Samsung in partnership with Safaricom yesterday launched the Samsung Wave phone and the Samsung Bada platform in the country. Announcing the launch, Samsung's deputy Managing Director  Robert Njeru said the phone would be available through Safaricom retail shops. The choice of Safaricom was due to the network features such as 3G which Samsung felt would better utilize the features offered by the phone.
The phone carries a 1Ghz processor and a 800 x 480 pixel Super AMOLED ( Active-matrix organic light-emitting diode) screen . Other features include High Definition playback and recording of video , inclusive of Divx and Xvid . The 5 megapixel camera comes with a LED flash, face detection, panorama shot and geo tagging. Printing can be done via pict-bridge enabled USB printing.  There is also impressive packing of Bluetooth 3.0 standard and Wifi 802.11n in addition to the standard 802.11b/g.
Entertainment is also through Mp3 playback and FM radio, all enhanced with 5.1 mobile theatre and offered via a standard 3.5 mm earphone jack. Samsung claims that the phone can offer music  in continuous playback upto 30 hours .

Samsung's Bada platform already has thousands of applications available. In addition, for the local market, Samsung has partnered with Verviant to develop two applications for the phone. One application shows movies playing locally coupled with trailers while the other one pulls local news feed. Agosta Liko of Verviant ranks the Bada platform highly saying the application experience ranks in the same level as that of the Blackberry and iPhone.

The phone retails at Ksh  30,000 (US$375), with Safaricom selling it with a bundle of Ksh 1,000 (US$ 12.5) airtime and 100 Megabytes of data. Safaricom says this move aims to promote the use of the phones’ application. At the same time, Safaricom commited itself to remaining at the forefront of innovation. This would be through  the 3G network which currently runs upto 21 Megabytes per second in Nairobi and available in other towns and cities in Kenya including Malindi, Garissa, Kitale and Lodwar.