Samsung Wave: 3.3-inch Super AMOLED, Bluetooth 3.0, and new Bada OS (updated)
By Darren Murph 
posted February 14th 2010 1:21PM
posted February 14th 2010 1:21PM
Update: Check out our hands-on with the device! The at-show prototypes do respond to multi-touch pinch and zoom... with an error. But at least they detect it.
Samsung Delivers Brilliant New Smart Phone Experience
with Launch of Samsung Wave
· Full touch Super AMOLED offers the best ever viewing quality on a mobile
· Social Hub brings all your social networks together in one, unified solution
· TouchWiz 3.0 expands Smartphone usability to the next level
February 14th, 2010, Barcelona, Spain – Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., a leading mobile phone provider, today announced the launch of the Samsung Wave (Model: S8500). This is the first mobile handset to be released on Samsung's new, open mobile platform, Samsung bada, and the cornerstone of the company's commitment to provide a smartphone for every lifestyle.
The Samsung Wave offers a Super AMOLED 3.3" display that makes the screen truly come alive, a Social Hub to bring you closer to your contacts and connections, and TouchWiz 3.0 for an intuitive and hugely customizable user interface. The Wave's high-speed CPU ensures swift, smooth application experiences and multi-tasking, making the device an always-on mobile multimedia companion. The Samsung Wave has been built to offer users an unrivalled level of performance, customization and choice in how they connect with their world. The stunning full touch mobile will be available globally from April 2010.
"The Samsung Wave truly demonstrates our commitment to deliver rich, connected and innovative smartphone experiences to everyone," said JK Shin, President and Head of Mobile Communications Business at Samsung Electronics. "Samsung Wave sees our platform vision become a reality. For the first time, developers have the freedom to create applications across multiple platforms, for consumption on a huge range of devices. In the Wave, our developer partners can see the ocean of opportunity that is offered by the bada mobile platform and our device technology," he said.
Super AMOLED – Seeing is believing
With the Samsung Wave, seeing really is believing as it features the world's first Super AMOLED display; delivering an unrivalled screen experience on a smartphone. The Super AMOLED offers much brighter, clearer, and less reflective AMOLED OnCell display, featuring a high resolution WVGA (800x480 pixels) screen with mDNIe (mobile Digital Natural Image engine) technology. DNIe technology is proven display technology which incorporated to Samsung's LCD TV and LED TV lineups. With a free viewing angle and super fast response, the Samsung Wave display provides superb image quality for viewing both videos and photos.
Social Hub – my communities at my hand
Social Hub has been designed from the ground up to seamlessly integrate all major portal's email, IM and SNS services directly into the Samsung Wave. With its TouchWiz 3.0 UI, it provides users easy-flow integrated experience of messaging, managing contacts and viewing calendar events. Social Hub is powered by the amazing push technology to deliver email messages, calendar events and SNS updates in real-time.
TouchWiz 3.0 UI – new and improved
The Samsung Wave provides superior levels of choice to all users via its fully customizable menus and home-page. For those who demand access to their social networking sites at all times, the device allows users to change the layout of the home-page to allow instant access to Twitter, Facebook and a host of other social networking services. For those who love music, the device home-page can be turned into an intuitive media player; while for those who take and share a lot of photos, the home page can be customized to feature favourite images. Users will also benefit from Quick Panel, a way of prioritizing and aggregating applications into one screen for instant access.
With its eye-catchingly brilliant screen, Samsung's latest TouchWiz 3.0 user interface gives a tactile, intuitive user experience, and includes iconic new features such as motion UI, Smart Unlock and customizable widget screen.
Speed, performance and beauty
The Samsung Wave benefits from a superb 1GHz processor which offers users the best graphic performance available today. Its speed makes the touch screen user interface incredibly responsive and intuitive and, more importantly, means that the 3D and memory-intensive graphic and video performance is unsurpassed.
The Samsung Wave is also one of the most attractive devices with seamless, streamlined body that has no parting or harsh lines. A beautiful and strong tempered glass display perfectly complements and enhances the vividness of the Super AMOLED display. Furthermore, with anti-smudge technology, those greasy thumb prints are a thing of the past.
Multimedia features and connectivity
Multi-codec support for DivX Xvid, MP4 and WMV, and support for virtual 5.1 surround sound delivery transforms the device into a personal entertainment system and HD video (720p) decoding and recording capabilities make the Samsung Wave an outstanding device for capturing, sharing and viewing video.
