Samsung Wave II

Editor's Review of the Wave II

The Samsung Wave II was released to little fanfare here in the UK, with its high-end spec sheet seemingly overlooked. As one of the best looking feature phones available on the market, can Samsung's Wave II prove it's worth getting excited about?

Design & Build

The Wave II is a gorgeous phone, borrowing the much-loved styling from the original Wave. Its curvaceous casing is crafted from a brushed metal plating, which makes it feel solid and comfortable when held in the hand. On the other hand however, the front is dressed in Samsung's usual glossy black plastic, which can prove a nuisance for picking up finger prints.

It may look a lot like the original Wave, but the Wave II's screen has been bumped from 3.2 to 3.7-inches, keeping the same 480 x 800 resolution. Rather than Super AMOLED, Samsung has opted for a Super Clear LCD screen, too, offering up excellent image quality and superior viewing angles.

The diamond-shaped home button on the original phone has been altered, too, with the Wave II touting a more thumb-friendly, rounded key.

OS & Interface

Samsung's homegrown Bada software may not be raved about, but it's a straightforward operating system and ideal for a feature phone - the Samsung Wave II included.

Like Android, Bada gives you multiple customisable homescreens to fill with widgets, as well as a standard menu for scrolling through apps. Although the simplicity of Bada will appeal to those after an easy-to-use handset, it's lack of apps and lack of features means its by no means on par with Android and iOS.

For example, unlike HTC's Sense UI, Facebook and Twitter isn't particularly well-handled - with Samsung's Social Hub, which simply offers up a list of accounts which redirect you to a separate app.

Multimedia & Storage

On the media front, you'll find a 5 megapixel camera on the back of the handset, complete with autofocus, LED flash and face detection. While all sounds good on paper, photos captured by the rear-facing shooter are of a disappointingly average quality. However, the handset came into its own when recording 720p HD footage, with video looking crisp and detailed even in low-light.

The Wave II also provides a reasonable 2GB of built-in memory, with an additional 2GB card included in the box. For those of you with hoards of tunes to upload, memory can be expanded up to 32GB.

Everything Else

With HSDPA and WiFi onboard, paired with the handset's 1GHz processor, the Samsung Wave II delivers a decent, speedy browsing experience. However, the included browser isn't fantastic. We struggled to zoom in on webpages, which resulted in poorly formed texts which proved difficult to read.

Conclusion

Overall, the Samsung Wave II is a decent handset with a bunch of stand-out features, including its stunning 3.7-inch screen and HD video capture. However, we struggled to get to grips with its Bada operating system, and it's hard to recommend against a similarly priced Android phone - the Samsung Galaxy Ace, for example. Still, if you're looking for an affordable phone that covers the basics, the Samsung Wave II won't disappoint.