We've finally managed to get our hands on a final release unit of the Samsung Wave - and the good news is it's a darn sight better than the pre-production version we tested a few weeks ago, so read on to see the updated and final Samsung Wave review.
The Korean firm has made the somewhat leftfield decision to launch its own OS and with the new Samsung Wave it gets a phone with top-notch hardware to debut it on.
This isn't just another 'and me' Samsung phone – it's crammed to the hilt with high end features, such as HD video recording, a 1GHz Samsung-own Hummingbird processor, a super-slim chassis, the latest Super AMOLED screen and multi-touch support right out of the box.
However, it's still rocking Samsung's TouchWiz overlay, which is great if you like Samsung phones, but a very different experience for those joining the Korean giant for the first time.
So is this another middling handset from the firm that brought us more phones than we could shake a stick at last year, or is the Samsung Wave the first phone of a radical new dynasty?
The first two things to note about the Samsung Wave are obvious: the build quality and the screen just cram style into your eyeballs.
The phone is very slim at less than 11mm thick and the metallic build quality is apparent the second you hold it in your hand. Given a startling number of purchases are made in store based on how a phone feels this will be head and shoulders above the rest to that demographic.
The front is sparse in terms of buttons, with call, terminate and menu keys the only things apparent other than the 3.3-inch capacitive screen. The menu key is sculpted and nicely tactile, although perhaps a little large.
The rest of the phone is pretty simple: volume up/down keys on the left-hand side, lock and camera shutter keys on the right-hand side and the top sees a 3.5mm headphone jack and a microUSB connector with sliding cover.
Other than that, there's only the diamond-shaped 5MP camera on the back with accompanying LED flash, which all together gives the Wave a very refined look indeed.
And if you're impressed by the chassis, then you'll be amazed by the SuperAMOLED screen, with its high-res 480x800 WVGA screen with great viewing angles and jaw dropping contrast.
It zips along under the finger too, and allows you to see a huge amount of information, be it widgets on your home screen or a full internet page.
In short, the Samsung Wave looks the business, but while it's nice to get a phone out in the pub to impress your mates once in a while, you've still got to live with it day to day, so let's dive under the hood to see how it works.
Your comments (21) Click to add a new comment
hofoods
October 23rd 2010
21. I love the amoled screen. Its attractive! But while waiting recently before a meeting, a lot of us began to surf via wifi. Guess what? The Sony Xperia X2 was fastest followed by the Nokia N8, then Samsung Galaxy....the last was the HTC Desire! Yes, I am still very surprised considering how much hype the HTC have been getting.
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haavard
September 22nd 2010
20. I used Samsung Wave a week or so, and couldn't stand it. The phone has good hw, but the software is really bad. The e-mail app is worst, and with a very small app market there is no replacement.
Read more here:
http://blog.ostermann.no/#post2
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coolfx35
August 18th 2010
19. My wife got me my wave as a second phone on her contract and i love it even more so since i debranded it from my network . i have to keep a tight hold because my wife keeps threatening to swap it for her iphone..... not happening no way fantastic phone......can't find fault with it. If you are looking for samsung wave widgets, see http://www.samsungwaveforum.com a lot of free stuff there.
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jam
August 14th 2010
18. just received a wave, but it's going back pronto!
poor sensitivity / signal strength in rural areas. My old m/rola v3 has better reception than thisd and it's years old
clunky screen, widgets fill up the screen and
poor navigation
lousy battery life,best to date is 30 hours standby and little use.
Computer connection difficult, it should be a breeze these days with all the tech around.
Bada is Bad (might make an interesting poem line)
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jenar
July 27th 2010
17. Anyone got a fix for this problem please? I've tried to sync my Outlook calendar from my PC onto the phone and most of the appointments are fine, but some (not all) of the recurring appointments are showing the next day on the phone... reaaally annoying. I've tried a couple of different calendar apps and the inbuilt and tried re-syncing and still got the problem.
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stanjackos
July 23rd 2010
16. Has a.n.other missed the point. Are you not referring to the fact that the dreaded iPhone makes do without Flash, whereas the Samsung Flash implementation is poor. Maybe there are other Crack users out there but they just dont know it!
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gilgamesh2700bc
July 20th 2010
15. Although I don't want to mention that hated name "IPhone", it's almost exectly an IPhone 4 without signel problem which I've tested many times in many placees. Same camera, same CPU GPU RAM, Wave better screen colour, IPhone4 better screen resolution, not much difference in size, no dialing problem for Wave, yes for IPhone4, but remember one thing, Wave was released in February, 2010 and IPhone4 was released in June, 2010. Samsung hes already made Galaxy which is better than both Wave and IPhone4, again, without dialing problem.
