Samsung Wave, first bada smartphone hits the market

Samsung Wave, first bada smartphone hits the market

Launch of Samsung Wave accelerates build-up of total eco-system for bada platform

May 24, 2010, Seoul, Korea – Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., a leading mobile phone provider, today announced the commercial availability of the Samsung Wave (Model: S8500) in European countries, including Germany, France and the UK. Unveiled at Mobile World Congress 2010, the Wave is the first smartphone based on Samsung’s new, open smartphone platform, bada, and is the cornerstone of the company’s commitment to ‘smartphone democratization.’
With the launch of the Wave, Samsung is actively constructing a total eco-system around bada platform including Samsung Apps. Samsung Apps will be available in 80 countries when the Wave launches, and will increase the premium content and applications pool through collaboration with partner companies and developers.
The availability of the Samsung bada SDK (Software Development Kit) will ensure that consumers can experience a steady stream of new applications that support bada platfrom. The beta version of the SDK was recently made available to applications developers, and the complete bada SDK 1.0.0 will be available for download shortly
“The Samsung Wave represents our strategy to deliver rich, exciting smartphone experiences to everyone,” said JK Shin, President and head of the Mobile Communications Business at Samsung Electronics. “This launch will make our platform vision a reality and consumers, developers and operators will experience the freedom of choice that bada enables.”
The Samsung Wave will expand its availability from European countries to Southeast Asia, China, the Middle East and Africa, and Latin America.

Samsung Apps: Discover, Experience, Enhance

Samsung Apps, an integrated application store accessible from the device and online, allows Wave users to simply and easily download an abundance of applications. Featuring a wealth of games, navigation, social networking, e-book, health and lifestyle applications, Samsung Apps gives users instant access to a wide range of mobile experiences.
Already launched in the UK, France, Italy, Singapore, Germany, Brazil and China for Windows Mobile or Symbian based phones, Samsung Apps will accelerate market expansion driven by bada platform to more than 100 carriers in 80 countries all over the world. Participating application providers include Electronic Arts, Gameloft, The Associated Press, CNN, WeatherBug, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Universal Film, Layar, Expedia Affiliate Network, ZAGAT, and many others.Including well-known applications such as Need for Speed Shift (EA), Weather Bug(WeatherBug), Zagat to go(Handmark), and Travel Booker(Expedia), a multitude of useful, productive and entertaining applications will be offered at Samsung Apps.
Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X.(Gameloft), which is famous console game based on Tom Clancy’s novels, is futuristic, innovative and great use of device features. It will enhance users’ experience with 13 diverse missions, 26 licensed plane models and full 3D environment.
An award-winning multimedia news portal, AP Mobile(The Associated Press), provides anytime access to international, national, and local news to users. AP’s own worldwide coverage of breaking news, sports, entertainment, politics and business by more than 1,000 AP members and third-party sources will benefit Samsung Apps users.

bada Platform – the Smart Choice

Samsung’s bada platform will drive the democratization of the smartphone era and deliver a smartphone for every lifestyle. The bada is the secret behind the Samsung Wave and enables applications to fully utilize the powerful hardware by providing various APIs for interactivity including UI elements, 3D Graphics, Flash, multipoint-touch, sensors and motion support. In addition, service-oriented features such as social network integration, LBS (location-based service) and in-application-purchase, allow users to experience a variety of applications and content.
Developers can write applications with the bada SDK (Software Development Kit). The bada SDK provides a complete set of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) as well as IDE (Integrated Development Environment), simulator, UI builder, and other useful tools and helpful sample applications and documents. This content will facilitate the development of applications for not just the Samsung Wave, but all other mobile phones that adopt bada as their platform of choice. Applications developed with the bada SDK can be sold through ‘Samsung Apps’, Samsung’s application store.
To motivate developers, ‘bada Developer Challenge’, the biggest application contest in 2010, started to global developers. Samsung has set aside a prize pot totaling $ 2,700,000 for this event. 300 developers survived at the first round will receive Samsung Wave and the contest winner will receive $300,000.
Samsung also plans to hold a series of bada Developer Days in more than 20 countries to encourage bada application development and assist relevant developers and their communities. bada Developers Day is open to any developers and the registration is free. Samsung will demonstrate programming samples that will showcase a variety of bada platform functions configured for specific technologies and applications.
“Samsung is fully committed to the success of the bada platform. Samsung bada will significantly expand the smartphone market, which will create an ocean of opportunity for developers,” added by Dr. Hosoo Lee, executive vice president and head of the Media Solution Center.
The SDK can be downloaded for free from the bada Developers site. Further details on the ‘bada Developer Challenge’ and ‘bada Developer Day’ are also available here.

