Samsung has just announced their fourth smartphone based on their homegrown operating system Bada: the Wave 723. Unlike the original Samsung Wave, this model was created to serve the mid range of the market. It has a 3.2 inch LCD with a WQVGA resolution, Bluetooth 3.0, WiFi, comes with a leather case [pictured below], has a 5 megapixel camera, and will sell for 240 EUR starting in September in Germany, and then other markets later this year. Samsung says this device will not come to America, citing that operators don’t want to launch devices with the Bada operating system over there. Makes sense. People want Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry.
The original Wave didn’t get much attention from the press, even though it had a competent specification sheet and managed to sell over 1 million units in just 4 weeks. In today’s world there’s only so much room for the various mobile operating systems, and with Samsung already making Android devices, and promising to make Windows Phone 7 devices, why bother pouring resources into a completely different operating system? I’ll never understand Bada, and have been poking fun at it since it was announced. I take it Samsung would like to do the same thing that Nokia is doing with Symbian, and that’s pushing the “smartphone” into lower and lower price points, but shouldn’t Samsung try doing that with an already established operating system?
Seriously. This device has the specifications of a low end Android phone, so why put Bada on it? No one likes TouchWIZ. Samsung even hired someone from a local University to help them make their software easier to use and more appealing to users. People who own the Galaxy S, or whatever your operator is calling it, wish it ran stock Android.
So in a nutshell: Wave 723: It’s cheap, it makes calls, it gets the job done, but I’d still stay away from it. Buy one of Nokia’s Cseries devices like the newly launched C6. It’s a better investment, both in terms of applications available for the platform, and system specifications.
[Via: Slash Gear]
Update: My fellow Editor Dusan has brought to my attention that the Wave 723 is not the second Bada phone to be released, but in fact the fourth. Earlier this summer Samsung announced the Wave 2 and Wave 2 Pro and I must’ve been on holiday or something because I don’t remember said devices. Anyway, article corrected!