Yesterday we saw the Samsung Wave from afar, today we get our first up close look at Samsung’s first Bada-powered handset. The Wave is indeed the S8500, the first handset to receive Bluetooth SIG certification for the new Bluetooth 3.0 standard. Ironically, Bluetooth was left out of the list of leaked specs but we will presume that Bluetooth 2.0 and possibly 3.0 is on board. Besides Bluetooth, the Wave will offer a 3.3 inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display, five megapixel camera with autofocus and flash, 720p video, DivX support, 2GB internal memory with microSD expansion, HSDPA connectivity, Wi-Fi, 1 GHz processor, 3.5mm headphone jack, aluminum body, 1500 mAh battery, and the Bada OS with Touchwiz 3.0. The Wave has the typical appearance of a Samsung phone with two flush front buttons, a triangular four way navigational button, triangular camera and flash, and brushed metal accents. Other than the performance of the Bada OS, which will have to wait until the first hands-on video is released, all that is left to find out about this handset is its launch date and geographic availability, a not so trivial fact we hope is announced when Samsung officially unveils this handset next week at MWC.