Social Hub and TouchWiz 3.0

Social Hub allows you to efficiently manage your communication needs by providing intuitive and unified access to emails, IMs and Social Networking Sites (SNS). It is powered by ‘Push’ technology, ensuring a real time delivery of emails, IMs, calendar events and SNS updates. The benefits of Social Hub are further enhanced by the Wave’s TouchWiz 3.0 UI, delivering superb user experience. Availability of Social Hub can be decided by market demands.
For those who love music, the device home-page can be turned into an intuitive media player; while for those who take and share a lot of photos, the page can be customized to feature favorite images. Users will also benefit from Quick Panel, a way of prioritizing and aggregating apps into one screen for instant access.
With its eye-catching screen, Samsung’s latest TouchWiz 3.0 user interface gives a tactile, intuitive user experience, and includes iconic new features such as motion UI, Smart Unlock and a customizable widget screen.

Screen, Speed, Performance and Beauty

With the Samsung Wave, seeing really is believing as it features the world’s first Super AMOLED display; delivering an unrivalled screen experience on a smartphone. The Super AMOLED offers a much brighter, clearer, and less reflective viewing experience. With a free viewing angle and super fast response enabled by this proven technology, the Samsung Wave display provides superb image quality for viewing both videos and photos.
The Samsung Wave benefits from a superb 1GHz processor which offers users the best graphic performance available today. Its speed makes the touch screen user interface incredibly responsive and intuitive and, more importantly, means that the 3D and memory-intensive graphic and video performance is unsurpassed.
The Samsung Wave is also one of the most attractive devices with a seamless, streamlined body that has no parting or harsh lines. A beautiful and strong tempered glass display perfectly complements and enhances the vividness of the Super AMOLED display. Furthermore, with anti-smudge technology, those greasy thumb prints are a thing of the past.
Multi-codec support for DivX, Xvid, MP4 and WMV, and support for virtual 5.1 surround sound delivery transforms the device into a personal entertainment system. HD video (720p) decoding and recording capabilities make the Samsung Wave an outstanding device for capturing, sharing and viewing video.
The Samsung Wave is the first handset in the world that incorporates the Bluetooth® 3.0 and WiFi 802.11n standards.

NOTE TO EDITORS:

Samsung Wave (S8500) Product Specifications

Network	2.5G (GSM/ GPRS/ EDGE) : 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz 3G (WCDMA/ HSDPA) : 900/2100 MHz
Display	3.3” WVGA (800×480) Super AMOLED with mDNIe
Camera	5.0 Megapixel camera w/ LED Flash, AF Face/Blink Detection, Vintage Shot, Beauty Shot, Smile Shot, Panorama Shot, Geo-tagging, Image Editor
Video	HD(720p) video playing & recording 5.1ch Mobile Theater MPEG4, H.263, H.264, WMV,DivX, XviD Video Editor
Audio	Music Player with SoundAlive, Music Recognition, DISK UI, 3.5mm Ear Jack, FM Radio/ Recording
Value-added Features	Integrated Messaging ‘Social Hub’ (*According to each market’s environment and preference, Samsung will provide different level of ‘Social Hub’ feature from basic to premium. Basic Social Hub features integrated phonebook, SNS, email account while Premium Social Hub includes Push updates and Instant Messaging.)
	Samsung Apps (*Availability of Samsung Apps differs by country)
	TouchWiz 3.0 w/Integrated phonebook, Voice & Motion UI
	Dolfin Browser 2.0 / Pinch Zoom(Multi-pointed zoom)
	A-GPS, On/off Board Navigation(2D/3D Map), LBS
	SMS/ MMS/ Email/ Video Messaging/Exchange ActiveSync
	Accelerator Sensor, Proximity Sensor, GeoMagnetic Sensor
	BPP(Basic Printing Profile), OPP(Object Push Profile), PictBridge (USB Printing)
	Offline & No SIM Mode, RSS Reader, Communities & Mobile Widgets
Connectivity	Bluetooth technology v 3.0 USB v2.0 (Full -Speed) Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
Memory	2GB + microSD (Up to 32GB)
Size	118 x 56 x 10.9mm
Battery	(Standard) Li-Ion, 1,500 mAh

* Product specifications are subject to change without notice.

About Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, digital media and digital convergence technologies with 2009 consolidated sales of US$116.8 billion. Employing approximately 188,000 people in 185 offices across 65 countries, the company consists of eight independently operated business units: Visual Display, Mobile Communications, Telecommunication Systems, Digital Appliances, IT Solutions, Digital Imaging, Semiconductor and LCD. Recognized as one of the fastest growing global brands, Samsung Electronics is a leading producer of digital TVs, memory chips, mobile phones and TFT-LCDs. For more information, please visit www.samsung.com

Launch of Samsung Wave

Samsung delivers brilliant new smartphone experience
with launch of Samsung Wave

• Full touch Super AMOLED offers the best ever viewing quility on a mobile  
• Social Hub brings all your social networks together in one, unified solution
• TouchWiz 3.0 expands Smartphone usability to the next level

 

February 14th, 2010, Barcelona, Spain –   Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., a leading mobile phone provider, today announced the launch of the Samsung Wave (Model: S8500). This is the first mobile handset to be released on Samsung’s new, open mobile platform, Samsung bada, and the cornerstone of the company’s commitment to provide a smartphone for every lifestyle.

The Samsung Wave offers a Super AMOLED 3.3” display that makes the screen truly come alive, a Social Hub to bring you closer to your contacts and connections, and TouchWiz 3.0 for an intuitive and hugely customizable user interface. The Wave’s high-speed CPU ensures swift, smooth application experiences and multi-tasking, making the device an always-on mobile multimedia companion. The Samsung Wave has been built to offer users an unrivalled level of performance, customization and choice in how they connect with their world. The stunning full touch mobile will be available globally from April 2010.

“The Samsung Wave truly demonstrates our commitment to deliver rich, connected and innovative smartphone experiences to everyone,” said JK Shin, President and Head of Mobile Communications Business at Samsung Electronics. “Samsung Wave sees our platform vision become a reality. For the first time, developers have the freedom to create applications across multiple platforms, for consumption on a huge range of devices. In the Wave, our developer partners can see the ocean of opportunity that is offered by the bada mobile platform and our device technology,” he said.

Super AMOLED – Seeing is believing

With the Samsung Wave, seeing really is believing as it features the world’s first Super AMOLED display; delivering an unrivalled screen experience on a smartphone. The Super AMOLED offers much brighter, clearer, and less reflective AMOLED OnCell display, featuring a high resolution WVGA (800×480 pixels) screen with mDNIe (mobile Digital Natural Image engine) technology. DNIe technology is proven display technology which incorporated to Samsung’s LCD TV and LED TV lineups. With a free viewing angle and super fast response, the Samsung Wave display provides superb image quality for viewing both videos and photos.

Social Hub – my communities at my hand

Social Hub has been designed from the ground up to seamlessly integrate all major portal’s email, IM and SNS services directly into the Samsung Wave. With its TouchWiz 3.0 UI, it provides users easy-flow integrated experience of messaging, managing contacts and viewing calendar events. Social Hub is powered by the amazing push technology to deliver email messages, calendar events and SNS updates in real-time.

TouchWiz 3.0 UI – new and improved

The Samsung Wave provides superior levels of choice to all users via its fully customizable menus and home-page. For those who demand access to their social networking sites at all times, the device allows users to change the layout of the home-page to allow instant access to Twitter, Facebook and a host of other social networking services. For those who love music, the device home-page can be turned into an intuitive media player; while for those who take and share a lot of photos, the home page can be customized to feature favourite images. Users will also benefit from Quick Panel, a way of prioritizing and aggregating applications into one screen for instant access.

With its eye-catchingly brilliant screen, Samsung’s latest TouchWiz 3.0 user interface gives a tactile, intuitive user experience, and includes iconic new features such as motion UI, Smart Unlock and customizable widget screen.

Speed, performance and beauty

The Samsung Wave benefits from a superb 1GHz processor which offers users the best graphic performance available today. Its speed makes the touch screen user interface incredibly responsive and intuitive and, more importantly, means that the 3D and memory-intensive graphic and video performance is unsurpassed.

The Samsung Wave is also one of the most attractive devices with seamless, streamlined body that has no parting or harsh lines. A beautiful and strong tempered glass display perfectly complements and enhances the vividness of the Super AMOLED display. Furthermore, with anti-smudge technology, those greasy thumb prints are a thing of the past.

Multimedia Features and connectivity

Multi-codec support for DivX Xvid, MP4 and WMV, and support for virtual 5.1 surround sound delivery transforms the device into a personal entertainment system and HD video (720p) decoding and recording capabilities make the Samsung Wave an outstanding device for capturing, sharing and viewing video.

For the first time in the world, Samsung Wave is incorporated Bluetooth® 3.0 and WiFi 802.11n standard.

Samsung Apps: Unlimited expandability

Samsung’s bada platform allows mobile users to simply and easily download an abundance of applications from Samsung Apps, an integrated application store accessible from the device and online. Featuring a wealth of games, navigation, social networking, e-book, health and lifestyle applications, Samsung Apps gives users instant access to a huge choice of mobile experiences.

Samsung established its mobile application ecosystem through the launch of Samsung Mobile Innovator in 2008 and the Samsung Application Seller Site followed by Samsung Application Store as another key element of this offering. Already launched in the UK, France, Italy, Singapore, Germany, Brazil and China, this will be expanded to more than 50 countries all over the world in 2010.

Samsung is exhibiting at Mobile World Congress 2010, at Hall 8, Stand 8b 169.

For more information, please visit http://samsungmwc2010.com

Follow us to get all our news on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/SamsungMWC

Samsung unveils new smartphone platform “bada”

Samsung unveils new smartphone platform “bada” to the world

Samsung bada offers a powerful opportunity for developers, mobile operators,
and consumers with a wider range of smartphone experiences

December 8th, 2009, London, United Kingdom – Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., a leading mobile phone provider, today unveils its new smartphone platform, Samsung bada. At this unveiling, Samsung showcases the bada SDK (Software Development Kit) for partners and presents the unique benefits and unprecedented opportunities that the bada platform will bring to developers, mobile operators and consumers.

Samsung bada is a driving force in accomplishing Samsung’s vision of a ‘smartphone for everyone.’ To achieve this vision, Samsung bada offers a feature-rich platform for enhanced mobile experiences for consumers, and a complete mobile ecosystem through a developer support program that both the application store and consumers will benefit from. Based on Samsung’s accumulated expertise in developing advanced mobile phones, the company will allow its users to enjoy ultimate mobile experience through superb features.

