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Samsung Bada SDK hits version 1.0; in other news, a tree falls and no one's around to hear it
Is anyone developing for Bada? Hello, anyone? Seems like all of the hotshot code monkeys out there are (or at least should be) working on bigger, hotter platforms -- some of which Samsung is fully supporting -- but be that as it may, Sammy has just gotten around to releasing the final 1.0 version of its Bada SDK for devs interested in trying their hand at busting out a Wave app or three. The full SDK package (which includes a number of languages, some of which you may not care to work on) measures over 1.3GB, so it's going to take some commitment, a fast connection, and a hard drive not filled to the brim with Android app projects to get it installed.
HTC Gold with Windows Phone 7 in November, and more from a rumored UK roadmap leak
O, to see what Omio sees. The outlet has obtained what it claims to be "a huge UK mobile phone release schedule for the rest of the year... [from] all the manufacturers" (emphasis its own). So, from where would such an all-encompassing roadmap hail? We don't know, nor can we corroborate any of this, but the details are numerous so let's go through it -- albeit with cautious optimism and a few grains of salt. The biggest phone we can see of this baker's dozen of a lineup is the HTC Gold (sound familiar?), due in November and loaded with Microsoft's mobile OS newcomer Windows Phone 7. Unfortunately, that's all the information provided, but it's certainly enough to entice us. Also in November, we've got Samsung i8700 and Nokia E7 -- the latter being possibly a N8-esque QWERTY slider with AMOLED display and Symbian^3, and the former being a mystery (although Omio takes a gander that its aquatic Greek mythology might suggest a Bada-powered existence). Going up the list Memento style, October purportedly brings across the pond-ers HTC Vision, the virtually unknown HTC Ace, Nokia N8, and Sony Ericsson's Xperia X8 and Yendo. September's a bit of a yawner -- SE Hazel and a Nokia X2 candybar -- as is August with the X6 8GB and BlackBerry Curve 9300. And July? Nokia E5-00, Sony Ericsson W20, and Samsung i5500. As is usually the case, the more you can wait, the better your options. Now, let's see if this supposed roadmap stays on course.
Skyhook hones in on another partner, Samsung's Wave to geo-locate like no other
Skyhook Wireless seems to have located itself yet another major partner in its continued quest to pinpoint every single cellphone owner in the world. Sure, we're exaggerating a bit just to get you riled up, but there's no arguing the fact that the company fulfills "hundreds of millions of location requests every day across over 100 million handsets, netbooks and cameras." Or so it says, anyway. The latest company to buy into Skyhook's geo-locating promise -- which uses a mysterious combination of GPS, cellular and WiFi data to get a darn good lock on your current position in most any environment -- is Samsung, with the Bada-equipped Wave (S8500) first to tout it. As time goes on, even more Sammy phones will utilize Skyhook's technology, though we're left to wonder what exactly those models will be. Anyone up for educated guessing?
Samsung Wave shipping with infected microSD card (confirmed, limited to first run)
Did you get a Samsung Wave today, or perhaps early last week? You might not want to connect it to your computer, just in case. We're hearing anecdotal reports that the 1GB microSD card shipped with certain German units includes a nasty surprise: it automatically installs the trojan Win32/Heur using the file "slmvsrv.exe." While we're not sure exactly what the virus does or if it's widespread, there's no point in finding out the hard way, right? Install a good antivirus program and then format that sucker, or better yet, simply drop in a larger microSDHC card. Don't forget this thing plays DivX HD, people -- you're going to need more than a single gigabyte of storage. Update: Samsung HQ got in touch with MobileBurn to confirm the existence of the virus in shipping S8500 Wave handsets, but said that the outbreak was confined to the German market's initial production run and all other shipments are A-OK. Still, there's no harm in disabling autorun before connecting one to your PC, eh?
Samsung Wave brings Bada to Europe today, everyone else told to wait
Samsung's Wave (otherwise known as the S8500) may not be coming to Vodafone UK until June 1st, but it's available somewhere in Europe starting today. According to a new release from the outfit (seen in full after the break), today marks the first day in which its first Bada-equipped smartphone is available in Europe, with Germany, France and the UK mentioned in particular. We're also told that the "complete Bada SDK 1.0.0 will be available for download shortly," and while pricing details weren't discussed, the Wave should ride to Southeast Asia, China, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America in short order. Don't everyone cheer at once, okay?
