My review of the Samsung Galaxy S II

[howard]

After using the Galaxy S II for a few minutes I knew I was going to run out and get one after I return this review unit. Read on and I’ll tell you why.



While the Galaxy S II isn’t the first dual core Android device that I’ve used, it certainly is the first one that really feels significantly faster than a single core device. The other dual core device I’ve spent a lot of time using is a Motorola ATRIX. While the ATRIX has dual cores in everyday usage it doesn’t feel all that different from newer single core units like the SE Xperia Arc or the Nexus S. One of the main reasons is because the Arc and Nexus run Gingerbread (Android 2.3) which the Galaxy S II also runs.



As the smartphone market gets more competitive, companies like Apple and to a lesser extent RIM have an advantage in that they have proprietary operating systems. In that sense, companies that make Android devices are at a disadvantage because they all have to use the same operating system. To differentiate their devices they can either try to make special software layers that sit on top of Android - generally with mixed results. Or they can differentiate their hardware but generally everyone has similar hardware: WVGA displays, 5 or 8MP cameras, 1Ghz processors, etc.



While Samsung makes Android phones one piece of hardware, what they have that no one else has are their amazing Super AMOLED displays. The Galaxy S II sports an updated screen called Super AMOLED Plus.



While the S and the S II both have 800x480 resolution displays, the S II’s measure 4.2” compared with 4”. Despite being bigger with the same resolution, the S II’s is actually sharper. Displays are comprised of pixels which are comprised of subpixels. The S’s subpixels were laid out in pentile matrix array.

Galaxy S display close up


Galaxy S II display close up


Apparently this layout is supposed to use less power. The problem is that the S’s pentile matrix display always looks for lack of a better word ‘dotty’. Check out the image to see what I mean.

Galaxy S close up


Galaxy S II close up


My guess is the Android operating system is used to dealing with displays that have a regular RGB layout, so it’s able to alias them properly. The Galaxy S II’s pixels are laid out in a conventional RGB manner which is why it looks much sharper while at the same time more smooth.

As far as brightness goes, the S II is slightly brighter while at the same time it’s colours are more saturated. Absolute black levels appear to be identical.

Back to size, the 4.2” display is huge, when I switch from the iPhone 4 to the S II it feels like I’m going from a window to a peep hole. That said, the iPhone has about 25% more pixels so it’s slightly sharper. Right now phone manufacturers are in a a race to design phones with the biggest possible display while at the same time having it take up the minimum amount of space.



While this makes for sleek looking phones, it makes them harder to hold as you need a certain amount of phone to hold onto - otherwise it’s really easy to accidentally touch the display. While the Galaxy S II’s bezel has a decent amount of space at the top and bottom there isn’t enough on the sides plus it’s too thin. While I don’t have huge problems using the S II with 2 hands, it’s hard to use with just one.



While the front of the S II is rather bland, the back has an interesting finish. I think it’s supposed to look like leather that’s been pebbled. Anyways it’s actually just made of plastic. The plastic is actually really flexible. It flexes as much as a playing card. In fact if you look carefully at the picture of the top you'll notice part of the battery cover is sticking up. Regardless the S II is a very solid phone though it lacks the heft of say a HTC Panache which has a metal battery cover.

On top is a headphone jack, at the bottom is a micro USB jack for charging or connecting to your computer. There's camera button on the right and on the left you get a lanyard connector and volume buttons.

I found that the S II can heat up very quickly. It can get very warm just under the rear facing camera.



The camera takes excellent pictures and has fairly fast auto focus speeds as long as it doesn’t require the flash. When the flash is needed, AF speeds are slower. The camera also does a pretty good job of taking usable pictures. When I say usable pictures, I’m talking about scenarios such as when you’re up close and have to use the flash - the S II does a respectable job of lighting up the picture without blasting it out. Another example is when your subject is moving - the S II uses realistic shutter speeds that should help reduce blurring.



