Samsung Wave S8500 Preview

Camera:

The 5MP camera of the Samsung Wave S8500 has autofocus and an LED flash. It is also able to record 720p HD videos. The camera interface is pretty simple, with simple black and white buttons. It may lack the eye candy, but is very easy to use. It works very fast as well.



Both indoor and outdoor shots made with our unit look well, with good detail levels. Colors are a bit washed out though, but jumping to conclusions based on the performance of a prototype is not really our thing. The HD video we captured however was nothing short of great, with high frame rate of 29.97. With such a performance, the Samsung Wave S8500 can easily replace your pocket camcorder. In addition to the video sample from the Wave, we have also included a video sample made with the Flip Mino HD so you can compare them. The camera of the Wave makes things slightly more overexposed, but we should not forget this is a prototype.

Samsung Wave S8500 sample video at 1280x720 pixels resolution.
Flip Mino HD sample video at 1280x720 pixels resolution




Multimedia:

When you have a Super AMOLED screen, you’d want to take full advantage of it. Samsung knows that and the Wave has the ability to playback HD video files in various formats like H.264, DivX and Xvid. Our unit had some trouble playing all kinds of videos, but we guess that’s a software issue that will get worked out by the time of the release.





The music player allows you to filter by different criteria very easily, thanks to the bar at the upper end. Turning the handset horizontally will display a nice interface with some more eye candy for you. The user experience is great, because of the perfectly smooth performance. We got the phone without any accessories, so we would have to wait for the review unit to see (actually, hear) what the sound quality through the headset from the box is. The speakerphone is bearable, with good loudness and much sharpness. On the whole, we’ve heard worse and better.




Expectations:

By the looks of it, Samsung has come up with a real winner in the form of its first bada smartphone, the Samsung Wave S8500 (note that we don’t even need to use the final unit to see if it will be great). It’s a  good-looking device, which can compare to the greatest products in the high end not only in terms of design, but in terms of features too, sporting a gorgeous Super AMOLED screen and fast 1GHz Samsung processor.  It will also support the latest in wireless technology with Bluetooth 3.0 and Wi-Fi 802.11n. The biggest obstacle for Samsung will be the need of a rich application ecosystem. Of course, we do not expect to see an extensive software catalog when the Wave launches in April, but if Samsung manages to catch up with the others fairly quickly, we will be ready to welcome bada as the next big thing in the world of mobile platforms.


Samsung Wave S8500 Video Preview: