Samsung Galaxy S II
Discussion
I've just got mine today and have been playing with it all morning. I come from having 7 (including this one) smartphones in the last 12 months, an iPhone 3G and 4, an HTC Desire and Incredible S, a Google Nexus One and a Samsung Galaxy S (original one).
I've always liked Android and had flirted with it on several occasions before eventually going back to an iphone for its stability, but I always end up being bored with iphones and how restrictive they are.
Another observation I had made with Android was that its handsets seldom ever had good battery life, and that they weren't as smooth and fluid as iOS on say, an iPhone 4 - the better handsets have always been fast, but always seemed not quite smooth.
The original Galaxy S was, IMO a good handset with terrible software. They really did make a pig of it in the beginning, although I believe most of the issues are sorted now, but that didn't make me feel any bettter when I picked it up on launch day. So, you'd think I'd learn my lesson, and I must admit I jumped on board on the strength of promising reviews and users saying that this was definitely better...
Well, after playing with the SGS2 all morning, to quote apple, "this changes everything", a statement that frankly, makes me cringe, but it really does apply here, at least in the Android world.
Screen - fantastic - huge (so easy to read and type on), very dark blacks, colourful and impressive to look at. OK its not the highest res in the business, but believe me, its plenty sharp enough for most. I also noted that the power consumption of this screen is far better than other android handsets I've used, with constant use, it seemed to be consuming around 60% of the battery - most other handsets I've used are up into the 80% mark! That's an outstanding performance for a large screen.
Power - I ran a Quadrant benchmark, and it came back with a score of around 3,250. That is around twice as fast as even the fastest old gen dual core processors, and Android isn't even optimised for them yet, can you imagine how fast and smooth it will be when it finally does get optimised. Almost all of the graphics tests ran at 60 FPS... some of them struggled to crack 20 FPS on an HTC Incredible S which is only a two month old handset!!!
GPS - A problem with the original Galaxy S, I have so far only tested it in the car with Google Navigation, but that worked fine; it never worked properly for me on the original SGS.
User Interface - A lot of people have criticised Samsung in the past for their past efforts at the "TouchWiz" interface. Right, bad points out of the way first... there are a few apps in there which are frankly, a little pointless, so there is a bit of bloat in there. I am also not 100% keen on the included widgets, and still feel they aren't up to HTCs standards... however, in every other respect, I actually prefer this to HTC Sense. Take away the included widgets and add your own, change the font to Helvetica, and get a nice live wallpaper (its the first handset that doesn't seem to slow down when you use one) and it looks incredibly gorgeous. And with all that power, it really flies along, with the smoothest experience outside of the closed iOS and WP7 platforms. Browsing scrolling is silky smooth and flash plays without a stutter. Brilliant. I also like the power controls in the notifications area, they are well thought out and look nice too. The launcher interface is a cross between iOS and a Vanilla android, with design cues coming from all angles. There's no denying they've took everyone elses best ideas and put them together. On the previous SGS I couldn't get rid of TW Launcher quick enough, but this is one is actually nice enough that I actually am happy to use it! Also worth a mention is the Swype keyboard. We've seen it before, but it works better than ever here!
Camera - Its an 8 Megapixel job with plenty of options and 1080p video recording. It is probably up there with the best on Android, 1080p records and plays at 30 FPS and is reasonable quality. The Autofocus seems a bit temperamental though.
Battery life - After well over 3 hours of constant use, the battery, which was exactly 50% charged when I got my hands on it, was completely dead. This means you can expect up to 7 or 8 hours of constant use once its run in. This is pretty much as good as the iphone.
So there you have it, an amazing handset and the first Samsung phone I actually like!
I've always liked Android and had flirted with it on several occasions before eventually going back to an iphone for its stability, but I always end up being bored with iphones and how restrictive they are.
Another observation I had made with Android was that its handsets seldom ever had good battery life, and that they weren't as smooth and fluid as iOS on say, an iPhone 4 - the better handsets have always been fast, but always seemed not quite smooth.
The original Galaxy S was, IMO a good handset with terrible software. They really did make a pig of it in the beginning, although I believe most of the issues are sorted now, but that didn't make me feel any bettter when I picked it up on launch day. So, you'd think I'd learn my lesson, and I must admit I jumped on board on the strength of promising reviews and users saying that this was definitely better...
Well, after playing with the SGS2 all morning, to quote apple, "this changes everything", a statement that frankly, makes me cringe, but it really does apply here, at least in the Android world.
Screen - fantastic - huge (so easy to read and type on), very dark blacks, colourful and impressive to look at. OK its not the highest res in the business, but believe me, its plenty sharp enough for most. I also noted that the power consumption of this screen is far better than other android handsets I've used, with constant use, it seemed to be consuming around 60% of the battery - most other handsets I've used are up into the 80% mark! That's an outstanding performance for a large screen.
Power - I ran a Quadrant benchmark, and it came back with a score of around 3,250. That is around twice as fast as even the fastest old gen dual core processors, and Android isn't even optimised for them yet, can you imagine how fast and smooth it will be when it finally does get optimised. Almost all of the graphics tests ran at 60 FPS... some of them struggled to crack 20 FPS on an HTC Incredible S which is only a two month old handset!!!