Samsung Wave hits Vodafone UK on June 1, free on £25 a month plans
The UK is about to get its first taste of Samsung's Bada OS courtesy of the Wave, which is launching with Vodafone on June 1. Already announced amid the carrier's list of "coming soon" devices, this Super AMOLED-sporting phone has now been slapped with pre-order availability and some pricing info. Should you opt for Voda's £25 ($36) per month two-year plan, which also furnishes you with 300 free minutes, unlimited texts, and a 500MB data allowance, you can have the Wave for free. Prices start to climb from there, though strangely enough, no 12-month or partially subsidized options are on offer. And before we forget, buying this phone will also get you a Vodafone McLaren Mercedes rucksack as an extra freebie -- how's that for value?
Samsung releases Bada SDK for developers who want to ride the Wave
Samsung still hasn't managed to get the Wave or any other Bada handset to market yet, but it's doing the right thing by offering developers the software development kit first. Granted, with a planned June release Samsung isn't managing the same sort of massive lead-time that Microsoft has with its Windows Phone 7 SDK, but a few weeks of pressure-free coding are better than none. The first public SDK for Bada was just made available yesterday, and inside developers will find an Eclipse-based IDE, a phone emulator, and tutorials. You can get it all for yourself at the source link below, but make sure you get your reading glasses out before clicking through. You'll need to agree to not one, not two, but four separate sets of terms and conditions before you can get this 606MB download flowing, and a fifth before it'll install. Oh, and it's all C/C++ based, so if you've been living in the merry land of Java and C# lately you'd better brush up on pointer dereferencing and interface definitions. [Thanks, Sacha]
Samsung Bada handsets of the future revealed in presentation slide
Just in case you had any doubts about Samsung's commitment to the physical keyboard, here's a slide of the Korean giant's Bada OS roadmap, filled with rubbery QWERTY buttons aplenty. At top left you can see the Wave -- which Samsung places in its "premium image brand" together with the Galaxy S -- priced at 20,000 Rubles (just under $700), followed by its as yet nameless and spec-less Bada siblings. Our interest is piqued most by the QWERTY slider that's sat so perfectly atop the 10,000-Ruble line, we wouldn't mind seeing the Super AMOLED screen tech trickling down to such a price point. We wouldn't mind that at all. All About Phones has also spotted two Windows Mobile and one Android handset during the presentation, though Sammy has been predictably recalcitrant about specs on those as well. All we're told is to wait for the autumn. Guess that will have to do. [Thanks, Muhammad]
Samsung Wave is world's first DivX HD phone, Galaxy S in a hurry to be world's second
Want some DivX-encoded 720p goodness on your fancy new superphone? Samsung will be the way to go, at least in the short term. The Korean company has announced that its Bada-infused Wave handset will be the first phone with certified support for DivX HD playback, with the freshly announced, Android-driven, Galaxy S following up at an unspecified point in time. Guess we're finally going to get the content to do justice to those spectacular Super AMOLED displays. Hit up Engadget Spanish for the full PR while we get to work on transcoding our entire DVD collection.
Samsung's Super AMOLED-packin' Wave S8500 priced in Germany: €429
Samsung's world-beater -- you know, that Wave S8500 that debuted back at Mobile World Congress -- was revealed without one of the most vital statistics, but that's being remedied today courtesy of a product listing over at Amazon's German portal. The Bada-equipped device, complete with a Super AMOLED display that's supposedly viewable in broad daylight, has found a €429 MSRP across the pond, which equates to around $579 using today's highly volatile exchange rates. Granted, that's a contract-free (read: unsubsidized) price, but we're still going to hold out for a late-night session with the new OS before pinging our importer. Plus, those funky European AC adapters do nothing at all for us. Sorry.Update: Looks like some other German outlets have it priced even lower. Huzzah!
Samsung Wave shows what's Super about its AMOLED display by going outdoors (video)
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.
