin unibody chassis. There’s 2GB of on board memory with support for up to 32GB storage in MicroSD.
On top of that, the Wave records HD video in 720p and plays back DivX, Xvid, MP4 and WMV in virtual 5.1 surround sound but we’re not a fan of it’s edgy design. On the software side, the bada OS sports a unified contacts list, an integrated inbox and a social networking hub that combines some of the major social networking sites into one screen.
As the natural optimists that we are, we can’t seem to find the need for another mobile OS in the smartphone marketplace but Samsung seems convinced that they’ve got something different compared to the rest. The makers of bada claim that the OS will make smartphones more accessible.
We are certainly looking for to that.
Video of the bada OS UI in action avter the jump.