Samsung’s first bada phone – the Samsung Wave S8500 – is finally here. A few months ago we reviewed a prototype unit, which left us with rather high expectations for the final product. Now that it’s here, we are ready to see what Samsung’s latest and greatest creation has to offer. Being a full-featured mobile platform however, bada will inevitably face some pretty strong competition in the form of BlackBerry, webOS, Android and iPhone OS.

In terms of hardware, there’s plenty to like about the Wave S8500. Measuring a slender 10.9mm thick, the fascia is taken up by a 3.3-inch WVGA Super AMOLED display, brighter than regular AMOLED, while there’s a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash and autofocus, 720p HD video recording, WiFi b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0. Otherwise it’s the usual mixture of dualband (900/2100MHz) HSPA, quadband GSM/EDGE, a microSD card slot (augmenting 2GB or 8GB of internal storage, SKU depending), A-GPS and a 3.5mm headphone socket. Keeping things running is Samsung’s own 1GHz Hummingbird processor, and the whole thing feels high-quality with a metallic chassis that’s certainly more smartphone than it is feature-phone.

Being the first of a kind has its implications. Some may be willing to forgive a few flaws but a brand new OS needs a flagship capable of facing up to the competition. The S8500 Wave fits the bill. Trademark Samsung exterior and premium build are inviting enough to encourage exploring a wealth of features.

Key features

• 3.3″ 16M-color Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, WVGA (480 x 800 pixels), multi-touch input support, scratch-resistant glass surface
• Solid 10.9mm-thin metal body
• Bada OS with Samsung Apps
• ARM Cortex A8 based 1GHz CPU
• Quad-band GSM support with dual-band 7.2Mbps HSDPA, 2Mbps HSUPA
• Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n connectivity with WPS support, Wi-Fi tethering app
• Built-in GPS receiver with A-GPS support, digital compass, Samsung Mobile Navigator
• 5 MP autofocus camera with touch focus, geo-tagging, face, smile and blink detection and LED flash
• 720p video recording at 30fps
• 390MB user available memory, 1GB Bada apps storage and 550MB messaging storage
• microSDHC card slot
• Standard microUSB port and Bluetooth v3.0 with A2DP
• Standard 3.5mm audio jack, TV out
• Stereo FM radio with RDS, FM recording
• Webkit-based Samsung Dolphin Browser 2.0 with full Flash support
• YouTube client, Facebook and Twitter integration
• DivX/XviD video support
• Impressive audio quality