Samsung Wave 578 Review

The Samsung Wave 578 was released in July, 2011, and immediately became one of the more interesting Samsung Wave models to look out for. With its fresh and innovative design and features, Samsung proved to be, once again, that they can compete with more popular brands like the iPhone and Android-powered phones.

What We Like

Wave 578 may not be as powerful or commanding as its rivals, but it makes up by being a budget-friendly mobile set that boasts the implementation of NFC (Near Field Communication) technology. NFC is a swipe type technology used in electronic mobile payment transactions. Samsung wanted to incorporate this high-end feature into one cheap smart phone model, and the result is Wave 578.

The Samsung Wave 578 is not as thin as other traditional smart phones but it is easy to hold due to its curvy edges. It weighs 100 g (4 oz). It has a width of 108 mm, a height of 55 mm and a depth of 12.5 mm. The Wave 578 is of candy bar size and can be easily taken out of the pocket during a rush. It is also easy to turn the phone on or off as the power button is located at the right side, along with the camera button. On the other hand, the volume controls are on the left side.

Typing can be a laborious task especially with touch screens. Samsung has made available a feature called Predictive Text Input or T9 trace. This particular feature allows for easier screen encoding by enabling the user to slide through the letters when typing instead of tapping the letters one by one. The T9 trace also implements an auto-completion mechanism that suggests the closest word or words to the current one in the text message composition box.

The Wave 578 is also a perfect fit for busy people. It allows multi-tasking capabilities by allowing the user to switch among the current existing processes. Additionally, the Wave 578 allows using multiple e-mail accounts, a feature not present in many high-end smart phones.

What We Don't Like

The Wave 578, like its predecessors, uses bada OS (v1.1), a young and promising smart phone operating system developed by Samsung Electronics.  The number of available apps in the bada market, however, fails in comparison to Google’s Android market. This limitation of bada can be a disadvantage to app-loving users and can be a huge determinant whether to purchase Samsung line of smart phones.

There is not much bad case to take against Wave 578 aside from the limited number of available applications in the market. It really would be a good thing for Samsung to put bada’s source code under open-source license and allow more independent mobile developers to design specialized apps for Samsung smart phones.

Conclusion

Overall, the Wave 578 is a very good mid-range phone with all the basic features of high-end smart phones. It is recommended to people who want to cut cost on their mobile phone spending but still want to retain the outstanding features that a make smart phone ‘smart’. When shopping for a new model, consider the Samsung Wave 578.