Samsung's Wave gets the preview treatment
What, our hands-on with video wasn't good enough for you? Fine, Eldar at Mobile-Review.com has a rather lengthy preview of Sammy's 1GHz Bada phone, the Wave, including so many macro photos you could probably make yourself a compelling reproduction of Mr. Murtazin's thumbprint. Impressions of this pre-production phone were very positive, coming to the conclusion that it will "definitely become one of the milestones not only for Samsung, but also the whole industry." Yeah, it's looking that good, but we do have to wonder just how warmly the buying community is going to welcome yet another mobile OS. We'll find out soon enough, as the phone is set for release in April.
Samsung Wave first hands-on: Bada-packed and super fast (video!)
Well, we just had our first encounter with Samsung's new Bada-sporting Wave handset. We'll say this to start... the screen is gorgeous, and the phone itself is super fast. No hesitation almost anywhere, but it's hard to make a judgment call at this point. A lot of the software seemed unfinished, and we saw a few crashes and weird behavior. Still, it's clearly a device capable of handling some pretty intense work, and a Samsung rep we spoke to wanted to emphasize its ability to multitask. We were also told that the phone has more than 512MB of RAM, which is notable for a device of this type. We're going to play with it a bit more and flesh out our impressions, but for now feast your eyes on the gallery... and check the video after the break! A few more takeaways (with some input from senior editor Thomas Ricker): Overall the device feels like a glorified feature phone, and speaking to some other tech folks here, that feeling seemed to be common. There just doesn't seem to be a lot to it that we haven't seen in other Samsung devices, especially considering the TouchWiz integration. There was an issue with flipping the keyboard from portrait to landscape -- as we said the phone is early, so this may change, but we had to leave an app and reopen in the other orientation to get it working. We also noticed that there doesn't seem to be word prediction in place right now. The browser is redirecting to WAP pages, so it was hard to see what the results were. We also thought the buttons were in a very odd place, making it a bit hard to navigate. The display wasn't always responding to touches, and at least one unit completely froze on us. For those asking, from the looks of things (and the press release) there is no multitouch on this device. Correction... we just tried pinching and zooming on the phone and while it did create some kind of zoom result, it also kept giving us an error! Furthermore, when we tried to load an image heavy site, it forced the phone into its task manager mode and made us close all applications before we could proceed with using the phone. Clearly there is work to be done. %Gallery-85462%
Samsung Wave: 3.3-inch Super AMOLED, Bluetooth 3.0, and new Bada OS (updated)
How's about a little smartphone love on Valentine's Day? Samsung's press conference just got underway in Barcelona, and one of Mobile World Congress' first smartphones to debut this year is a real doozy. The Wave (S8500) that we've heard so much about lately is finally official, and it's the first handset to ship with Bluetooth 3.0. It's also packing 802.11n WiFi, TouchWiz 3.0 and the company's own Bada mobile platform. You'll also get a 3.3-inch "Super AMOLED" (saywha?) display, and while the 800 x 480 resolution is just dandy, the lack of multitouch is a real buzz kill. Digging into the internals, you'll find a 1GHz processor, 5 megapixel camera, aGPS, accelerometer, 2GB or 8GB of internal storage space, a microSD expansion slot, multi-codec support for DivX, XviD, MP3 and WMV, and support for virtual 5.1 surround sound and 720p recording / decoding. The company's also touting its mDNIe (mobile Digital Natural Image engine) technology, which is already used in its LCD and LED TV lineups; in other words, this phone is probably one of the better ones for multimedia viewing (so long as you don't venture under direct sunlight, of course). It'll be available worldwide starting in April, but unfortunately pricing remains a mystery. Full specifications and press release are after the break. 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. %Gallery-85459%
Samsung S8500 Wave caught in a spigot of leaks
Trust in yourself, son, the increase in smartphone news that you sense is not imagined, it's very very real. Mobile World Congress is about to kick off in Barcelona which means we're just hours away from being knee-deep in the stuff. One of the most anticipated devices is the Samsung Wave, first spotted on billboards around Barcelona yesterday. The anticipation is warranted for 2 reasons. First, this 3.3-inch candybar slate is presumably sporting Samsung's new Super AMOLED which should help with outdoor viewing. And b, it's the first phone to run Samsung's new Bada smartphone OS... yes, another one, developers. According to Daily Mobile, the Wave S8500 brings a1GHz processor, 5 megapixel autofocus camera with flash, 720p video recording to 2GB of internal memory or microSD expansion, 802.11b/g/n WiFi and HSDPA data, DivX video support, and a 3.5-mm audio jack in a device measuring 10.9-mm thick. Unfotunately, we can't confirm any of those specs yet (wait until Sunday's press event) -- the pics, however, certainly match up with what we've already seen. We've dropped in a few choice shots after the break, the rest are at Daily Mobile in the link below. [Thanks, Daniel]
Samsung Wave launching Bada onto its very first handset at MWC
There's something nice and unequivocal about a huge billboard popping up in the host city of major tradeshow, and Samsung's Wave handset is making just such an entrance at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The previously unannounced handset will be running Samsung's brand new Bada platform, and appears to be a full touchscreen handset from the look of things. Enough touchscreen for a 3.3-inch 800 x 480 Super AMOLED display? We sure hope so, and we'll be finding out in just a few days. [Thanks, Danijel]
Samsung's first Bada phone with Super AMOLED to be announced on February 14th? Sure.
