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Samsung Wave II review: Internet
We've waited long enough to make detailed comment on the screen, so here goes. The 3.7-inch screen ought to be able to cope well with web pages, the 480 x 800 pixels offering plenty of detail.
And indeed that's how things are.
The Super Clear TFT screen helps web content – and anything else, actually – really stand out. In fairly gloomy indoor conditions the sharpness and clarity of the screen is stunning. Take it outside and things aren't quite as wonderful, but it is still easy to see the screen.
Viewing angles are good too, so it's really easy to thrust the phone at someone saying 'look at this' and have them able to see it without having to jiggle about.
The Bada web browser is easy to use. When entering web addresses, the keyboard offers you '.com' and '/' buttons on the main QWERTY keyboard, which speeds things up a bit.
Pages initially display fullscreen, but you can do a quick double tap to zoom in. Text reflows as a result, so you can read pages without horizontal scrolling, but zoom level isn't wonderful. Text is rather poorly formed and if you've bad eyesight you may find it difficult to read.
If you want bigger text you can pinch to zoom, but you lose the reflow.
There's a button at the bottom of the screen that lets you quickly get to your most visited web pages, which often means you don't have to bother with bookmarking your absolute favourites. These are presented as thumbnails for easy access.
Web pages load and format pretty quickly, and we really like the little Google search box that sits on the top row of the screen. Features like these make it easy to duck and dive at some speed.
Flash video support is not what it could be. Our litmus test – the BBC News website - failed to play its video for us - Flash video is supposed to be supported, so it's difficult to see why this wouldn't work.
There is a YouTube app on board, though, and you can watch video quite happily through this. We encountered a bit of buffering annoyance, but playback itself was smooth.
We're disappointed about the Flash issues, but as a web user's smartphone the Samsung Wave II does get a lot right.
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