Review: Samsung Wave II

How can a smartphone stand out from the sea of options available today? Simple: over-the-top attention to detail, build quality and a fantastic screen that blows you away with eye-popping colours and deep blacks.

The Wave II (or S8530) is powered by Samsung?s own Bada operating system and it is their second phone on the Bada platform after the Wave. It?s not a small or light phone by any stretch, but it is quite slim at 11.5mm and feels very solid and well put together. The screen occupies most of the front, with chrome answer/end buttons and a large central button just below. Along the side, it has the buttons for the camera shutter, lock and volume.

In many ways, the Bada OS is similar to Android. Like Android, Bada has a notification area on top of the screen. It also has multiple, customisable home screens. Even the homescreen wallpaper moves from side to side as you swipe through the multiple screens.

There are a lot of appealing things about the Wave II. The screen is not AMOLED, but the Super Clear LCD offers excellent colours and richness. The liberal use of metal panels gives it a very solid feel. Multimedia playback is excellent (especially DivX movies, which playback without any conversion). The new T9-Trace input method allows you to type a work by tracing a path on the keyboard (similar to Swype on Android & Symbian^3). And thanks to the 1Ghz ARM Cortex A8 processor and dedicated graphics chipset, there is a lot of power under the hood for the nice animations and everything runs along without any hiccups or lags.

Call quality is excellent and the large 1500mAh battery will surely last you a day even with heavy usage of email, music, calls and messages. The camera takes good pictures in daylight, and the bright LED flash also helps at night, though as expected, some noise does creep into low light shots.

All the most-used applications are available for Bada, but if you are always on the lookout for new, interesting, lesser-known apps, then you should look elsewhere. It?s no secret that that the pace of app development on Bada is nowhere that of Android or iPhone. And this is the one biggest drawback of this platform. The number of applications is growing of course, but if you buy this phone, will you be keeping it long enough to enjoy the benefits?

The MRP of the Wave II is Rs 20,900, but the actual market price is closer to Rs 17,000. At that price, the Wave II is an excellent option for those looking a high-performance smartphone with a fantastic screen and great build quality. However, if apps will become a sore point, it would be wiser to go for Android. Motorola?s Defy is available for about the same price. It also has a 3.7-inch screen and it is water proof to boot.

SAMSUNG WAVE II

Price: Rs 20,900

Features
Bada 1.2, 3.7-inch 480 x 800 pixel Super Clear LCD
1Ghz processorwith dedicated GPU, 5MP camera, 720p HD video, Wi-Fi
A-GPS, 1500mAh battery, 135 grams

Pros: Great screen, performance
CONs: Limited app support

ALSO SEE

Motorola Defy

Price: Rs 18,000

Android 2.1
800Mhz processor
3.7-inch capacitive LCD, water proof, rugged

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