Samsung Wave review

The Wave marks the long-awaited debut of Samsung’s very own bada operating system. Samsung is not abandoning other operating systems, but hopes bada will help it read wider audiences and add high end features to lower cost phones. It has made a good start, already selling over a millon units globally.

The handset itself looks absolutely stunning. Tall, thin and slim the chassis is the kind of mix of metal and plastic that gives it a very solid appearance.

One of the stand-out features of the Wave is its Super AMOLED screen.  It certainly lives up to the hype of being brighter and clearer than everyday AMOLED. Even in bright sunlight it was easier to read than a standard AMOLED display.

We were impressed with how ultra-responsive it is to the finger, too. Multitouch is supported, and no doubt the 1GHz processor helps it respond to our requests quickly. It is possibly the most responsive, most viewable screen we’ve ever seen on a smartphone.

The Wave runs TouchWiz, Samsung’s standard interface, here upgraded to version 3. Up to ten home screens are available and the widgets you can put on them, like the rest of the OS’s design, are sleek and neat to look at. Many of them provide live data. But there aren’t many on offer, and you can’t put shortcuts to apps on the home screen. Hopefully this will come, as without it the phone can’t really truly be personalised. At least you can reorder apps within the main menu.

There’s some fun to be had with the lock screen. Designed like a puzzle, the ‘missing piece’ is marked with missed calls and messages. Drag the piece to its slot on the puzzle and the handset opens to the missed message. Or simply swipe upwards to go to the home screen.

The Wave can pull in contacts from Gmail, Yahoo! and Microsoft Exchange, Facebook and Twitter – but getting them all to link up properly is a bit of a pain. Samsung needs to make this a more intuitive, less manual process.

There is an app store but it is hardly brimming with goodness. While you can start to bulk the phone out with a range of third party apps if you really want to take this approach you need to opt for the iPhone or Android.

It is great to see 802.11n supported in the Wi-Fi department. One of its greatest uses is Web browsing and the browser is sharp and  clear. Pinch to zoom is fast, but there’s no text reflowing – so you have to do a lot of scrolling to read a page. This makes Web browsing rather painful at times.

Of course this is an HSPDA handset and it has GPS too. Note, though, that Google Maps does not support bada. Samsung has its own, paid for app, which is nowhere near as good. As already hinted lack of bada support will likely be an issue for many of the apps you currently use.

There is a 5 megapixel camera with features like smile detection and that funny beauty mode that fiddles with the brightness to make people look more, er, becoming. The camera supports touch to focus too, a real boon if what you want to focus on isn’t actually the most obvious thing in the frame. There’s a front facing video calling camera too.

For a first attempt with a new OS we like the Wave. But bada is woefully short of apps support, and Samsung needs to think more about what the kinds of flexibility users want rather than imposing its own ideas – such as allowing shortcuts to apps on the main screens and letting you type a word even if it is not in the dictionary! And above all the jury is still out on whether there is really any need for another smartphone platform at all.

Price: £323 SIM-free
Web: www.samsungmobile.co.uk

Essential Verdict
Performance: 7/10
Design: 8/10
Features: 7/10
Value for Money: 8/10
Overall score: 7/10
The Wave is a stylish and appealing phone, but the bada OS might prove to be its achilles heel

Written by Sandra Vogel.

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