I only got a short amount of time playing with Bada OS, but I liked what I saw. It has some features we've seen on other operating systems, like a unified inbox, integrated contacts from all of your social networks, and a synchronized calendar. It also has a notifications system that was quite reminiscent of . It isn't anything revolutionary, but at least Bada is keeping up with the competition in terms of features.

Aesthetically, the TouchWiz 3.0 user interface is quite clean and didn't feel as muddled and confusing as previous versions. It was also very responsive and quick thanks to the Wave's 1GHz processor.

From an apps perspective, Bada has some potential: It is an open platform, the UI supports Flash and Samsung . Samsung really seems to be reaching out to developers, too. Though there weren't any content partner announcements at the event, Samsung did show a demo of EA's Need for Speed on the Wave as well as a few other popular games. I also spoke to a developer at the event who said he was initially hesitant approaching Bada, but now he's thinking otherwise.

Overall, Samsung really isn't bringing anything new to the table with Bada: Its features are really no different on what you'd find on the iPhone, webOS phones or Android phones. But suspect that is not Samsung's main focus here. Samsung sees Bada phones as being accessible to everyone, no matter what your income or tech experience may be. It is hard to predict how Bada will compete with the legions of Android phones taking over the mobile world, but phones as nicely designed as the Wave are hard to ignore.