You get a lot of features with the camera plus it features a customizable UI. Each photographer is different, maybe you’re constantly changing the resolution or the ISO. Or maybe you tend to play with the flash a lot. With the S II, you can choose which icons show up so that you don’t have to access the menu to find them.

While I was very impressed with the camera I wasn’t crazy about the camcorder. While I like how it can record 1080p video, the S II appears to only use pixels at the center of it’s 8MP sensor. What this means is video is considerably more ‘zoomed in’ when compared to the camera. To be fair other camera phones like the one on the iPhone 4 do this too but the S II’s is more noticeable. One of the keys to taking steady video is to not zoom in too much so it’s hard to take steady video with the S II. Video quality is decent, it feels like it has higher resolution than some 720p camera phones I’ve used.



I’m not 100% sure but I think I noticed some slight audio/video sync issues. It could be a codec issue on my computer, I’ll have to look into this one.

There’s a built-in video editing program. You can use it to add themes to your video, titles, splice or join different clips etc. It can also let you output video in a variety of resolutions which is useful if you don’t want your clip to consume too much data if you’re uploading it.

As mentioned, the Galaxy S II runs Android 2.3 with Samsung Touchwiz on top. If you’ve used an iPhone before you’ll find Touchwiz somewhat familiar because the main menu is basically a copy of iOS. You get screens of icons along with 4 icons on the bottom which never change. Since the original Galaxy S came out, Apple added folders to iOS which you can now also find on the Galaxy S II. Personally I like how they’ve copied iOS as I find stock Android’s main menu to be chaotic.

Samsung has added some motion features. If the phone is ringing, turning it over will silence it (HTC phones already have this feature, not sure about others). When you’re organizing the program icons, you can change screens by pressing the icon and shaking the phone left or right. These 2 features are useful. You can double the phone twice to activate voice commands but that never worked for me. There’s also a feature which lets you zoom by placing 2 fingers on the screen and moving the phone towards or away from you to zoom. This isn’t a useful feature since it’s easier to just pinch zoom.

There are 2 built-in English keyboards: Samsung’s own keyboard or SWYPE. Personally I like both of them though I’d lean more towards the Samsung keyboard. That said the built-in Samsung keyboard isn’t as good on the S II compared with the orignal S because the S II is harder to hold since the screen is too big and the phone is too thin.

One really cool feature is Kies Air. With it you can access the S II from a computer located on the same network. With it on, you can manage your photos, video, contacts, browser bookmarks, text messages, files, set your ringtones and browse your call log.

Kies Air is pretty comprehensive. It will let you upload files to the S II including videos, pictures and music. You can actually view/listen to photos, music, video stores on the S II FROM the browser. You can send SMS, save numbers to your phonebook, etc. - very cool!

Samsung has tried to organize certain types of functions into hubs. There’s a Readers Hub which is a front end launcher for a variety of different e-reader sources like PressDisplay, Kobo and Zino. Social Hub which tries to organize your email, social media and instant messages. Games Hub is a game launcher powered by Mobage.

I tested the S II and the original S side by side and their RF performance is virtually identical. Incoming sound quality is quite good while outgoing is quite processed sounding.

The S II comes with a 1650mAh battery compared to the 1500mAh you get with the original. I didn’t notice much difference in battery life though I didn’t benchmark them. Either way, they both have pretty poor battery life if you are a heavy user which is the norm for this class of phone. I know I’ve complained about this a few times already but if the S II was thicker they could have put a bigger battery in it.

In the end, the S II isn’t perfect. It’s too thin, has too much screen for it’s size and the camcorder being too ‘zoomed in’ really annoyed me. It’s also rather bland looking. But these problems are minor compared to how good everything else is. It feels really fast, has the best looking display you can get now and has a fantastic still camera. Even though it’s running Android with another layer on top, it feels well integrated and is intuitive to use. It’s THE smartphone to get right now.