For the first time in the world, Samsung Wave is incorporated Bluetooth® 3.0 and WiFi 802.11n standard.
Samsung Apps: unlimited expandability
Samsung's bada platform allows mobile users to simply and easily download an abundance of applications from Samsung Apps, an integrated application store accessible from the device and online. Featuring a wealth of games, navigation, social networking, e-book, health and lifestyle applications, Samsung Apps gives users instant access to a huge choice of mobile experiences.
Samsung established its mobile application ecosystem through the launch of Samsung Mobile Innovator in 2008 and the Samsung Application Seller Site followed by Samsung Application Store as another key element of this offering. Already launched in the UK, France, Italy, Singapore, Germany, Brazil and China, this will be expanded to more than 50 countries all over the world in 2010.
Samsung is exhibiting at Mobile World Congress 2010, at Hall 8, Stand 8b 169.
For more information, please visit http://samsungmwc2010.com
Follow us to get all our news on twitter at www.twitter.com/SamsungMWC
with Launch of Samsung Wave
· Full touch Super AMOLED offers the best ever viewing quality on a mobile
· Social Hub brings all your social networks together in one, unified solution
· TouchWiz 3.0 expands Smartphone usability to the next level
February 14th, 2010, Barcelona, Spain – Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., a leading mobile phone provider, today announced the launch of the Samsung Wave (Model: S8500). This is the first mobile handset to be released on Samsung's new, open mobile platform, Samsung bada, and the cornerstone of the company's commitment to provide a smartphone for every lifestyle.
The Samsung Wave offers a Super AMOLED 3.3" display that makes the screen truly come alive, a Social Hub to bring you closer to your contacts and connections, and TouchWiz 3.0 for an intuitive and hugely customizable user interface. The Wave's high-speed CPU ensures swift, smooth application experiences and multi-tasking, making the device an always-on mobile multimedia companion. The Samsung Wave has been built to offer users an unrivalled level of performance, customization and choice in how they connect with their world. The stunning full touch mobile will be available globally from April 2010.
"The Samsung Wave truly demonstrates our commitment to deliver rich, connected and innovative smartphone experiences to everyone," said JK Shin, President and Head of Mobile Communications Business at Samsung Electronics. "Samsung Wave sees our platform vision become a reality. For the first time, developers have the freedom to create applications across multiple platforms, for consumption on a huge range of devices. In the Wave, our developer partners can see the ocean of opportunity that is offered by the bada mobile platform and our device technology," he said.
Super AMOLED – Seeing is believing
With the Samsung Wave, seeing really is believing as it features the world's first Super AMOLED display; delivering an unrivalled screen experience on a smartphone. The Super AMOLED offers much brighter, clearer, and less reflective AMOLED OnCell display, featuring a high resolution WVGA (800x480 pixels) screen with mDNIe (mobile Digital Natural Image engine) technology. DNIe technology is proven display technology which incorporated to Samsung's LCD TV and LED TV lineups. With a free viewing angle and super fast response, the Samsung Wave display provides superb image quality for viewing both videos and photos.
Social Hub – my communities at my hand
Social Hub has been designed from the ground up to seamlessly integrate all major portal's email, IM and SNS services directly into the Samsung Wave. With its TouchWiz 3.0 UI, it provides users easy-flow integrated experience of messaging, managing contacts and viewing calendar events. Social Hub is powered by the amazing push technology to deliver email messages, calendar events and SNS updates in real-time.
TouchWiz 3.0 UI – new and improved
The Samsung Wave provides superior levels of choice to all users via its fully customizable menus and home-page. For those who demand access to their social networking sites at all times, the device allows users to change the layout of the home-page to allow instant access to Twitter, Facebook and a host of other social networking services. For those who love music, the device home-page can be turned into an intuitive media player; while for those who take and share a lot of photos, the home page can be customized to feature favourite images. Users will also benefit from Quick Panel, a way of prioritizing and aggregating applications into one screen for instant access.
With its eye-catchingly brilliant screen, Samsung's latest TouchWiz 3.0 user interface gives a tactile, intuitive user experience, and includes iconic new features such as motion UI, Smart Unlock and customizable widget screen.