Dr Hosoo Lee, Executive Vice President and Head of the Media Solution Center at Samsung Electronics said, “In providing Samsung bada, I believe that Samsung will become a true leader in the mobile industry; offering a wider range of smartphone choices for consumers.” He added, “At the same time, Samsung bada presents a powerful opportunity for developers to get their applications onto an unprecedented number of Samsung devices across the world“

Samsung bada, meaning Ocean in Korean, possesses the following key characteristics:

User-interactive

Based on Samsung’s signature TouchWiz User Interface, Samsung bada platform provides an easy, simple, and intuitive UI without compromising efficiency. To enhance creativity and user interactivity, Samsung bada provides flash control, web control, motion sensing, fine-tuned vibration control, and face detection. Also, it supports sensor-based, context-aware applications. By using various sensors such as accelerometers, tilt, weather, proximity, and activity sensors, application developers can easily implement context-aware interactive applications.

Service-oriented

Samsung bada differentiates its position by supporting various service-centric features such as social networking, device synchronization, content management, location-based services, and commerce services – all supported by back-end bada servers. These ground-breaking developer-friendly features support developers to implement various services without additional effort.

Open and configurable

Samsung bada enables developers to take full advantage of mobile device capabilities to create compelling applications with ease. Applications can use device functions to make phone calls, send messages, or access the contact list. Also, various service applications can share information such as personal profiles, social relations, schedules, or contents with a simple user confirmation in order to provide services with greater personal relevance and cooperative service extension. The flexibility of the bada platform makes it applicable to a wide range of devices than any other mobile operating system.

Attendees at today’s launch event will also be introduced to the bada Developer Challenge. The Challenge is the first chance for developers to win a share of a US$2,700,000 prize fund, simply by using the features of the new bada platform to build a wide variety of applications for bada devices. The competition is one of the largest ever for developers of mobile software and is testament to Samsung’s commitment to the new bada platform.

Samsung is also set to announce a series of bada Developer Days to take place across the world during 2010. Open to all developers, the initial events will be held in Seoul, London and San Francisco, with more events following as the year progresses.

The event will also feature insights from current bada development partners including micro blogging service Twitter, movies and games rental outlet Blockbuster, Video and iconic games developers CAPCOM, EA Mobile, and Gameloft . Each partner outlined their vision for the future of mobile apps and how they believe that bada will play a key role in the advance of app services to a wider audience in years to come.

“Our heritage is games machines and arcade machines but we’re eagerly branching out to make the most of mobile,” said General Manager of Online Business Division, Yasuhiro Sumida from CAPCOM. “We recognise our customers aren’t all about games in their homes but want them when they’re out and about, in the palm of their hand. To help us make this move into mobile we want to make sure we are working with the right partner. bada is accessible, open to all and very easy to use.”

“Congratulations to Samsung on the launch of bada. It is great to see one of the world’s leading handset manufacturers embrace software and services on mobile devices so wholeheartedly and wish them all the best,” said Luca Pagano, Vice President, EMEA Publishing, EA Mobile. “The marriage of great games on the right devices is something we take very seriously at EA Mobile and we are excited to light up the upcoming handsets with our high quality games in 2010.”

“We are pleased to once again collaborate with Samsung and launch our games on the bada mobile platform,” said Michel Guillemot, chairman and CEO, Gameloft. “With nearly 100 million Gameloft games downloaded by Samsung users worldwide, it is quite clear that our games on these devices have made significant impact with consumers over the years. Utilizing the new generation device’s technological capabilities we plan to enrich the consumer gaming experience. Samsung bada offers a new and exciting digital distribution channel for Gameloft titles, as well as an additional outlet for users searching for high quality entertainment.”

For further information please visit the bada website (http://developer.bada.com)

About Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, digital media and digital convergence technologies with 2008 consolidated sales of US$96 billion. Employing approximately 164,600 people in 179 offices across 61 countries, the company consists of two business units: Digital Media & Communications and Device Solutions. Recognized as one of the fastest growing global brands, Samsung Electronics is a leading producer of digital TVs, memory chips, mobile phones and TFT-LCDs. For more information, please visit www.samsung.com