[pnjunction]

Nice pics comparing the two screens. You captured the two things I don't like about the pentile SAMOLED (although it is still quite useable):

1) The pixellation of solid reds. Reds and blues would in theory suffer equally from this but if you look at the zoomed-in pic the red subpixels are smaller than the blue ones so red has less 'coverage' and looks worse.

2) The 'phantom colours' around the text. You don't mention this specifically but look at the text of 'Gmail' underneath the icons on the two phones. Because of pentile there are 'stray' subpixels, especially noticeable in red and blue, around the edges of the letters. This is noticeable with black-on-white text as well.

Finally one practical change I would like about this phone is that the headphone jack has moved to the bottom. For me it always makes to put the phone upside down in my front pocket. That way when I grab it and hold it up it is right-side up in my hand. That doesn't work with headphones if the jack is on the top. The phone has to be put in right-side up and then taking it out and getting it right side up takes an awkward movement (with increased potential of dropping). Also when sitting say in front of a computer with the phone plugged in (for power or whatever) it makes the most sense to have the power/USB cable going from the top and the headphone cable coming out the bottom. I would almost spend $600 on this phone just for this alone LOL.

[RonCar]

I've had the phone for a couple weeks now and i absolutely love it. I'm a fairly heavy user and i find the the battery life to be just as good as the iPhone 4, that is once i updated the firmware.

[Furry Atom]

I've had the phone for a couple weeks now and i absolutely love it. I'm a fairly heavy user and i find the the battery life to be just as good as the iPhone 4, that is once i updated the firmware.

How much did it cost to import it?

[RonCar]

I got it locally from a guy who bought it for his wife from the uk, turns out she didn't want give up her iphone. Cost me 700.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using HowardForums

[k13]

Arc as fast as an Atrix....

Took me only 5 minutes to know it's not even close.

Loaded Golf and its loading and loading and loading....

Always gotta take these reviews with a grain of salt, they are all just trying to sell new phones that come out.

xda forums has so many problems/bugs with the phone yet none of them are ever mentioned in reviews.

[Furry Atom]

Arc as fast as an Atrix....

Took me only 5 minutes to know it's not even close.

Loaded Golf and its loading and loading and loading....

Always gotta take these reviews with a grain of salt, they are all just trying to sell new phones that come out.

xda forums has so many problems/bugs with the phone yet none of them are ever mentioned in reviews.

You're missing the point of the review. This isn't a comparison of the atrix and the xperia arc. Just because you've had one experience with a device doesn't mean howard had the same one as you.

[coldpower27]

Looking to upgrade to Galaxy S II want that speed and more gorgeous display. :P

[HC - NO "i"]

...
Finally one practical change I would like about this phone is that the headphone jack has moved to the bottom. For me it always makes to put the phone upside down in my front pocket. That way when I grab it and hold it up it is right-side up in my hand. That doesn't work with headphones if the jack is on the top. The phone has to be put in right-side up and then taking it out and getting it right side up takes an awkward movement (with increased potential of dropping). Also when sitting say in front of a computer with the phone plugged in (for power or whatever) it makes the most sense to have the power/USB cable going from the top and the headphone cable coming out the bottom. I would almost spend $600 on this phone just for this alone LOL.

pnjunction,

I am not sure I am getting you right but the Galaxy S II is still having the standard headphone jack on the "top" side though the USB connector has moved to the "bottom" side. Either it does not really bother me much. In fact, I prefer the headphone on the top side of my devices.

[HC - NO "i"]

Fellow HC,

A few things I want to add...

1. Will the included or after-market "shell" case help the ergonomic by adding little more thickness?

2. The ring silencer (by turning over the handset) has been introduced by Nokia for quite some time. Yes, I also like this practical feature.

3. "AV out-of-sync" issue... are you talking about the video playback only or video recording with the Galaxy S II? I have got several videos files encoded with higher compression rate having this issue.

[pnjunction]

Bah you're right I mixed it up. Oh well so much for that I still want one.

[drunkgoat]

Does the SG II have in-call recording?