Samsung S8500 Wave preview: First look Tweet

Gsmarena have posted a preview of the new Samsung S8500 Wave. Here are the phone's key features and their final impression.

Samsung S8500 Wave at a glance:
* General:GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS 1900/2100 MHz, EDGE class 10, HSDPA 7.2 Mbps and HSUPA 2 Mbps
* Form factor:Touchscreen bar
* Dimensions:10.9 mm thin
* Display:3.3" 16M-color Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with 16:9 aspect ratio and 480 x 800 pixels resolution, scratch-resistant glass surface
* Platform: Bada OS
* CPU: 1 GHz processor
* Memory: 2GB internal memory, microSD card slot
* Camera: 5-megapixels auto-focus camera, 720p video recording
* Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP, standard microUSB port, GPS receiver with A-GPS, 3.5mm audio jack
* Misc: Accelerometer for screen auto rotate, proximity sensor for screen auto-turn-off, ambient light sensor, FM radio with RDS, DivX/XviD support, multi-touch input and pinch-zooming gestures
* Battery: 1500 mAh battery

The Samsung S8500 Wave is an interesting device indeed. Performance is pretty good even at this early stage and we take it as a promise there will be little to complain about in the end. While the limited 3rd party software puts it to a disadvantage, the impressive display and the latest Bluetooth 3.0 seem the perfectly good reasons to give it a try.

However, Samsung better learn from their mistakes and provide better support for it than they did for the Omnia HD. A pretty amazing piece of technology itself, the Omnia HD failed to generate as much developer interest as Samsung must've hoped. In the end, it was never able to live up to its full potential. They did indeed come up with new firmware but it was both late and poorly distributed.

So, users should hope Samsung S8500 Wave and Bada OS in general has better fate and receives the after-sale support that it deserves. When you develop a new OS from scratch, making updates convenient for both users and developers is vital.

The other vital thing is to attract a large enough user base so developers feel motivated to write apps. With this kind of potential, a proper sales strategy can do wonders for the S8500 Wave.

OK, but what about the Bada OS. The key thing at this point is it's welcoming and familiar, a smarter TouchWiz as we know it. We guess, it will be as good as the applications that will run on it. But that's yet to be seen. The Bada OS is perhaps a must-have for Samsung. And Smartphone for everyone is perhaps more than a slogan. Just look at where Nokia are heading with the Cseries.

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