Samsung Wave 578 Review

Introduction:

The Samsung Wave 578 is another entry level bada OS phone, with a 3.2” display and 3MP camera. It has just one difference – the Near Field Communication (NFC) chip inside.

Is this a reason enough to get the Samsung Wave 578 or there are better offers out there? Read on to find out...

Design:

The left and right sides of the front are curvy, indeed making for a more pleasant experience when holding the phone or manipulating its touchscreen. The sides and back also have tapered edges, adding to the holding comfort. The volume rocker on the left, as well as the power/lock and camera keys on the right, are small and unobtrusive, but still easy enough to press.



You can compare the Samsung Wave 578 with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

The 3.2” LCD screen sports just 240x400 pixels of resolution, which is the main drawback of Samsung's cheap bada handsets, since the majority of smartphones with a screen of this size sport at least 320x480 pixels. The display also has weak viewing angles, but is bright enough under direct sunlight to offer decent visibility.

Overall, basic, but pleasant design, thanks to the curves in the chassis and the faux metal battery cover and sides, plus the phone is also very light, at less than 4oz (100 grams).

Interface and Functionality:

Samsung hasn't differentiated the Wave 578 here from any other bada OS handset. It is running bada 1.1, which we have reviewed extensively in our piece about the Samsung Wave 723, complete with a video. The handset's interface has all the basic phoning functions covered well, and also offers easy to use calendar and other apps to stay organized. An office document viewer and file browser are supplied out of the box.

Bada is a decent mobile operating system, and the TouchWiz UI over it sports its helpful connectivity toggles in the pull-down notification bar, but it is lacking the amount of apps and developer focus that the other mobile operating systems have.



Messaging, browser and connectivity:

We liked the virtual keyboard, which turned out quite comfortable to type on, despite the 3.2” screen size, so messaging on this screen won't be an issue as with some other smallish displays we've encountered.


The email client on bada handsets is solid, allowing you to download up to 10MB per message with various attachments.

The basic Dolphin 2.0 browser (not to be confused with Dolphin for Android) doesn't support desktop Adobe Flash, does well in panning around and zooming, but doesn't do text reflow..


The Samsung Wave 578 sports 3G, Wi-Fi, NFC, A-GPS, and Bluetooth 3.0, which is becoming a norm for the company's handsets. The most interesting thing here is NFC, of course, and we will have to see what apps and partnerships are in store to utilize the chip's capabilities by Samsung. For now we only have an NFC app in the phone, which allows you to read NFC tags with stored info, but also create and exchange ones yourself.



Camera:

The 3MP camera on the Samsung Wave 578 is nothing to write home about in terms of stills and video quality, but the interface does offer several shooting and scene modes, and the camera is launched and operated with a dedicated button on the right.


The pictures are lacking sharpness and detail to an extent that overbears the accurate color representation. The 240x320 video at 15fps won't let you present it as evidence in court.


Samsung Wave 578 Sample Video:



Multimedia:

A pretty decent music player comes with the Wave 578, with a number of functions, including a built-in song recognition feature that can be fired directly from the player's interface. The loudspeaker's volume is strong enough, but the sound quality is average, lacking substance and bass.


Video clips in MPEG-4 format can be played up to the screen's resolution (400x240), but DivX and Xvid support is lacking.

Performance:

The voice quality on the Samsung Wave 578 is with high enough volume in the earpiece, with slight audible distortion on the highest volume. On the other end people said the Wave 578's microphone produced loud, clear-sounding voices.

The 1200mAh battery is rated for 7 hours of talk time in 3G mode, which is above average and typical for the low-end of bada handsets.

Conclusion:

Overall, we found the Samsung Wave 578 to be a pretty unimpressive handset, due to the low screen resolution and the insufficient number of apps in the store, unless you are in a dire need of the NFC chip.

The thing is that NFC probably won't catch up soon enough for you to take regular advantage of it in the handset's lifetime. T-Mobile in Germany and Poland was using the phone for trials of its contactless ticket purchasing initiative for EURO 2012, and that's about it for its practical NFC applications. For more information what the NFC technology is supposed to bring, you can read our in-depth article.

If you are looking for alternatives at the phone's price point, many low-end Android phones, like the Samsung Galaxy Mini will do trick, and you will have access to the 250 000 apps in Android Market, plus better screen resolution.

Software version of the reviewed unit: bada 1.1

Samsung Wave 578 Video Review: