Samsung Wave S8500
Encyclopedia
The Samsung Wave GT-S8500 (or "Samsung Wave") is the first touchscreen smartphone
running the new bada
operating system designed by Samsung
, which was commercially released on June 1, 2010. The Wave is a slim touchscreen phone powered by Samsung's "Hummingbird" CPU (S5PC110), which includes 1 GHz ARM
Cortex-A8 CPU and a built-in PowerVR
SGX 540 graphics engine, "Super AMOLED
" screen and 720p
high-definition video capture capabilities. Due to shortage of Super AMOLED screens, Samsung released a similar version called Wave II
and ceased production of the S8500 model.
The screen is a 3.3 inches (8.4 cm) capacitive touchscreen Super AMOLED
with an anti-smudge oleophobic coating on top of the scratch-resistant tempered-glass ( Gorilla Glass Display ). The screen resolution is 800x480 WVGA with 283 PPI.
Processor
The phone features a 1 GHz SoC
, which internally contains an ARM
Cortex A8 CPU core that is identical to the ARM Cortex CPU core used in Apple's A4
package on package
SoC. The graphics engine of the device is a PowerVR SGX 540 GPU which is said to be capable of generating 90 million triangles per second (same as the SoC used on the Samsung Galaxy S). It also has 512MB of RAM
.
Camera
The phone features a 5 megapixel camera EDOF which supports 2560 x 1920 pixels, along with autofocus
, LED flash, Geo-tagging, face, blink detection, image stabilization, touch focus,etc. Shooting modes include beauty shot, smile shot, continuous, panorama and vintage shot. As a camcorder it is able to shoot HD recording (1280x720) at 30 FPS with flash. As well as this, it is also able to record slow motion video (320x240) at 120 FPS with flash.
Other features
Other features include A-GPS
, 2 GB/8 GB of internal storage with a microSDHC slot for an additional 32 GB. It also has a magnetometer (compass), a proximity sensor, an accelerometer, 5.1-channel surround sound Mobile Theater, music recognition, a fake call service, smart search, Social Hub and it is the first phone to support Bluetooth version 3.0.
Radio connectivity includes Bluetooth
3.0, Wi-Fi
802.11 b/g/n, HSDPA 3.6 Mbit/s and HSUPA 2 Mbit/s.
This phone is available with both European/Asian 3G bandings and the North American 3G bandings. The North American 3G bandings version of the phone is a limited availability and is not available in the US.
The phone is the first smartphone to feature the Samsung bada
operating system platform. The UI is Samsung's own Touchwiz 3.0. Touchwiz 3.0, like the two predecessors (Touchwiz 2.0 and Touchwiz), utilises widgets. The three most notable widgets pre-installed in Touchwiz 3.0 are Daily Briefing (which includes all essential information such as weather, finance, AP mobile news and schedule), Feeds and Updates and Buddies now (which allows users to call, send texts to and read Facebook/Twitter feeds off their favourite contacts). Users are allowed to have up to 10 homescreens to add widgets.
Applications
For Internet browsing the Samsung Wave has the Dolfin Browser v2.0 (based on WebKit
). This browser supports Flash Lite 3, but it is disabled by default to improve page loading speed.
By default, the phone comes with Picsel Viewer which is capable of reading .pdf and Microsoft Office file formats. Users from selected countries can buy and download Picsel Office Editor from Samsung Apps
.
As for Samsung Apps
, users can also download applications, games and widgets from the application store.
Other software includes the GPS software that comes with this phone (LBS Route 66), Palringo IM, Facebook, Twitter, social hub, mini diary, daily briefing, memo, video player, FM radio, media browser, voice recorder, e-mail and pre-installed asphalt 5.
In January 2011, a group of developers managed to port Android 2.2 (Froyo) to it. The project is in the alpha phase as of August 2011.
Media Support
MP3, AAC, AAC+, e-AAC+, WMA, AMR, WAV, MP4, MPEG4, H.263, H.264, WMV, DivX, XviD, MKV, (FLAC Bada 1.2)
Also supports subtitles.