GPS - A problem with the original Galaxy S, I have so far only tested it in the car with Google Navigation, but that worked fine; it never worked properly for me on the original SGS.
User Interface - A lot of people have criticised Samsung in the past for their past efforts at the "TouchWiz" interface. Right, bad points out of the way first... there are a few apps in there which are frankly, a little pointless, so there is a bit of bloat in there. I am also not 100% keen on the included widgets, and still feel they aren't up to HTCs standards... however, in every other respect, I actually prefer this to HTC Sense. Take away the included widgets and add your own, change the font to Helvetica, and get a nice live wallpaper (its the first handset that doesn't seem to slow down when you use one) and it looks incredibly gorgeous. And with all that power, it really flies along, with the smoothest experience outside of the closed iOS and WP7 platforms. Browsing scrolling is silky smooth and flash plays without a stutter. Brilliant. I also like the power controls in the notifications area, they are well thought out and look nice too. The launcher interface is a cross between iOS and a Vanilla android, with design cues coming from all angles. There's no denying they've took everyone elses best ideas and put them together. On the previous SGS I couldn't get rid of TW Launcher quick enough, but this is one is actually nice enough that I actually am happy to use it! Also worth a mention is the Swype keyboard. We've seen it before, but it works better than ever here!
Camera - Its an 8 Megapixel job with plenty of options and 1080p video recording. It is probably up there with the best on Android, 1080p records and plays at 30 FPS and is reasonable quality. The Autofocus seems a bit temperamental though.
Battery life - After well over 3 hours of constant use, the battery, which was exactly 50% charged when I got my hands on it, was completely dead. This means you can expect up to 7 or 8 hours of constant use once its run in. This is pretty much as good as the iphone.
So there you have it, an amazing handset and the first Samsung phone I actually like!
Totally agree with you. I have had mine for a few days and love it. I managed to get 2 flash videos on the Sky news website to play together without any drop in frame rate which is really impressive. I'm not sure I'll root this one as most things I want from a phone are already there. There is even a MobileMe type utility on it. I can't get the website to work (www.samsungdive.com ) yet but it looks like you can remote wipe, send texts to the phone and track it. All for nothing!
After watching a few videos I am beginning to be genuinely impressed with phone, in a way I wasn't with the original SGS.
Just ordered a Desire S for my girlfriend, however the SGS II can be had on the exact same tariff for £100 more at the start, beginning to wonder if it's worth the extra dough.
Just ordered a Desire S for my girlfriend, however the SGS II can be had on the exact same tariff for £100 more at the start, beginning to wonder if it's worth the extra dough.
Diabolik said:
After watching a few videos I am beginning to be genuinely impressed with phone, in a way I wasn't with the original SGS.
Just ordered a Desire S for my girlfriend, however the SGS II can be had on the exact same tariff for £100 more at the start, beginning to wonder if it's worth the extra dough.
I would say so if you can afford it. The dual core isn't used much at the moment IIRC but give it 6mths and you'll start getting more apps which use it.Just ordered a Desire S for my girlfriend, however the SGS II can be had on the exact same tariff for £100 more at the start, beginning to wonder if it's worth the extra dough.
How are people getting on with these phones after a few more days?
I was a bit disappointed to hear that Samsung will now in fact release an NFC-enabled version of the SGS II to the UK market in a month or so - not very good service for the people who already have the current SGS II...
I was a bit disappointed to hear that Samsung will now in fact release an NFC-enabled version of the SGS II to the UK market in a month or so - not very good service for the people who already have the current SGS II...
Diabolik said:
How are people getting on with these phones after a few more days?
I was a bit disappointed to hear that Samsung will now in fact release an NFC-enabled version of the SGS II to the UK market in a month or so - not very good service for the people who already have the current SGS II...
Mine has a battery drain bug that causes the battery to drain in as little as 3 hours (in standby). Might be going back under the cooling off period. Seems to be a common problem. Samsung's poor software quality strikes again.I was a bit disappointed to hear that Samsung will now in fact release an NFC-enabled version of the SGS II to the UK market in a month or so - not very good service for the people who already have the current SGS II...
Otherwise, its a great device, but I can't put up with a device that drains THAT quickly.
TameRacingDriver said:
Mine has a battery drain bug that causes the battery to drain in as little as 3 hours (in standby). Might be going back under the cooling off period. Seems to be a common problem. Samsung's poor software quality strikes again.
Otherwise, its a great device, but I can't put up with a device that drains THAT quickly.
Really? My battery life is great, is it a particular app? Do you have any details of it?Otherwise, its a great device, but I can't put up with a device that drains THAT quickly.
TameRacingDriver said:
Cheers. My Android OS is on 18% and battery life is great. Wonder if it is when you install a certain app?Tycho said:
Cheers. My Android OS is on 18% and battery life is great. Wonder if it is when you install a certain app?
18% is pretty high... my Incredible S is on 2%.Mine started at around the same level, but soon it was actually more than the display and I've never had anything more than the display.
Can't pinpoint to a certain app TBH. Seemed pretty random.
Did you know there is a new firmware in Kies? Pity I couldn't get Kies to work because its a POS (just like it was with the old one). I've flashed that and will see how it goes.
The SGS phones are the Alfa Romeo's of the phone world, I am sure.
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