By now you're undoubtedly aware than Samsung has a new smartphone OS (Bada) and touchscreen technology (Super AMOLED) in the works. In this case, putting 2 and 2 together yields 14, a number that matches Samsung's February 14th press event at Mobile World Congress. How so? Well, first of all, Sammy is promoting the Samsung Unpacked teaser page from its Bada site. The ocean-themed teaser ("bada" means "ocean" in Korean) says, "on 2.14 a new mobile from Samsung is born. See it first in Barcelona." A quick look at the teaser site's source reveals the keywords "Bada," "smartphone," and "AMOLED." In other words, you can bet that Samsung will be unveiling a 3.3-inch, 800 x 480 pixel Super AMOLED (already rumored for a next week reveal) touchscreen Bada phone on February 14th. P.S. The image above comes courtesy of GSM Arena. While the site won't say what the device is on the left it's clearly running Samsung's Bada UI and is likely AMOLED judging by those deep blacks. The display is also slightly smaller than the iPhone 3G's 3.5-inch display. Gee... what could it be?
Samsung's first 'Super AMOLED' phone to debut next week?
Remember Samsung's new 3.3-inch AMOLED with embedded touch-controls? If not then you'd better go back and brush up on your display tech because the first Samsung phone using the new 800 x 480 pixel "Super AMOLED" display is said to be getting a reveal next week at the big Mobile World Congress show. The panel is claimed to be five times "clearer" and offer 20% better visibility when used outside -- the biggest weakness of existing AMOLED devices like the Zune HD and Nexus One. We're also going to guess that the new device will be running Samsung's new Bada OS at the time of the reveal -- but that's not exactly a stretch.
Bada getting 'latest version of TouchWiz,' first model a lock for MWC
The screen shots we've seen of Bada so far don't really remind us of the TouchWiz we know and love (or hate) today, but a new blog post on Samsung's official Bada site says that the platform will definitely be hooked up with "the latest version of TouchWiz" with "chic touch interaction and components to increase its simplicity and ease of use." What's unclear is whether this'll be a ground-up rethinking of Sammy's classic full-touch user experience or just a grafting of its latest production version onto Bada -- but the good news is that we'll find out soon enough, because the company goes on to say that we'll be seeing "the new Bada smartphone at MWC this month." We'll admit, we don't know how we feel yet about the use of "Bada" and "smartphone" in the same sentence -- but we'll know plenty more in a couple of weeks.
Samsung M3710 to become Corby Beat, offer Bada-esque game store
It's not actually running anything approximating Bada, but Samsung's new M3710 has at least one feature that'll apparently become a staple of Bada-powered phones: a built-in Games Store that serves up Java-based apps. That's the word from omniscient industry pundit Eldar Murtazin, anyhow, who also pegs the M3710 as the Corby Beat -- a logical extension to the already-bulging Corby line, we suppose, given the similarity in appearance to some of the existing models and the presence of dedicated music keys along the bottom. As specs go, this sucker's got a 2.8-inch QVGA display, 3 megapixel camera, and WiFi; if you're noticing a striking similarity to the M5650 Lindy, that's because this seems to be exactly the same thing save for a lack of 3G and video call capability. mobile@mail.ru pegs it for a February launch for around 9,000 rubles ($304) SIM free, and realistically, odds are good you can eventually expect it in most of the same countries other Corby phones have hit so far.
