Direct sunlight -- is there anything more terrifying for an
OLED screen? Up until now, you had to sacrifice some outdoor performance from your phone's display in order to get the
spectacular contrast and viewing angles on offer from OLEDs.
Up until now.
Samsung's Wave has been taken for a quick spin by Dutch publication
portablegear and while we've no idea what their feedback on the phone was, the moving pictures speak for themselves. The phone remains entirely readable and usable in spite of the bright environment around it -- if you question how much light is hitting it, just take a look at the hand of the person holding it -- and color saturation is maintained throughout.
Samsung promised us a great media experience on the handset, but this quick demo places its Super AMOLED tech a clear step above... well, every other display out there. The wildly impressive video awaits after the break, and you can find more imagery and our hands-on impressions
here.
posted February 16th 2010 5:01AM
screen is nice, too bad the rest of the phone is so lame.
@vlad the inhaler
I believe the Samsung Galaxy S fixes the lame part.
Stunning screen and hardware. Shame that its using BADA
@fatjoe
I don't like the parts that are not open source and they amount to about...100% of Bada.
@fatjoe
I don't like the part which is not open source and it amounts to about...100% of Bada.
@Plexus
Samsung, why oh why must you keep teasing us like this?
@vintoe that's one shuper AMOLED dishplay.
@vintoe Overall, I believe that the fast processor and the display are the two pillars of the Samsung Wave. At the moment, the proprietary OS and the current lack of apps are a bit of a turn off, but Samsung is trying really hard to ramp this up quickly. Time will tell.
Also, the super AMOLED live up to its name for providing a brighter luminance even under the sun. More: http://bit.ly/samsung-wave-s8500-opinions
@fatjoe
So your attacking someone caused they dont do software? what about we dont want a shitty os? Android is constantly getting updates and is open. what is good about bada? you havnt given a reason to why its good
Wow, that is sweet. I hope that display technology is going to be the standard on every large-screen phones.
Actually it would be more impressive if the hand and surrounds were properly exposed. The hand (and surrounding area) looks so bright (over exposed) as the camera had to open the iris up (brighten up) the exposure to show the screen properly as it was much darker than the surrounds.
I'm not judging the actual performance, just the opinion that it looks looks clear when the surrounds look so bright, its actually the other way around...
@GuyB
That was my first thougt too.
Nevertheless the screen performance is stunning.
Right before the end of the video, the phone gets rotated to an angle so that the top right corner reflects the sky. As usual, the screen becomes impossible to see.
I'm not sure how this phone's screen has improved upon this problem since that is similar to the behavior of my Nexus One: it's fine as long as the reflection is dark, but as soon as I try to use it at an angle that reflects the sky, it becomes impossible to read the screen.
Samsung has been making a lot of badass (hardware-wise) phones, even before this one. The only problem I have with their phones is finding apps for it, since their OS is not as widely used as compared to Symbian, WinMo or even Apple's own.
@fisher
The problem with Samsung is that they're Samsung. And Samsung are like Sony Ericsson and Nokia. Delectable hardware which they manage to mar with horrid software.
My Nexus One is envious of this thing's screen, but I am happy to not have to deal with TouchWiz Mk 2 aka Bada or whatever the hell crapware and also the decidedly inelegant design of this. Same goes for the Halo. Oh, and it's a brick.
@DestrictoEnse Well the Halo does have a pico projector. It's pretty thin if you account for that.
I think that it's mostly a girl-for phone. Buttons under the screen, backside camera look sweet but not serious.
@rainbury I thought chicks dig pictures while guys dig movies and games. Did I get a sex change and not know it? Feel free to downrank, but my point is I love the screen and I don't find that to make me feminine and I'm in the minority but I could give a damn about a camera on a phone still, it should have one but 5, 8, 12 mp, I could give a....
It's such a shame that Samsung introduces such innovative new hardware (AMOLED screens, HD recording and pico projector leaps to mind) but due to some epic cluelessness, they then power this hardware with such horrendous custom operating systems and UIs.
Somebody rip this screen off and put it on a Winmo7 phone already!
@Insomnihack
I'm quite sure Samsung will put it in a Winpho7 device, come x-mas.
