mobileu.co.uk

Wave smartphone from Samsung arrives in UK

Samsung has announced that the Wave, its first Bada-based smartphone, has begun shipping to UK telecom companies, so will soon be available to UK consumers.

Bada is the new smartphone OS from Samsung and will offer a range of downloadable apps, similar to the App Store concept from Apple. Apps for the handset will be available in 80 countries and Samsung has also published a software development kit (SDK) to encourage development and innovation.

J K Shin, president and head of the mobile communications business at Samsung Electronics, has been quoted as saying: “This launch will make our platform vision a reality, and consumers, developers and operators will experience the freedom of choice that Bada enables."

The Wave has Samsung’s TouchWiz 3.0 user interface and includes a Super Amoled display with anti-smudge technology to help keep the screen fingerprint-free. It also includes Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi 802.11n standards, a 5-megapixel camera, GPRS, 3G and Edge.

Vodafone’s web store is currently taking pre-orders for the device and says that it will ship on June 1st. An unlocked version of the handset is retailing at £399.99 on Play.com and at £375 on Expansys and both of these retailers are also shipping in early June.