We knew it was coming, and here it is. Rogers has just launched the bada OS powered Samsung Wave (S8500) on their network.
The Wave is the first smartphone in the country to run bada, Samsung’s very own operating system. While reviews and rumblings on bada have been mediocre at best, I’m looking forward to see if the Wave makes any sort of mark on the Canadian mobile landscape. If apps are your thing, the Wave features access to ‘Samsung Apps’, Samsung’s aptly named app store. True, the amount of apps in the store will be minute at best, but the Samsung bada SDK is out and features multiple APIs, a simulator, UI builder and much more. We should see a number of new apps float into the application store should all go according to Samsung’s master plan. If you’re a developer looking to write for this new OS, you can head over to developer.bada.com for more details.
The Samsung Wave also features something called ‘Social Hub’. This feature lets you quickly manage all of your emails, IMs and social networking sites in one place, making it quick and easy to stay up-to-date with family, friends and colleagues. On top of that, Samsung’s TouchWiz 3.0 UI is built-in, and it includes new features such as customizable widget screen, motion UI and more.
Key specs on the Samsung Wave include:
- bada OS
- 3.3″ WVGA display (800×480)
- 5 megapixel camera with LED flash
- 720p video recorder
- TouchWiz 3.0 UI
- A-GPS
- Bluetooth 3.0
- WiFi
- 2GB on-board memory (expandable to 32GB via microSD)
- 3G
The Rogers Samsung Wave is available now for $99.99 on a 3-year contract, $374.99 on a 2-year, $424.99 on a 1-year and $474.99 outright. For all the details head on over to Rogers.
So what do you think? You gettin’ one? Or could you care less about bada OS?