A Bada Phone! Life With The Samsung Wave Y

I recently had to buy a mobile phone. From the media you would think there was just a choice of two operating systems, iOS, and Android, with Windows Phone as an also ran. Fortunately, this is not the case, there is also the likes of, Blackberry OS, SymbianOS, Meego, and Bada.

I opted for Bada!

Bada is Korean for Ocean. Bada is used on Samsungs Wave range of mobile phones. Although Bada is virtually unknown in the UK phone market it managed to outsell Windows Phone in the 1st quater of 2012, globally.

The flagship of the Wave range is the Wave 3, I opted for the bottom of the range Wave Y (GT-5380). The Wave Y is not even listed on the Samsung UK website (the Wave 3 is listed, but with the footnote not currently available in the UK). However I was able to buy my Wave Y on my local  Phones4U, at only £53.95, making it the cheapest smartphone on the UK market.

One of the main reasons for buying Bada is because I do not wish to pay the Microsoft tax on Android. If Android infringes so many Microsoft patents, why does it not sue Google? However, if my Wave Y fails to be a viable phone, then it does not amount to a viable alternative to the Microsoft tax on Android.

In use the Wave Y is a very good phone. The Dolfin browser supplied is not brilliant, but Opera Mini is available from Samsung Apps (although it did take several attempts to download) and works superb. The App store has sufficient applications for my needs, but may not have for a ardent gamer. The touch screen is responsive, and easy to use. All things considered its a superb phone, for a bargain basement price.













Identification of Bada OS.

1. With Dolfin Browser, using Browser String:

Mozilla/5.0 (SAMSUNG; SAMSUNG-GT-S5380D/S5380DXXLC1; U; Bada/2.0; en-us) AppleWebKit/534.20 (KHTML, like Gecko) Dolfin/3.0 Mobile HVGA SMM-MMS/1.2.0 OPN-B

Sniny Stats ~ Bada OS / Mozilla

Onestat & Sitemeter ~ Macintosh / Netscape 5x

Brave Stats ~ Windows / Mozilla

Go Stats ~ Unknown / Unknown

24 Log ~ Other / Mozilla

Extreme ~ Samsung Phones / Mobile Phones

Statcounter ~ (Dolphin 3 on ) Bada / GT-5380

2. With Opera Mini, Using Browser String:

Opera/9.80 (Bada; Opera Mini/6.5/28.1914; U; en) Presto/2.8.119 Version/11.10

All counters obtained some variant of either Opera or Opera Mini combined with either Other or Unknown.