Review of the Samsung Galaxy S 2 i9100
The Samsung Galaxy S 2 is the latest and fastest Android handset that Samsung have produced to date. The Original Samsung Galaxy S i9000 was hugely successful for Samsung, so much so that Google used the hardware as the base for the Nexus S; an honour in the world of Android phones.
From early indications, it would seem that the Galaxy S 2 i9100 is set to be just as popular as its predecessor. Although the Galaxy S is only 10 months old, the handset has been substantially upgraded which really shows just how quickly modern technology is progressing.
The first thing we noticed when we held the phone is it’s size; the phone has grown to 125.3 mm wide, which is hardly surprising given the Galaxy S 2 now houses and incredible 4.3 inch screen. Amazingly the handset is just 8.5mm thick, making it the thinnest Smartphone currently available!
The 4.3 inch display in question, is Samsungs Super AMOLED Plus technology, to be honest we’re not exactly sure what the plus stands for or exactly what benefits it brings over the original but it really is stunning. We didn’t think the Galaxy S screen could have been improved but Samsung seem to have found a way. The colours although the same 16 million are astonishingly vibrant and completely blew us away. The display is still protected by the same super tough Gorilla Glass, so you need not worry about scratching the display either. We’ve tested the multi-touch capabilities of the Galaxy S and we can get it to recognise at least eight fingers on the capacitive touchscreen; plenty for any multi-touch activity you might throw at it. The Galaxy S 2 has actually shed a few grams and only weighs 116g compared with the 119g, the difference of which is almost negligible when held in the hand. The phone feels incredibly light given its bulky size and due to its extreme thinness, fits very comfortably in your pocket.
The Galaxy S 2 has a Dual core 1.2ghz ARM Cortex-A9 processor beating in it’s heart which is more powerful than even Apple’s latest iPad 2, making the handset blisteringly fast. The navigation through the menus and launch time of the apps seems more even fluid and is noticeably faster than even the original Galaxy S; which was far from a slouch. The new dual core processor also brings with it the ability to shoot video at full 1080p. Thankfully the Galaxy S 2 has also had it’s camera upgraded from 5mp to 8mp and captures really stunning video. Here’s a clip from you tube that we took using the Galaxy S 2.
As you can see the quality of the video recording is great and its hard to believe that it’s taken with a mobile phone.
As a side note the front facing camera has also been improved to 2mp so that any self portraits can be taken with a certain level of quality.
Obviously a powerful phone needs a powerful operating system so Samsung have loaded the S 2 with the latest iteration of Google’s OS - Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). This is the most up to date version of the Android OS from Google, apart from the Tablet based Honeycomb due to launch in the near future. Samsung have overlaid their familiar TouchWiz skin on top of Android, leaveing you in the familiar Samsung domain, but undoubtedly, its the 2.3 version of the OS that adds to the browsing experience on the S 2.
Obviously once you have marvelled at the phones beauty you need to know if it’s useable. The MP3 player offers all you would need and the video player is great thanks to the Galaxy S superior display. Samsung have made the phone available in two different memory sizes, either a 16GB model or a 32GB model, both of which will be available from launch. The on-board memory is double that of the older Galaxy S i9000. The phone still offers expandable memory thanks to the Micro SD slot which can support a further 32GB of memory. In short you’ll be hard pushed to run out of space even, if you have a large catalogue of movies, music and apps.
The battery has been upgraded from a 1500mAh to a 1650mAh lithium ion unit which should provide enough power to supply the dual core processor for a full day with fairly heavy use, from the testing we’ve undertaken. As this is Samsung’s first Dual core handset you might expect a few teething problems but we were unable to find any. The Samsung Galaxy S 2 really appears to be out of this world and anybody looking for the latest and greatest in mobile technology, need not look any further than the Galaxy S 2.
James, Mobiles.co.uk
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