Samsung Galaxy S2 Review
The age of smart phones is truly upon us. Samsung have been releasing there line running the Android operating system to compete with Apple’s iPhone and the HTC’s. The most directly related of these are the iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy S2. The Galaxy boasts a 4.5 inch Super AMOLED Plus display. The device is only .9cm think and 128 grams.
An 8-megapixel camera and flash are encased in a brushed chrome oval on the back, while the 2-megapixel front-facing camera resides in the top left corner on the front side. Up top is the headphone jack. Along the left side is the volume control and along the right, the power button. We wish the volume buttons and power buttons weren’t directly across from each other. We frequently found ourselves accidentally adjusting the volume when we went to turn off the screen.
The screen is the Galaxy’ s greatest asset, the resolution comes it at 800×480. Games look crisp and vivid, moves flow beautifully and youtube videos when, youtube work look great. The speakers have a nice kick to them but when you get some deep bass the distort easily. e Galaxy S II includes Samsung’s keyboard and Swype. While Samsung’s was serviceable, we preferred Swype’s prediction options. Samsung’s keyboard options also include a handwriting box in portrait mode. Though we tried, the software couldn’t accurately decipher more than three letters of our finger-tracing at a time.
The Galaxy S II comes with Android 2.3.6, the latest version of the slightly stale Gingerbread, with Samsung’s TouchWiz overlay. TouchWiz gives you seven home screens that seamlessly cycle, meaning you’ll never reach a point where you can’t scroll any further to the left or right. This is nice feature that means no more pesky back and forths.
There are widgets for quick information, including weather forecasts and frequently used settings, but what we really like is the instant availability of toggle settings in the notification menu for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, silent mode and auto rotation. The latest updates for apps and emails present instantly on this dropdown menu. When in a call it integrates beautifully, with the option to hang up calls or even place them on hold.
The Google Play store, has a wide variety of apps mirroring that of apple’s App Store. The SII comes with a micro SD for expandable memory a nice feature that is not present,on other competitor devices. The apps run smoothly and are easily updated and easily downloaded. It has various categories ranging form finance to fitness. Like always there is a good range of free apps, but also some rubbish ones.
The battery life is a little worse then we would have like but it provides adequate power to get through the day, just make sure you charge it at night. We got it to last around 5hours for web browsing and a little bit shorter around 4 for application use. If you charge it at night however I suggest you leave it on the carpet floor as it vibrates quite loudly when you reach 100% battery. It’s standby time is around 48hours from our measurements.
The camera is amazing, the quality is unprecedented. Just like everything else the colours look vivid and the outside shorts are sharp .Capable of recording as high as 1080p, videos shot with the phone were also sharp with deep color saturation. We noticed that the tapered edges of the phone caused us to tighten our grip slightly, which resulted in a touch of shakiness in the video.
Overall the Samsung Galaxy SII is one of the best phones on the market. Its crisp and vivid display shines, along with the slim design. The variety of apps provides great flexibility, for all your needs. The battery could last a bit longer but that applies to all mobile phones. If your fortunate enough to get one, its a definite keeper.
