Samsung Unveils Wave, First Bada Handset

While the world outside of OSAlert is wondering whether we really need yet another mobile operating system, we here are of course happy with another contender – the more, the merrier, as it equals to competition, which keeps everybody on their toes. A day before the Mobile World Congress kicks off in Barcelona (finally a tech event in my time zone!), Samsung unveiled its Wave handset, the first sporting Samsung’s new Bada operating system.

The Samsung wave packs a pretty punch, with a 1Ghz processor, “more than” 512MB RAM, 2GB or 8GB of internal storage, miniSD slot, 5 megapixel camera, aGPS, accelerometer, 802.11n WiFi, and BlueTooth 3.0. The screen is a 3.3″ 800~A—480 Super AMOLED, which, as the name suggests, is an improvement over regular AMOLED; it also comes with something called a mobile Digital Natural Image engine, and whoever knows what that does, please raise your hand.

All this fancy-schmanchy hardware allows the Wave to record in and play 720p video, while also capable of doing (I kid you not) virtual 5.1 surround sound. Codec-wise, it supports DivX, Xvid, MP4, and WMV. Notably missing from the Wave: multitouch. It runs Samsung’s new TouchWiz 3.0 interface on top of Bada.

Engadget had a chance to play with the Wave, and while they were impressed with the hardware and the speed of the device, the software was still a little rough around the edges here and there.

“The Samsung Wave truly demonstrates our commitment to deliver rich, connected and innovative smartphone experiences to everyone,” said JK Shin, President and Head of Mobile Communications Business at Samsung Electronics, “Samsung Wave sees our platform vision become a reality. For the first time, developers have the freedom to create applications across multiple platforms, for consumption on a huge range of devices. In the Wave, our developer partners can see the ocean of opportunity that is offered by the bada mobile platform and our device technology.”

The Wave is supposed to hit stores in April.

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