Reviews:
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Smartphone
A smartphone is a high-end mobile phone built on a mobile computing platform, with more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone. The first smartphones were devices that mainly combined the functions of a personal digital assistant and a mobile phone or camera...
running the new bada
Bada (operating system)
Bada is an operating system for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. It is developed by the Samsung Electronics. Its name is derived from " ", meaning "ocean" or "sea" in Korean...
operating system designed by Samsung
Samsung
The Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea...
, which was commercially released on June 1, 2010. The Wave is a slim touchscreen phone powered by Samsung's "Hummingbird" CPU (S5PC110), which includes 1 GHz ARM
ARM architecture
ARM is a 32-bit reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by ARM Holdings. It was named the Advanced RISC Machine, and before that, the Acorn RISC Machine. The ARM architecture is the most widely used 32-bit ISA in numbers produced...
Cortex-A8 CPU and a built-in PowerVR
PowerVR
PowerVR is a division of Imagination Technologies that develops hardware and software for 2D and 3D rendering, and for video encoding, decoding, associated image processing and Direct X, OpenGL ES, OpenVG, and OpenCL acceleration....
SGX 540 graphics engine, "Super AMOLED
Super AMOLED
Super Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode or Super AMOLED is a display technology mainly for use in mobile devices such as mobile phones...
" screen and 720p
720p
720p is the shorthand name for 1280x720, a category of High-definition television video modes having a resolution of 1080 or 720p and a progressive scan...
high-definition video capture capabilities. Due to shortage of Super AMOLED screens, Samsung released a similar version called Wave II
Samsung Wave II S8530
The Samsung Wave II S8530 is the Successor of Samsung Wave S8500 smartphone running the bada 1.2 operating system designed by Samsung, which was commercially released on October, 2010...
and ceased production of the S8500 model.
Hardware Features
ScreenThe screen is a 3.3 inches (8.4 cm) capacitive touchscreen Super AMOLED
Super AMOLED
Super Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode or Super AMOLED is a display technology mainly for use in mobile devices such as mobile phones...
with an anti-smudge oleophobic coating on top of the scratch-resistant tempered-glass ( Gorilla Glass Display ). The screen resolution is 800x480 WVGA with 283 PPI.
Processor
The phone features a 1 GHz SoC
System-on-a-chip
A system on a chip or system on chip is an integrated circuit that integrates all components of a computer or other electronic system into a single chip. It may contain digital, analog, mixed-signal, and often radio-frequency functions—all on a single chip substrate...
, which internally contains an ARM
ARM architecture
ARM is a 32-bit reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by ARM Holdings. It was named the Advanced RISC Machine, and before that, the Acorn RISC Machine. The ARM architecture is the most widely used 32-bit ISA in numbers produced...
Cortex A8 CPU core that is identical to the ARM Cortex CPU core used in Apple's A4
Apple A4
The Apple A4 is a package on package system-on-a-chip designed by Apple and manufactured by Samsung. It combines an ARM Cortex-A8 CPU with a PowerVR GPU, and emphasizes power efficiency. The chip commercially debuted with the release of Apple's iPad tablet; followed shortly by the iPhone 4...
package on package
Package on package
Package on package is an integrated circuit packaging method to combine vertically discrete logic and memory ball grid array packages. Two or more packages are installed atop each other, i.e. stacked, with a standard interface to route signals between them...
SoC. The graphics engine of the device is a PowerVR SGX 540 GPU which is said to be capable of generating 90 million triangles per second (same as the SoC used on the Samsung Galaxy S). It also has 512MB of RAM
Ram
-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
.
Camera
The phone features a 5 megapixel camera EDOF which supports 2560 x 1920 pixels, along with autofocus
Autofocus
An autofocus optical system uses a sensor, a control system and a motor to focus fully automatic or on a manually selected point or area. An electronic rangefinder has a display instead of the motor; the adjustment of the optical system has to be done manually until indication...
