Samsung Galaxy S II I9100

First appear at the Adaptable World Congress (MWC) 2011 in Barcelona, the Samsung Galaxy S II is the aftereffect to the berserk accepted aboriginal bearing Samsung Galaxy S smartphone. For best Android lovers, this is apparently the Gingerbread (Android 2.3) smartphone they've been cat-and-mouse for. Let's see what this high-end artefact from the Korean chaebol has to offer.

Design

You may acquisition that the architecture of the Galaxy S II appears to be "inspired" by a assertive added smartphone. In fact, there's an advancing accusation amid Apple and Samsung that names this smartphone as an archetype of the Korean aggregation artful the Cupertino firm's designs. It doesn't advice that the Galaxy S II creates the apparition of accepting aloof a distinct button on the advanced apparent by ambuscade the touch-sensitive Menu and Aback buttons aback not in use. By default, these ablaze up alone briefly aback pressed. Intentional emulation? Perhaps.

Now, the Galaxy S II may be fabricated of artificial materials, but it did feel solid in our hands, and gives a abundant bigger feel compared with the aboriginal Galaxy S. This is additionally apparently due to its bunched anatomy factor--the smartphone is 8.5mm at its thinnest point. The buzz weighs in at a failing 116g.

The rear array awning uses a textured apparent and helps accord the buzz a bigger grip. Aback you abolish the awning though, you'll acquisition that the it absolutely feels actual chiffon and acceptable to break. Underneath the cover, you'll acquisition the SIM and microSD slots. You will accept to abolish the array to get at the microSD however, so swapping your microSD agenda after powering off is not possible.

At the basal of the accessory is area you acquisition the micro-USB port, and on top is area a 3.5mm audio jack is amid calm with a committed noise-cancelling microphone. The adeptness button is begin at the appropriate side, while your aggregate controls are on the left.

There's a 2-megapixel advanced camera for authoritative video calls, and a rear 8-megapixel camera with an LED flash, autofocus and HD 1080p video recording capabilities.

Features

The Galaxy S II comes with the abounding ambit of connectivity options that you would apprehend from a high-end device--Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, DLNA, GPS and HSDPA.

If you accept acclimated or accept heard about Samsung's articles before, again you'll apperceive that the S II comes with Samsung's TouchWiz interface. The UI has gotten a few improvements, including the adeptness to resize accurate widgets to bigger adapt your home screens. The appliance pages now annal continuously, acceptance you to cast to the aftermost folio from the aboriginal after accepting to go through the added bristles first. Added enhancements accommodate the adeptness to zoom in and out by captivation two fingers on the affectation and angry the accessory aback and forth.

For the Singapore market, Samsung has additionally added some apps that are developed locally, including a tracker app alleged B-secure Tracker that helps you acquisition your accessory if it's absent (or clean it in case there's admired abstracts on your device). Others accommodate an EZ-Link circadian deals app, which not alone looks amateurish, but annoys you every day about the deals unless you annihilate the app manually.

Also included with the S II are Hub apps. There are three Hubs on the phone, Social, Reader and Games. These are appealing cocky explanatory, but we do demand to highlight that we didn't acquisition the Social Hub too useful. If you get a acknowledgment on Twitter and it's a acknowledgment to one of your antecedent tweets, the Hub doesn't let you see which cheep your acquaintance is acknowledging to. This additionally applies to replies you see from added people. It's absolutely adamantine to codify a acknowledgment to a cheep after any ambience so we concluded up not application the Hub but the Twitter app instead.

Storage wise, the Galaxy S II comes with 16GB onboard, of which 11.5GB is articular as USB accumulator for multimedia files. The buzz doesn't appear with a agenda bundled, but if you charge added storage, the advantage to use the microSD agenda aperture is there.

As for account quality, the 8-megapixel buzz takes appealing acceptable images and supports 1080p HD video recording. The LED beam is appealing bright, and tends to dark your capacity if they are attractive into the camera aback it turns on the beam briefly for AF assist. Low-light images tend to be absolutely blatant but accessible as apparent in our analysis shots.

As for the 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display, colors attending abundant and vibrant, admitting our eyes couldn't absolutely assume to acquaint the aberration amid a non-Plus adaptation (in the Galaxy S). At bargain accuracy settings, the awning may assume warmer (yellowish), but this is normal. The S II uses Corning Gorilla Glass for a blemish and accident aggressive display.

Performance

Unlike the Nvidia Tegra 2-powered phones, the Samsung Galaxy S II appearance the Exynos chipset which has a dual-core 1.2GHz ARM Cortex A9 processor and the Mali-400MP GPU. The smartphone additionally comes loaded with 1GB RAM. Our handset's achievement was lightning fast and apps loaded quickly. Playing amateur with 3D cartoon additionally acquainted fluid.

Battery achievement is the alone affair that we begin blah on the S II. On our accepted analysis settings area Twitter and Facebook are set on two hour brace intervals calm with two Gmail accounts on push, the buzz almost lasted a day. The 1650mAh array seems bereft for a abundant user. We've heard rumors of a accessible amend that may advance dual-core array performance, but the Android 2.3.4 changelog acquaint by a Google agent doesn't assume to announce annihilation of the sort. It's acceptable you will accept to backpack a array charger or accumulate a additional array accessible if you are a abundant user or gamer.

Call affection was acceptable acknowledgment to the additional microphone, and the apostle aggregate is appealing average. You won't be able to ample the absolute allowance with disco beats, so use a headphone if you demand to watch movies or clips.

Conclusion

If you aren't already one of the 3 actor new owners of the Galaxy S II, again we do advance this buzz as an advancement to your Android handset. The TouchWiz interface will additionally advice affluence your about-face from iOS due to its accustomed attractive UI. Add in the ablaze 4.3-inch display, and the S II makes absolutely the hypothesis (ignoring array life, of course).

Retailing at S$998 (US$812) in Singapore, the Samsung Galaxy S II will be alike cheaper with abettor discounts that appear with a adaptable contract. The smartphone will be accessible in best of Asia by end of July, so accumulate an eye out for the handset in your country aback it launches.