14 DAY TRIAL // Samsung has just confirmed on its official Twitter account that the bada 1.2 firmware for Samsung Wave smartphones will be rolled-out in Q1 2011. However, the update will be available only for European Wave devices, while the rest of the world will receive the update soon afterwards.
Furthermore, the bada 1.2 firmware will be available early next year for European SIM free Samsung Wave (S8500) smartphones, while branded devices will have to wait a little bit longer.
Support for the rest of the world will follow during Q1 2011 with different update dates depending on the country and operator.
Even though an official changelog is not yet available, rumors outline some the firmware's changes:
- bug fixes; - improved security; - added T9 Trace keyboard that works like Swype.
The original S8500 Wave smartphone was launched in April 2010 and is the first handset to run bada OS.
The device is powered by an ARM Cortex A8 1GHz processor and comes with a 3.3-inch Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with 16 million colors and 480 x 800 pixels resolution.
Samsung S8500 Wave packs a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus, LED flash, geo-tagging, face, smile and blink detection, image stabilization, touch focus, as well as video recording capabilities (720p@30fps) and video light.
It comes with accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate, multi-touch input method, proximity sensor for auto turn-off, scratch-resistant surface, TouchWiz UI 3.0, handwriting recognition and smart unlock.
Other key features of the smartphone include: HSDPA 3.6 Mbps, HSUPA 2 Mbps, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n connectivity, 3.5 mm audio jack, DNSe (Digital Natural Sound Engine) technology, 2GB of internal memory, microSD card slot for memory expansion (up to 32GB), Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP support, Stereo FM radio with RDS, FM recording and GPS with A-GPS support (Samsung Mobile Navigator).
As a side note, Samsung has sold more than 1 million S8500 Wave units in Europe by the end of September 2010.