When it was unveiled in MWC 2011, there was a lot of speculation whether Samsung Galaxy S2 will be able to take forward the legacy that Galaxy S started, to a new level. With this curiosity, I had set my eyes on this phone, I wanted this phone.
After 4 months of, when an official launch date of S2 was announced in India, several store owners still struggled to mention an exact date of availability. So I ended up in buying it from eBay (also available on Amazon as well). After 3 days, it finally arrived on my doorstep and the box was enough to make me feel like, Wow!
So, after playing with it for a week, here’s my Samsung Galaxy S2 Review in Bullet Style™:
THE GOOD | |
|
THE BAD |
- Not powerful enough speaker.
- No dedicated camera button.
First Impressions :
- The screen is simply Gorgeous and it’s the best I’ve ever seen. Moreover, the phone is equally beautiful, I often keep staring it and admiring it. At a first glance, it looks like the body is inspired by iPhone. The home button in bottom middle this resemblance stronger.
- Thinnest smartphone ever, so thin that it won’t even fill up your pocket properly. Moreover, it is very light. Even the battery weighs more than the phone!
- The phone boots up in 6 seconds. That's very fast!
- Although having a massive 4.3 inch screen, it fits perfectly in hand (and pocket too, if you're still wondering.)
- Some people complain about Samsung’s cheap build quality, but things are different with S2. Although it's made of plastic, the phone quality feels solid in hands. Its mesh texture on the back makes it feel even better to hold. The battery cover is very thin. While opening it for the first time I feared I might broke it but it's very flexible and strong.
Display :
- The Super AMOLED Plus screen is incredible. Green, red, blue, yellow colors pop out and are thrown everywhere. The TouchWiz interface really makes the interface bright.
- Its SAMOLED Plus screen, packed with a resolution of 800x480 pixels, produces a far better display than other screens do such as LG Optimus’s NOVA display or HTC Sensation which has a little greater resolution.
- Since it only has a 800x480 resolution, the pixel count is relatively lower than the iPhone, Motorola Atrix or HTC Sensation and text may not be crisp in a zoomed out page but it’ll still be sharp enough for easy reading.
- The screen is clearly visible under sunlight. See the 4th photo below, screen’s brightness is to 10% and is still clearly visible.
UnSynchronized Lighting of Buttons below the screen is a pain.That was very stupid of me that I never noticed the setting to turn it on permanently.- No LED notification is a drawback. How do I know if there's a missed call or an unread SMS without unlocking the phone?
Hardware
With 1.2Ghz dual core processor screaming inside the shell, it literally blows out every single competitor with its specifications which make it as the world’s current most powerful smartphone. Here’s a quick look at its specs:
| Display | SAMOLED+, 480 x 800 pixels |
| CPU | Dual-core 1.2GHz ARM Cortex-A9 Processor and Mali-400MP GPU |
| Storage | 16GB/32GB (extendable), 1GB Ram |
| Connectivity | GPRS, EDGE, 3G, WiFi, USB 2.0 and Bluetooth 3.0 |
| Camera | 8 MP rear and 2MP front. Video Recording: 1080p@30fps. |
| Battery | 1650mAH, Standby: 710 h (2G) & upto 610 h (3G) Talktime: Up to 18 h 20 min (2G) & upto 8 h 40 min (3G) |
| Storage | 16GB/32GB Internal, 32GB extendable. |
| Miscellaneous | NFC, SNS integration, HDTV output, Flash, DLNA etc. |
- The phone has a 3.5mm audio jack, volume control buttons, a power button and a USB output for three purposes: Charging the phone, Connecting to a PC/Mac and HDTV Output.
- It has WiFi Direct, using which you can wirelessly connect PCs and Printers (for printing over the air).
- It also comes with “AllShare” that lets you to link wirelessly with a TV, laptop or even audio system to play multimedia files directly from the phone.
- Further, it’s also capable of incorporating NFC technology which, I think, might be the future of shopping. (Only available in Korea though, but rumors say it'll be available in UK, US versions.
Camera, GPS and Multimedia
Camera :
- Samsung Galaxy S2 has a 8.0 megapixel camera, capable of shooting at full 1080p HD resolution. The picture and video quality is excellent. The colors are bright and photos taken in dark are equally good with Flash.
- The camera interface is also simple. Though, Samsung missed a dedicated camera button in the phone which I'm used to.
Secondary camera
The S2 is also equipped with a 2.0 megapixel front cameraand is the only phone to sport this right now.- It produces good image under good lighting conditions and is perfect for video calling.
GPS
- It works! A critical problem in S2’s predecessor was its GPS which failed to give a good performance. But things have changed with S2 and it gets a very quick GPS lock. Navigation with Google maps is easy. Also, it gets locked quicker when the phone is in a WiFi network.
Video and Music Playback
- When it comes to playing video, the Galaxy S II is capable of playing Full HD 1080p videos . Further, When combined with SAMOLED+ screen, watching videos is a vivid experience. With it's battery, I once watched 3 movies back to back and was still left with 17% of battery.
- The video player interface is clean and it supports so many video formats that you won’t need to download any video player (except for FLV).
Video Formats Supported: MPEG4, H.264, H.263, WMV, DivX, Xvid, VC-1
- Galaxy S II can also playback several music formats (along with an option for 5.1 channel surround option, but only when handset is plugged in) without any loss in quality.
Voice Commands :
- Samsung has also integrated “Tap and Go” for voice commands. Press the home key twice and you’ll be presented with a bunch of voice command options. You can then execute major functions like calling, music, messaging, scheduling and launching apps with the ease of a voice command.
- Though this doesn’t work well every time if you don’t have a perfect accent. Mine accent is Indian and I had some problems with it. Like, when I commanded it to write a memo, “My Galaxy S2 review: It’s a beast”, it resulted in “My Samsung Galaxy S to leave you in but it’s typed it for beast”
Ohk, no problem, I can’t blame my phone for that.
Battery Life
Poor Battery life is something what Android has never been able to boast. But looks like things can change a bit now. Galaxy S II manages about 2 days of battery life with moderate use (and a day if you’re a hardcore user), thanks to its dual core processors which helps in balancing CPU consumption.- With great power, comes great compromises. The screen eats about 40-50% of battery so lowering the brightness is the only way to reduce it. But the display still looks beautiful even when it’s set to minimum.
- There’s a bug in Gingerbread which sometimes triggers the draining up of battery to go berserk. More info (and fix) about it here. Though I never experienced it, a friend of mine told he did on another phone. I hope Google fixes it soon.
- The default task manager is a very handy app. I didn’t feel any use of those so-called advanced task managers.
ON THE WHOLE :
Overall, The Samsung Galaxy S II proves out to be
the best Android smartphone the android-verse
has ever seen till now. Though there are some
flaws in it but hey, nothing’s perfect in this world
right? The beautiful display, new Touchwiz
interface, deadly specifications all balance up the
flaws.If you’re looking for a powerful smartphone,
this phone should be your answer. If I had to give
it a rating, I’ll give it 9.0/10 .
this phone should be your answer. If I had to give
it a rating, I’ll give it 9.0/10 .
Cool review!
ReplyDeletethank u !!
ReplyDelete9.0? that's all?
ReplyDelete