Samsung’s vision of bringing an affordable and very user friendly OS into the market was built on the Samsung Wave S8500. Spotting the first ever SuperAMOLED screen, the phone became a sensation, seemingly putting all other screens to shame. But what was supposed to be a budget-friendly OS came in a mid-range package. Because Bada was made for the larger market though, the Samsung Wave 525 was introduced. It had to shed some of that goodness found in the original wave, but it did stay true to some of its attributes. The Wave 525 is a budget phone for someone looking for a taste of a smartphone. T hat said, there are some niceties that you won’t certainly expect from the phone, but overall, it’s a decent package. Let’s explore that in some detail shall we?
The Build Quality
The Samsung wave 525 comes clad in some sturdy plastic. Its design is not as inspiring as that of the original Samsung wave. It has a rectangular design, with an accent created by the metallic rim. The front is dominated by the 3.2” capacitive screen. With a resolution of 240×400 pixels, and a resolution of 256K colors, it’s not very inspiring, but it does offer some decent contrast (although it doesn’t even come close to what the Samsung Wave S8500 has to offer.) The bottom is marked by three hardware keys- a middle menu button, a call button on your left and an end button on the right. They do stick out, which increases their practical use. The left has a volume rocker with a comfortable press, while the right has a lock button, and a dedicated camera key. The microUSB port is on top, as well as the 3.5mm jack. The only thing on at the bottom is the microphone pinhole. The back spots the 3.2MP camera, but there’s no flash. The back cover is made of glossy plastic, with a dotted pattern which is supposed to increase your grip. Since the phone is not at all heavy (100g), it works just fine. There’s a grill close to the bottom right corner, and that’s where the loudspeaker is.
The ergonomics of the phone leave something to be desired. At the very least, some corning Gorilla glass would have been nice to keep scratches at bay, but for this range, it’s more than you can ask for. But the Wave525’s selling point is not its build quality, but what lies underneath. Adorned in Bada 1.1, the phone is made to be smarter than your average feature phone. It has a processor to enable lesser response time. Only 100MB internal memory is available, though you can expand it to 16GB as a memory card slot is available.
Android meets iOS- BADA OS and UI
The first time you hold the wave 525 in hand, you reminisce about other Samsung products, such as the Samsung Star which share’s most of the design with this one. You only observe the difference once the phone comes to life. It spots an OS, a rare thing for what is supposed to be an affordable phone. The phone has a very friendly user interface, which is actually Bada’s signature. Clad in TouchWiz 3.0, anyone upgrading from a Samsung feature phone (touch) should have a lesser learning curve. You will also notice a few features borrowed from other mobile platforms, or more specifically Android and Apple’s iOS
The phone offers one side-scrollable homescreen that you can add your widgets. There is a widget button on the top right corner. A press opens up a widgets tab at the bottom of the screen where you can add or remove widgets from the homescreen. Unfortunately, you don’t get the chance to add shortcuts to the homescreen, which means you, are stuck with the pre-installed widgets, or those you can get from the app store (will be discussed later in this text). There’s a drop down menu, almost like what you have on Android, offering you three buttons for activating Bluetooth, WI-FI and Silent mode. Below it is the notification area, where things such as new texts, emails or song currently playing are displayed.
At the bottom of the screen are virtual menu keys- one guides to a keypad, the middle one to your contacts, and the other to the messaging centre. The menu is arranged in three side-scrollable panes, which can be added to accommodate your downloaded apps. You can rearrange the menu once you press the little edit button located on the top right corner of the screen. It’s the same button you use when you want to delete your downloaded apps.
The phone handles messaging almost flawlessly having a dedicated email app which supports most addresses. Settings are automatically downloaded if you use popular clients such as Gmail or yahoo. The virtual keyboard is comfortable and spacey, so your typing speed will be par. The capacitive screen highly improves this. For your text messages, you get to choose between folder view and conversation view.
The Wave 525 does not have some premium features, such as smart dialling, or video calling. It is able to handle your telephony needs just fine though, and you won’t complain about in-call quality or any network drops of any kind.