Speed, performance and beauty
The Samsung Wave benefits from a superb 1GHz processor which offers users the best graphic performance available today. Its speed makes the touch screen user interface incredibly responsive and intuitive and, more importantly, means that the 3D and memory-intensive graphic and video performance is unsurpassed.
The Samsung Wave is also one of the most attractive devices with seamless, streamlined body that has no parting or harsh lines. A beautiful and strong tempered glass display perfectly complements and enhances the vividness of the Super AMOLED display. Furthermore, with anti-smudge technology, those greasy thumb prints are a thing of the past.
Multimedia features and connectivity
Multi-codec support for DivX Xvid, MP4 and WMV, and support for virtual 5.1 surround sound delivery transforms the device into a personal entertainment system and HD video (720p) decoding and recording capabilities make the Samsung Wave an outstanding device for capturing, sharing and viewing video.
For the first time in the world, Samsung Wave is incorporated Bluetooth® 3.0 and WiFi 802.11n standard.
Samsung Apps: unlimited expandability
Samsung's bada platform allows mobile users to simply and easily download an abundance of applications from Samsung Apps, an integrated application store accessible from the device and online. Featuring a wealth of games, navigation, social networking, e-book, health and lifestyle applications, Samsung Apps gives users instant access to a huge choice of mobile experiences.
Samsung established its mobile application ecosystem through the launch of Samsung Mobile Innovator in 2008 and the Samsung Application Seller Site followed by Samsung Application Store as another key element of this offering. Already launched in the UK, France, Italy, Singapore, Germany, Brazil and China, this will be expanded to more than 50 countries all over the world in 2010.
Samsung is exhibiting at Mobile World Congress 2010, at Hall 8, Stand 8b 169.
For more information, please visit http://samsungmwc2010.com
Follow us to get all our news on twitter at www.twitter.com/SamsungMWC
@zap2
It means that Bada is likely running on top of Nucleos RTOS like many other Samsung/LG featurephones. Bada then is an API/toolkit that expands upon the reliability of Nucleos and enables it to be more powerful.
That is how I understand it, and how it makes most sense. Samsung have a LOT of experience with Nucleos RTOS and I'd be surprised if Bada is not based upon/running over Nucleos.
Nice looking phone! But the samsung name won't be in my pocket till they stand behind their products. I hope for everyone that buys it, that it never screws up, cause you'll get the same " sorry for your luck" responds that most people get from samsung.
@Irondog
Another Samsung smartphone owner I presume! How's dealin' with bugs and the disgusting lack of support going for ya?
Just another warning to people looking at this device and thinking "wow nice hardware" -- do not be fooled. The software is garbage and the support is even worse.
@Irondog Couldn't agree more. Great specs but Samsung = poor support. This phone may never see an update
Don't have to worry much about "full sunlight" here in Seattle...
Samsung: F**k everything, we're doing TEN homescreens.
looks like all those other samsung touchphones - hard and softwarewise ...
Is Dolfin browser any good on this thing?
The importance we place on multitouch is pretty ridiculous. It's nice to have, but to hate on a phone because you have to zoom by a slider or double tap instead of pinching is pretty silly. It's not essential like a QWERTY. I have an iPhone and even I think it's overhyped. I never pinch to zoom, it's all about the double tap.
*yawn* gimme android 2.1 or WinMo7 and a larger screen then Samsung have a serious contender...
more Android and less Bada next time
Whats the point of 720p decoding if you dont have a tv-output?
@shellshock For those that have DVRs that record stuff in 720p, that want to easily transfer it to their phone to watch without transcoding it. But yeah, a video output does make more sense.
@shellshock SPOT-ON
nice to see a another phone without this overhyped multitouch-nonsense. it seems that missing multitouch is all it takes for a new smartphone to be downranked by engadget editors.
I think the phone will not be a big hit
@8108 HAHAHA
The specs are great and all, but ... am I the only one who thinks it looks kirfy?
:/
the screen is capacitive so there might be an update like with android that would add multitouch
actually Bada supports multitouch, it's been made clear in the video presentation in december and there are even coding tutorials out for it...
http://www.badadev.com/multi-point-touch-example/
So what's that thing on the front that looks like a front-facing camera?
@RatioTitle
It probably IS a front facing camera, or a proximity sensor.