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johnboy
July 19th 2010
14. Samsung Wave signal drop test.Buyers beware, if you purchase this very cute phone it is susceptible to a signal drop. similar to the iphone. The test --firstly check your signal strength . Then hold the phone in your normal manner and watch the bars drop by at least two. If you cup the lower third of the handset you may see it drop to zero. The signal will also drop whilst holding it in a normal fashion by two bars. If you are in a weak signal area make sure you allow the lower third of the phone not to be too well clamped or hard pressed to your cheek,
Maybe someone else can do the test and let me know how they got on?
I love this phone otherwise!
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mike18
July 18th 2010
13. Messaging SMS 15 messages / 2,295 char
I've seen this on the Samsung webpage.. what does it mean? It can only save 15 messages?
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answerguy
July 16th 2010
12. Vindap, tag mp3 file (using mp3 tag editor) with Album Art and you'll see the Cover image displayed on the CD carousel on Samsung Wave's Music player and with every correctly tagged mp3, Album menu etc.
I use EasyTag on Ubuntu for Windows you can google good mp3 tag editors.
Note: mp3 file size increase after tagging!
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dan_tiempo
July 16th 2010
11. pls help me how to download large pdf files on my fon... and if possible, teach me how to download files with isilo format coz it cant be read by the fon. thnx
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dan_tiempo
July 16th 2010
10. hi guys. i bought samsung wave a few weeks ago and i jsut love it. but i just hav a lil problem regarding with putting ebooks in it. when i try to send adobe formats of ebook from my laptop to my fon, some ebooks will not be recognized by the phone. small ebooks file will do but ebooks with larger files, like 60mg will not be read " file too large"" bu the fon.. is there anything i can do bout this? thanx.
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lizzy268
July 12th 2010
9. I got this phone for a few days and I think it's great. I've changed many cell phones over the past 10 years and this is the best one I've had so far. The only thing I am a little disappointed about this phone is that it only support a few input languages.
The review says that it has the autocorrect function but I can't seem to find it to turn it on; and one think I want to add about the double tapping shortcut to search function, this can actually be changed to other function of your choice.
sportydelle - you can simply connect the phone to your home wireless internet thru wi-fi and you and surf and download as much as you want, provided you have unlimited home internet. You many also download the apps from your PC and transfer it to the phone using Samsung Kies, which can be downloaded from Samsung website.
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wilsoa111
July 9th 2010
8. THINK TWICE BEFORE BUYING!
Having read this review i got this phone on a T mobile contract. The phone is indeed lovely...on the surface.My first one: i set up then began crashing randomly in its first hour-it went back- 2 days later the second one arrived same problem gives a screen of rubbish then gives "upload data to pc" until u take the battery out. All in all like a cute secretary, great package but you couldnt trust her to do her job properly
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sportydelle
June 16th 2010
7. soo, if i didnt get a deal for internet, i can just connect to my internet at home then download apps ? x
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garethtbeavis
June 14th 2010
6. @gary.b - thanks for the update on widget screens - updated.
We did enable the flash video, but we couldn't run things like BBC videos nor other flash sites - which did you use?
@vindap - there's no easy way with Samsung's software, but if you use a third party application (like Media Go from Sony Ericsson, which you can download) it will download them for you
@sportydelle - if you're out and about you will have to pay for the connection to the net to download the apps - however, if you don't have a deal then we suggest you use Wi-Fi at home as this will be free!
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sportydelle
June 13th 2010
5. hey, I am going to get this phone I love it so much, however I havent heard or seen yet I was wondering if any one could help me, can you downloads the apps for free or do you have to have unlimited internet
thanks x
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sportydelle
June 13th 2010
4. hey, I am going to get this phone I love it so much, however I havent heard or seen yet I was wondering if any one could help me, can you downloads the adds for free or do you have to have unlimited internet
thanks x
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vindap
June 13th 2010
3. I own a wave since a few days and like the device a lot. in The review a screenshot shows that in the media player one can associate a cover image to an album or song. How is that done? no option seems to be there to do this and nevertheless you placed a screenshot that implies it can be done. In the review it was mentioned that some options in the mediaplayer are difficult to be found. This one is no exception. Any suggestion?
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