The first Bada platform phone has arrived in the form of the Samsung Wave S8500 — using a new touch screen technology.
J.K. Shin, the president of Samsung’s phone division, said the goal of bada was to expand the market for smart phones, making them available to people across the world who have made do with non-smart phones.
The Samsung Wave release date is April in the UK, while other headline grabbing features are a 1GHz processor, anti-smudge technology for the screen and very welcome 802.11n wireless tech.
Measuring 800×480 pixels, it’s ideal for applications and multimedia alike – utilising a mobile version of the Digital Natural Image engine featured on Samsung’s LCD and LED televisions.
The device also features a Social Hub to integrate all contacts’ social networking profiles, and corresponding status updates and alerts. It integrates all messaging across SMS and social networking applications into a single ‘live’ mailbox.
Media-wise, there’s also multi-codec support for DivX and Xvid, 5.1 surround-sound-delivery transforms and 720p HD video decoding and recording. Beautiful.
There’s also a 5-megapixel camera with an LED photo light and heaps of image editing features. Your choice of 2GB or 8GB of on-board memory can be topped off with up to 32GB more in the microSD card slot.
According to Samsung, Super AMOLED reflects five times less light than original AMOLED.
Analysts, however, have been doubtful of Samsung’s efforts to belatedly build a new open platform. With limited volume, phones using bada will have difficulty attracting application developers or operator support.