Samsung's Wave 3 handset running version 2.0 of the bada mobile operating system is finally available. The 4-inch WVGA Super AMOLED handset running Samsung's home-grown OS can now be purchased in France as it begins rolling out to Germany, Italy, Russia and markets beyond.

We first started hearing about Samsung's Wave 3 handset back in August. The bada flagship features a 9.9-mm thick anodized aluminum body housing a 1.4GHz processor, 5 megapixel auto-focus camera with LED flash, 512MB of RAM, and 4GB of internal storage with microSD expansion. Radios include Bluetooth 3.0, 802.11n Wi-Fi with Wi-Fi Direct support, GPS, and HSDPA 14.4 / HSUPA 5.76 with 900 / 2100 frequency support. The Wave 3 also ships with Samsung's Touchwiz UX and ChatOn cross-platform communication service.

For those keeping track, bada is one of four mobile operating systems supported by Samsung, including Windows Phone, Android, and a new joint venture with Intel announced in September to co-develop Tizen from the fetid dregs of MeeGo. And yet bada continues to grow, doubling its share of the global smartphone market in Q3 of 2011 to grab a 2.2 percent slice, according to Gartner's research, easily surpassing Microsoft in the process. A statistic that says less about the popularity of bada than it does the sluggish demand for Windows Phones.