@Insomnihack What exactly is wrong with developing a new phone OS if the current choices on the market are not working out for you. Personally I would never want a WinMo device ever again, but that is me.
@AlaskanHandyman
I'm going to assume you didn't see yesterday's presentation on the new WinMo OS
@Insomnihack W7S isn't coming for 6 + months, from the sound of things, so them not announcing a W7S phone is fine. They announced an android with killer hardware, wait on the W7S and let them do their thing in the meantime. As far as I know, there isn't a single W7S phone comfirmed, but I'm actually catching up on the past 12 hours and I know how fast things can change at MWC so please excuse me if I missed something.
Dutch -> English :
"The Samsung Wave is Samsung's first handset to run on their own new operating system, Bada. This handset's most exciting feature is the extremely clear Super AMOLED display. It provides an excellently legible image, even when outdoors. Five megapixel camera, 720p hd recording and playback, WiFi, GPS, social network support, the Wave ticks all the boxes!"
Just in case anyone was wondering: they don't say anything useful in the video. They just state its specs. It sounds rather like an advert for the phone, would definitely not call it a review.
Nice display though :).
I can see some things other phone makers should copy from this phone:
-Calling keys (remember that these are phones...and Android nor Iphone have them)
-Front facing camera. Like the possibility of making videocalls.
-Dedicated DSP for music and video: lets wait for the reviews but I expect nothing sort of spectacular (remember that apple audio DSP is made by Samsung...)
-Best screen, no discussion here.
I cannot understand so many criticism as the the phone has not even been reviewed....
@Kohai -Dedicated DSP for music and video: lets wait for the reviews but I expect nothing sort of spectacular (remember that apple audio DSP is made by Samsung...)
Apple has always skimped budget on their audio and put the money in marketing and software as that's what gets them their mass markets, samsung has always gone above them with hardware, compare MP3/PMP audio and their lossless and s/nr on top end devices always put Apple to shame.
@juanvaldez sorry, lossless (format support).
@Kohai I think the main issue is the OS. I just fail to see the point. I see why there is the iPhone OS, though I'm not a fan of it. I understand why there is Android. And Windows Phone 7 Series (what a name... why not Windows Mobile 7?). And WebOS. They all have to offer something that the others don't. A unique UI (7, WebOS), open plattform (Android) or a lot of apps. Is Bada fast? Who knows, let it run on some antique CPU like the Qualcomm 528 MHz ones most Androids use and we will see. Will it be Samsungs new feature phone OS? (that's how it looks like anyway) If so, then why put it on blazingly fast hardware? Even Samsung already uses WinMo 6.5, Symbian and Android, and next year probably WinMo 7 too. Do they just want to burn their resources? Don't they have work to do? I just don't get it.
Wow! I thought they only said it was a 20% improvement over their previous AMOLED...? NICE!!
I do hope that this is the same technology Apple has secured for the iPhone 4G (I believe). If they go for the same OLED as in the Nexus One, then the amazing sunlight performance of the iPhone - and a key selling feature for me - would have gone out the window. I just hope Samsung will have made this technology available to Apple...
That kinda sounded like Sean Connery in the video.
was that sean connery narrating that video?
There was continuous shade over the phone the light wasnt exactly directly reflecting from the screen.
Man, Dutch is a messed up language.
The Super-AMOLED display, however, is superb. Will Samsung license the technology to other manufacturers or will we only see this kind of AMOLED on Samsung devices?
Give me a thin Windows Phone 7 Series device with a 3.7-inch Super AMOLED (perferably FWVGA) and I will be a very happy camper (as long as the development platform for Windows Phone 7 Series doesn't suck).
Hey have u lot noticed that the wave looks a lot like the old samsung u600 except without the buttons
i am not too impressed with BADA OS looking at the video but i dont want to judge book by its cover. i haven't played with one myself
I do not understand why you guys are such haters of the AMOLED outdoors. I have an Omnia HD and the screen is easily viewable outdoors, use it outside all the time no problems, even comparable to my friends iPhone. Certainly much better performance in the sunlight than 95% of the TFT screens out there. I am speaking from personal experience. Still, the SuperAMOLED looks SuperSWEET, much better than anything else.
I thought that was Sean Connery speaking there for a second in the beginning.