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Samsung rolls out wave of new Bada phones

Samsung has been keeping busy at the IFA consumer electronics in Berlin, with the debut of a new tablet, smartphone, and three new Bada OS handsets.

Bonnie Cha Former Editor
Bonnie Cha was a former chief correspondent for CNET Crave, covering every kind of tech toy imaginable (with a special obsession for robots and Star Wars-related stuff). When she's not scoping out stories, you can find her checking out live music or surfing in the chilly waters of Northern California.
Bonnie Cha
2 min read
The Samsung Wave 3, Wave Y, and Wave M (shown from left) run the latest version of Samsung's Bada OS. Samsung

Along with the Galaxy Note and the Galaxy Tab 7.7, Samsung trotted out three new Bada smartphones at IFA today, the Samsung Wave 3, Wave M, and Wave Y.

All three of the handsets will run the Bada 2.0 mobile operating system, which brings new capabilities such as multitasking, voice recognition, NFC support, and Wi-Fi Direct, and uses the TouchWiz interface. The trio will also come with Samsung's App store, and the company's new ChatOn cross-platform instant messaging system.

The Wave 3 is the flagship model, with its 4-inch Super AMOLED touch screen, 1.4GHz processor, and 4GB of internal memory. It also sports a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash and front-facing VGA camera.

Based on Samsung's new naming scheme, the Wave M is the budget-friendly model, but Samsung has not revealed pricing for any of these handsets. The Wave M offers an 3.65-inch HVGA touch screen, an 832MHz processor, and 150MB of internal memory. It, too, has a 5-megapixel camera and front-facing VGA camera.

Last but not least, there's the Wave Y. The Y stands for young and thus, aimed at younger customers. As such, its feature set isn't quite as robust as the others. The handset has a 3.2-inch HVGA touch screen, a 2-megapixel camera, and an 832MHz processor.

An availability date was not released at this time, but don't expect to find the Wave phones on a U.S. carrier anytime soon. The Bada OS was created more for emerging markets and designed to help bring the smartphone experience to more users, regardless of cost or geographic location. If you are in the States, you can, of course, always purchase the phones unlocked when they're available. All are quad-band GSM phones and also have Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n), and A-GPS.