Samsung i9100 Galaxy S II Unlocked GSM Android Smartphone
The follow-up to the extremely successful GALAXY S, Samsung’s GALAXY S II is a powerhouse of a smartphone in a fantastically sleek and lightweight design. Considerably thinner than the original GALAXY S and rivals such as the iPhone 4 (8.49mm v 9.3mm) the GALAXY S II is stunningly light (only 117g) and packs the latest version of Android (Gingerbread). The one feature most people will notice immediately is Samsung’s best ever screen; the monster 4.27-inch Super AMOLED Plus screen runs at 480 x 800 resolution, has colours visibly brighter and more vivid than other phones, better contrast and lower power consumption, and performs superbly for gaming and watching video. Plus there’s an 8.1 megapixel camera with full 1080p HD video recording, video playback at 30 frames per second and a dual-core processor, with each core running at a blistering 1Ghz for an incredibly responsive experience. The GALAXY S II comes with four hubs to help you make the most of your Galaxy S II; Social, your chatting life in one place, Readers, Samsung’s new ebook reader area, Game, the easiest way to download and play the best games, and Music, with access to over 12 million tracks.
Product Features
- Network: HSPA+ 21Mbps/HSUPA 5.76Mbps, EDGE/GPRS Class 12, Quad band GSM 850/900/1800/1900, Quad band UMTS 850/900/1900/2100
- Operation System: Android Platform 2.3. Dual Core Application Processor provides unsurpassed functionality and density for faster browsing, quicker multi-tasking, a smoother UI, snappier streaming and highly efficient gaming.
- Display: 4.3″ WVGA SUPER AMOLED Plus. The 4.3″ SUPER AMOLED Plus display goes a step beyond the already remarkable SUPER AMOLED to provide enhanced readability, a slimmer design, and better battery consumption for the best viewing value of any smartphone.
- Camera: 8MP AF with LED Flash + 2MP Front Camera
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, BT v3.0+HS, USB v2.0. Battery: 1650mAh
Customer Reviews
This phone is awesome. As far as appearance goes, it’s *thin.* Like, 8.49 mm thin. Much thinner than the iPhone 3G that I owned previously. Although it’s thin, the curved sides allow for easy gripping. The casing itself is plastic, so it feels cheaper than other all-aluminum phones, but its absolute thinness prevents if from feeling cheap. It’s a classy phone.
The screen is massive (4.3″) and beautiful. It’s probably the best single feature of the Galaxy S II. You can view the display from all kinds of angles (good for sharing pictures of cats) and the colors really pop. This is all due to Samsung’s patented Super AMOLED Plus technology. It’s the secret juice that makes the Galaxy S II’s screen really stand out when compared to other phones. One semi-downside of the display is that it’s resolution is 800×480 and NOT qHD. This means when watching HD movies you have to deal with annoying black bars around the film to maintain the viewing format.
The awesomeness of the screen, though, really can’t be overstated. It’s vibrant. Pictures and video are vivid and really pop off the screen, even in direct sunlight. The viewing angles and contrast are great. Really, a superb screen. Blows my old iPhone 3G’s screen out of the water. It’s a beauty to behold. Web pages render stunningly.
Samsung’s S-AMOLED Plus technology also helps with battery life by selectively powering down black pixels to maintain battery life. This means that even though the phone has an impressive two cores clocked at 1.2GHz each and that beautiful 4.3″ display, battery life is still impressive. I manage to go two days between charges and that’s with fairly frequent usage. I do notice that taking a lot of pictures seems to drain the battery life, though, so you’ll want to keep that in mind if you have cats. You should be able to get at least two days of battery life, I’d say. The Galaxy S II is certainly no slouch when it comes to the battery life department.
When it comes to internet, this phone supports 21.1Mbps HSPA+ speeds, so downloads are blazingly fast. This is another area where it blows my old iPhone 3G out of the water. Downloading apps feels almost instantaneous and web pages load very quickly. You might want to check if your area is covered by 4G, as coverage isn’t that extensive.
Camera quality is pretty decent at 8 megapixels. Of course, any professional photographer will want to carry around a dedicated camera, but the Galaxy S II more than suffices at Facebook pictures. One complaint I do have about the camera is that the flash tends to be a little strong and people end up looking like ghosts. Maybe Samsung will do something about this in a software update, I don’t know if that’s possible or not.
One interesting feature regarding photography is that the phone comes with a photo editor app. It’s rather lightweight and I doubt anyone could use it for professional touch ups, but for simple things like cropping or stylizing images it’s very convenient.
The phone can also record video in full HD (1080p). Quality is excellent, like nothing I’ve ever seen from a phone before. This will eat through battery fairly quickly though, but I’d wager you would still get 4 – 5 hours of usage even if you were recording video the entire time, which you of course wont be doing.
As far as software goes, remember that this phone has a powerhouse dual-core 1.2GHz Exynos processor that can handle *anything* I throw at it. The phone is always very snappy. It flies through homescreens, menus, and applications. In Quadrant, the phone scores between 3,000 to 3,400+ and in Linpack it gets about 47 mflops.
All in all, this phone is excellent and I’m very happy with my purchase. It’s a real upgrade over my old iPhone 3G. It supports blazing fast 4G downloads, has a stunning 4.3″ screen powered by Super AMOLED Plus technology, and with two 1.2GHz processors, it can handle any workload that I throw at it.
By : Robert P. Seaton
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Tags: samsung android, samsung galaxy sii
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