Most if not all european smartphones have front facing cameras. Nearly every provider in europe and asia offers video calling, and there are alot of softwares (fring, etc.) that support video calling with skype and other services. This is not a USA phone.
@DoctarPeppar That's what I was thinking, but there's nothing about it in the specs for some reason :-/
Do the editors of Engadget care about anything besides multitouch?
How is the bada OS in general - fast, customizable, intuitive?
What is the bada market for apps going to be like on release? Large selection, closed, open?
How well does it perform as a business phone - does it sync MS exchange calendar, contacts and let you select what folders of your inbox you want to sync?
@boe
They don't know -- this is a preliminary press release. When there is a full hands review article I'm sure they will answer those questions and more...Engadget is in the same boat as all of us, they have no idea what BADA is or what it can do.
WOAH A NEW SAMSUNG OMGAWD!
Looks like a great phone, but I just don't know if there's room for another OS in this market. I honestly expected one of the big six (iPhone, Blackberry, WebOS, Android, Symbian/Maemo, WinMo) to disappear or be absorbed by someone else before the year was out. Now we have another device instead. *Sigh*
Honestly, unless WinMo 7 absolutely blows me away and has great Zune, Xbox, Office, and Media Center connectivity, I'm probably just gonna get an Android set at this point. Plus I already have an old Zune 120 which I don't plan on replacing anytime soon.
@kenny goo
I use an Android phone plus a Zune 16 and I'm perfectly satisfied. It would be nice if I could play my Zune Pass music on my phone, but really I think playing music deserves its own dedicated device with hardware buttons to control music playback.
@Chefgon You have a Zune....people actually buy them. Ha you need to get with 2010 man..."OH MY ZUNE PLAYS HD....WELL IT DOES IF MICROSOFT LETS ME"...ONLY IF YOU CAN NAVIGATE TO THE VIDEO ON THEIR PITIFUL OS! You must be in high school...Zunes are the most unfriendly user devices next to a Windows computer!
@lsills81
Yes, people actually buy Zunes. While Microsoft doesn't have the marketshare that Apple has by a long shot, there are a lot of other PMP manufacturers out there (Sony, Archos, Creative, Sandisk, Conwon, Samsung, Toshiba. iriver). They have a good enough sales to be profitable. That's the point of making a product right?
As far as the Zune HD vs iPod Touch debate is concerned, it's largely up to preference. You want 720p HDMI out, HD Radio, an OLED display, a more pocketable device, a better price point, a Zune Pass, and XNA games you get a Zune HD. You want a larger, higher res screen, the App Store, faster hardware, a built in speaker, and the iTunes Store, you get an iPod Touch.
Personally, I got a Zune 120 because I needed the storage, and the device is far superior to an iPod Classic in just about every way. FM radio, wireless sync, a much larger screen, XNA games, and a noticeable lighter weight. Plus I got it brand new for $200 as opposed to the $250 an iPod Classic would run me.
As for the interface and OS, I like it very much. It has its pros and cons, but if you've used an actual Zune HD, it's very slick. It looks very nice, and it's just a solid alternative to the Touch's interface. Apps are a joke. I'll give you that, but as a whole it's largely left up to preference. As for the Zune Software, it makes iTunes look like a complete joke. iTunes feels and looks outdated, and it just can't keep up with the Zune software in my opinion.
Wait. Its Valentines day? Sh**
f**k phones without multi-touch
yes!!! tmobile 3g!
No multitouch.. EEEPIC FAIIIIL.. And my opinion is that it's ugly.. and touch wiz is ugly.. BUT thats just MY opinion of course
This seems like the kind of phone somebody would use as a go between, between the feature phone world, and the smartphone world.
I actually kind of want to buy it for my mom.
She would love the display and she wants a smartphone but at the same time says she doesn't really need one. She's had glorified feature phones her whole cellular life pretty much.
She WAS interested in the Pre (which is what I have) until Verizon's commercials. Hahaha
This I think would be perfect for her though because it's a feature phone with some features of a smartphone..
HA! The BlueBerry is WAY better than this.
Er, "USB v2.0 (Full-Speed)"? Is that a typo, or do they really mean that it only supports the same "full" 12 Mbit/s as USB 1.0? The actual full speed in 2.0 (480 Mbit/s) is called "Hi-Speed".