Samsung S8500 Wave was the first-ever phone with a Super AMOLED display. However, most people believe the original Galaxy S. But, Samsung S8500 Wave beats the Galaxy S to market by 2 months. Point to be noted that Maemo was a Linux-based operating system for mobile devices developed by Nokia and Intel also had a similar system dubbed Moblin. Both tech giants then decided to combine their efforts into MeeGo. Samsung started the Tizen project as a sequel to MeeGo. Samsung had its own Linux-based OS at the time, Bada, which was eventually merged into Tizen in 2013. Samsung S8500 Wave uses the same Hummingbird chipset (1.0 GHz Cortex-A8 CPU). The device had the same 5 MP camera with autofocus and 720p video recording with a 1,500 mAh battery.

Samsung Galaxy S features a 4-inch screen with 480 x 800-pixel resolution, but the S8500 has a 3.3-inch screen protected with the first-generation Gorilla Glass. The hardware of Galaxy S was similar enough that industrious developers managed to get Android running, all the way up to 4.4 KitKat (2013). Even the Galaxy S itself officially only got up to 2.3 Gingerbread. Samsung officially announced that the Wave was updated to Bada OS 2.0 in late 2011 with a completely redesigned UI and full multitasking. Bada 1.x was capable of multitasking, while it limited third-party apps to running only one at a time. But the version 2.0 lifted that restriction. However, lack of apps was a major issue for Windows Phone as well, Microsoft’s misguided bid to remain relevant in the smartphone segment.

Moreover, Samsung S phone had a camera key that launched the app and could be used to take a photo. The Wave had one of those early 720p-capable cameras. It is noteworthy that Samsung has released several Wave phones including the Wave II, Wave 3, and lower-end models, and the end came swiftly for Bada (final launch was in 2011). The company also launched the Samsung Z series with the new Tizen OS (the successor to Bada). The Samsung Z came in 2014 and the last Tizen phone was the Samsung Z3 Corporate Edition, launched in mid-2016. Tizen continued to be used in Samsung’s smart TVs and smartwatches. The attribute of Samsung using too many phone operating systems was killed off (in 2019) in favor of one true software for Samsung phones, the One UI. Both Samsung and Microsoft are now working with Google to implement cool new features for Android.