Multimedia
When we were introduced to the original wave, we were amazed at its multimedia capabilities. With a battery that lasted longer than most, the S8500 could play very many multimedia files. The Wave 525 is not able to keep up, but it does offer a few niceties.
The music player app is a decent one, offering a few sorting options for your tracks. The interface is a simple one, and attractive too. You get 5.1 channel surround, but it only works when your headset is on. Audio quality is good especially on the headset, though the same cannot be said of the loudspeaker. On maximum volume, it seems unable to keep up with the audio output. But even with that, it’s not half bad. There’s a music-recognition feature too, which is a premium feature, lacking in this range of phones, so it’s a pleasant surprise. Video playing is not the Wave 525’s forte, lacking support for common video formats such as DviX/XivD. At best, it can handle your Mp4 files.
Like previously pointed out, the phone has a 3.2MP camera. Admittedly, it seems lowly when you consider of the many 5MP and 8MP cameras we have in the market right now. But the Wave 525 is not built to compete with these, and the single camera available should suffice. It has a few nice features such as Geotagging which are appreciated. As far as the image quality goes, the shots are good enough for your regular, everyday stills, especially on a bright clear day. The lack of flash means you’ll get poor quality photos in low-lit conditions. The contrasts are admirable, though noise levels, while not as obvious are still present, though the intensity is very low. A gallery app is missing, and the only access you get to your images and videos is through the camera.
There’s an FM radio on-board. The interface is nice, and there’s RDS too.
Connectivity
The Wave 525 refers on EDGE connectivity for its packet data needs. The lack of 3G is regretted, especially on a handset that offers an OS. However, some of this is mitigated by the presence of Wi-Fi. It makes for fast download speeds, and vastly improves your browsing experience, in comparison to the 2G network you get. The phone can also act as a Wi-Fi hotspot, allowing different devices to share in the phone’s packet data. There’s also the new version of Bluetooth- v3.0 with A2DP for your data transfer needs.
There’s GPS on board, with A-GPS. In other words, the Wave 525 has real potential as a navigation unit, though access to all the features does come at a price, and a hefty one at that. You get a free-trial for the first few days, and a paid subscription is required after that.
Browsing on the Wave 525 is not the greatest experience, even on a budget-friendly smartphone. The lack of proper flash support means there are some pages that won’t be rendered as nicely. The Dolphin 2.0 browser however does give you a somewhat okay browsing experience, with pinch zooming highly welcome. The lack of text reflow will increase the amount of scrolling that you have to do. So if browsing is one of the most important things you look for in a handset, this is not the Wave to go for.
A document viewer is installed on-board. It does let you edit the files, but even then, it plays a practical role, allowing you to go through your documents on the go.
Apps
One of the few shortcomings that the original wave had was the lack of a proper applications repository. Samsung Apps, as it was dubbed has grown and now offers thousands of apps for you. Granted, it’s some light years away from what the Android marketplace or Apple Appstore, but it still has a few apps that you can make use of. Browsing through the available apps is easy, and there’s even a search option if there’s a specific application you want.
Conclusion
The Samsung Wave 525 was not supposed to cause a stir when it came to the market. Rather, it was made to reach out to the feature phone owners who want a taste of the smart life. Bada is the perfect OS for such a graduation, and the nice features it offers means it will win a lot of dumb-phone owners. There are some premium features that make it a worthy buy as well- such as Social Mapping and the social integration built into the social hub. Availability of some good photo editing features is welcomed as well. The 1200 mAh battery can support at least a day of heavy usage, so no need for some midday charges. Overall, it’s a nice feature rich package, and an affordable one at that.
The Samsung wave 525 price in India is between Rs.5,700 and Rs.7300 in most stores. It has been around for a while now, so finding a good deal is all about finding the right place to buy it from.
And if you are wondering where to get Samsung wave 525 themes free download, the Samsung Apps store is the best place. The themes are built with Bada in mind, and will cover every part of the user interface, except the apps you download. All the available themes are free too.
January 21st, 2012 
Keshav 
