>> Hi, I'm Bonnie Ta, senior editor at CNET.com, here with your first look of the Samsung Wave. The Wave was introduced at Mobile World Congress 2010, and is actually more for the international markets, but we thought it'd be cool to get it in and take it for a spin. Let's check out the design first. As you can see, the Wave is a pretty compact device, unlike something like the Evil or Droid X, and it feels really comfortable and natural to hold as a phone. It also has an aluminum construction, which gives it a very solid and high quality feel. On Frank you've got a super amyloid touch screen, much like the ones on the new Galaxy S devices. It's a little small, at 3.3 inches, but it's super sharp and vibrant. I'm not sure if the video's really going to capture just how beautiful it is, but pictures and videos look amazing on here. It's also got pinch to zoom support and a built-in accelerometer, but the display's smaller size makes the keyboard pretty cramped. It's especially bad in portrait mode with these tiny buttons. Switching to landscape mode helps a bit, but even then I couldn't type very fast and made some mistakes. But overall the Wave is a pretty easy phone to navigate. It's running Samsung's Touchless 3.0 interface, which looks a lot nicer than previous versions, and includes some new widgets like the Buddies Now one for your feeder contacts and feeds and updates for social networking sites. I really like the layout of the main menu since it's nice and clean and easy to read, but once you get into the apps it's not always clear how to access options and settings, so I don't really think that can be improved. Now, TouchWiz sits on top of Samsung's new Bada Mobile Operating System. Bada was created not really to compete with Android or Apple's iPhone OS, but to bring the Smartphone experience to everyone, regardless of cost or geographic locations. So you're getting features like unified in-box, integrated contacts and social networking support. And Samsung has also created its own app store. The Wave pretty much delivers a Smartphone experience and has a full set of wireless options, and a 5 megapixel camera with HD Video Capture, but it didn't merge our contacts in the app store, isn't available in the U.S. But like I said earlier, the Wave isn't a phone for the U.S. market, it's more for emerging markets. Smartphones cost a lot, for that reason aren't really an option for a lot of people. It's definitely got its shortcomings, but I think it's got a lot to offer as an entry-level Smartphone, plus Sasen has great call quality. But here in the U.S. there are plenty of affordable options and more feature rich options, like the Palm Pre Plus or LG Ally. The Samsung Wave is available unlocked if you do want it, and it ranges from around $360 to $400. I'm Bonnie Ta, and this has been your first look at the Samsung Wave.
