The touchscreen smartphones with the works
News articles
Samsung unveils Bluetooth 3.0, 802.11n smartphone • Register Hardware
MWC: Samsung Rolls Out Wave Smartphone with Bada OS | eWeek.com
Samsung reveals first Android phone with DLP Pico projector | Android And Me blog
My comments about these phones
I had never thought that someone would come up with touchscreen smartphones that would beat the Apple iPhone hands down in many ways. What Samsung have done with the new Wave touchscreen smartphone and the Halo Android-based touchscreen projector smartphone that they launched at the Mobile World Congress in Spain has, in my opinion, achieved this goal.
One feature that I liked about the Wave and Halo phone were that they were the first few touchscreen smartphone devices to use the OLED technology for its display. This display, which I commented about in my review of my Nokia N85 smartphone, has a lot of advantages over the common LCD display used, such as high contrast and improved energy efficiency. I have often described these displays as being “vacuum-fluorescent displays for battery-operated devices” because they have the same high-contrast display as the vacuum-fluorescent displays found on most home-installed consumer-electronics devices, yet they don’t need as much power to operate as those displays.
Other things that I have liked about the Wave phone include the use of a Bluetooth stack that works to the current Bluetooth 3.0 standard which allows for high-speed data transfer when used in conjunction with the phone’s Wi-Fi transceiver. Speaking of that, the Wi-Fi transceiver is capable of working as a single-stream 802.11n unit which can allow higher throughput on 802.11n Wi-Fi networks. The Android-powered Halo has Bluetooth to 2.1, but has the 802.11n single-stream Wi-Fi.
As well as launching this smartphone at Mobile World Congress, Samsung had established an app-store and developer network so they can compete with Apple when it comes to applications that extend the phone’s function. They are also part of the Wholesale Applications Community which will improve the marketplace for smartphone applications.
Both phones use a micro-SD card slot for memory expansion or “cassette-style” operation when used as a media player. They use a USB connection and a 3.5mm headset jack which makes them compatible with most standards-based mobile phones and accessories. The Android-equipped Halo smartphone will, as far as I know, offer DLNA home media network integration of some sort.
From all that I have heard about these phones, Samsung, who are part of the “New Japan”, has “dipped their toes” in many smartphone platforms and has offered OLED touchscreen smartphones in two different platforms.