, LED flash, Geo-tagging, face, blink detection, image stabilization, touch focus,etc. Shooting modes include beauty shot, smile shot, continuous, panorama and vintage shot. As a camcorder it is able to shoot HD recording (1280x720) at 30 FPS with flash. As well as this, it is also able to record slow motion video (320x240) at 120 FPS with flash.
Other features
Other features include A-GPS
Assisted GPS
Assisted GPS, generally abbreviated as A-GPS or aGPS, is a system which can, under certain conditions, improve the startup performance, or time-to-first-fix of a GPS satellite-based positioning system. It is used extensively with GPS-capable cellular phones as its development was accelerated by...
, 2 GB/8 GB of internal storage with a microSDHC slot for an additional 32 GB. It also has a magnetometer (compass), a proximity sensor, an accelerometer, 5.1-channel surround sound Mobile Theater, music recognition, a fake call service, smart search, Social Hub and it is the first phone to support Bluetooth version 3.0.
Radio connectivity includes Bluetooth
Bluetooth
Bluetooth is a proprietary open wireless technology standard for exchanging data over short distances from fixed and mobile devices, creating personal area networks with high levels of security...
3.0, Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi or Wifi, is a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, video game console, smartphone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point. An access point has a range of about 20...
802.11 b/g/n, HSDPA 3.6 Mbit/s and HSUPA 2 Mbit/s.
This phone is available with both European/Asian 3G bandings and the North American 3G bandings. The North American 3G bandings version of the phone is a limited availability and is not available in the US.
Software features
User InterfaceThe phone is the first smartphone to feature the Samsung bada
Bada (operating system)
Bada is an operating system for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. It is developed by the Samsung Electronics. Its name is derived from " ", meaning "ocean" or "sea" in Korean...
operating system platform. The UI is Samsung's own Touchwiz 3.0. Touchwiz 3.0, like the two predecessors (Touchwiz 2.0 and Touchwiz), utilises widgets. The three most notable widgets pre-installed in Touchwiz 3.0 are Daily Briefing (which includes all essential information such as weather, finance, AP mobile news and schedule), Feeds and Updates and Buddies now (which allows users to call, send texts to and read Facebook/Twitter feeds off their favourite contacts). Users are allowed to have up to 10 homescreens to add widgets.
Applications
For Internet browsing the Samsung Wave has the Dolfin Browser v2.0 (based on WebKit
WebKit
WebKit is a layout engine designed to allow web browsers to render web pages. WebKit powers Google Chrome and Apple Safari and by October 2011 held over 33% of the browser market share between them. It is also used as the basis for the experimental browser included with the Amazon Kindle ebook...
). This browser supports Flash Lite 3, but it is disabled by default to improve page loading speed.
By default, the phone comes with Picsel Viewer which is capable of reading .pdf and Microsoft Office file formats. Users from selected countries can buy and download Picsel Office Editor from Samsung Apps
Samsung Apps
Samsung Apps, is an application store for Samsung mobile & TV users. The store first opened in June 2010, after the company released its Samsung Wave smartphone...
.
As for Samsung Apps
Samsung Apps
Samsung Apps, is an application store for Samsung mobile & TV users. The store first opened in June 2010, after the company released its Samsung Wave smartphone...
, users can also download applications, games and widgets from the application store.
Other software includes the GPS software that comes with this phone (LBS Route 66), Palringo IM, Facebook, Twitter, social hub, mini diary, daily briefing, memo, video player, FM radio, media browser, voice recorder, e-mail and pre-installed asphalt 5.
In January 2011, a group of developers managed to port Android 2.2 (Froyo) to it. The project is in the alpha phase as of August 2011.
Media Support
MP3, AAC, AAC+, e-AAC+, WMA, AMR, WAV, MP4, MPEG4, H.263, H.264, WMV, DivX, XviD, MKV, (FLAC Bada 1.2)
Also supports subtitles.
External links
Reviews:
- Phonearena.com review by PhoneArena Team, 04 Jun 2010
- GSMArena.com review by GSMArena team, 01 June 2010
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