Vodafone UK catches the Wave

When a phone is called the Wave it is almost irresistible to make a series of tired ‘cowabunga’ style surf puns. We allowed ourselves one in the title but we promise that we’ll be able to resist, should you not have groaned in disgust by now. But the fact is that Vodafone UK has announced that they are taking pre-orders for one of the most eagerly awaited smartphones of the year.

The Samsung Wave may look like every other smartphone around at the moment but it does have some redeeming technical features. For starters the Wave has a 3.3 inch super AMOLED display and it even uses Samsung HD TV technology to bring crisp and sharp images straight to your hand. It even features a rather meaty 1 GHz processor to give you a quick user experience. The Wave is also the first Samsung phone to run the new ‘Bada’ software platform.

The Bada platform promises to deliver a great deal of functionality but obviously until we’ve used it we can’t really tell you if it’s any good. But if the hype is anything to go by it should be worth looking at. Bada enables you to customize your phone to suit your requirements. TouchWiz is present and correct which enables you to personalise multiple home screens with your favourite shortcuts and menus meaning you can get to the things you want a lot quicker. You can even get apps from the Samsung app store so you can turn your spanking new Wave into the handset you’ve always dreamed of.

You can use the social hub to integrate your texts, IM service and your favourite social networks all into one place so you can bore your friends with meaningless status updates that much quicker. Bada also supports flash, for better web browsing, and in-app purchasing. As a sweetener Vodafone are offering a voucher for a free McLaren Mercedes rucksack which you can redeem online, if you’re a fan of that sort of thing.

The Samsung Wave will be available for free on a 24 month contract costing £25 per month, which will include 300 minutes, unlimited texts and 500MB worth of mobile data. You can pre-order the device ahead of its UK launch on the 1st of June by clicking here.