Things are happening thick and fast at the World Mobile Congress currently being held in Barcelona, Spain. After news about the new Galaxy S II as well as the Galaxy 10.1 Tab, Samsung has some further tricks up its sleeve in the form of the new Samsung Wave 578. Like its bigger brother, the Samsung Wave, it runs on Samsung’s bada operating system.

 

This mid-level phone packs a 3.2” capacitive touch-screen with a decent screen resolution of 240 x 400. Although its multimedia capabilities might not be up there with the best of them, sporting a 3.2 megapixel camera and QVGA video capabilities, Samsung is punting the connectivity features. Apart from HSDPA, the 578 also includes Wi-Fi 802.11n, Bluetooth 3.0, and USB 2.0. More interestingly Near Field Communication (NFC) connectivity is also onboard.

 

NFC is a technology that allows users to enjoy many innovative services such as mobile payment at the shops and paying transportation fare, reading tags, getting mobile coupons, etc. Although the use of the technology isn’t wide-spread at this stage, people like Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt believe it might replace credit cards in the future. 

 

Users will also find Facebook and Twitter integration as well as QuickType utilising t9 Trace – an input method that Samsung says is two to three times faster than standard typing.

 

The Samsung Wave 578 will be available in May of 2011 in France and will be gradually rolled out to European countries, CIS, South East Asia, India, Middle East, and China.

 

No local release date is available yet.