Samsung Galaxy S II - The Second Installment
First seen at MWC 2011, the Samsung Galaxy S II sets itself apart from the rest with impressive specs like a 4.27-inch Super AMOLED Plus screen, a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 1GB RAM and so forth. Will it be able to dethrone its predecessor, the Samsung Galaxy S? The answer lies within this review.
The Second Installment
The Samsung GALAXY S II returns as the Korean chaebol’s high-end flagship smartphone, replacing . The latter first garnered attention for its patented Super AMOLED screen, which has now been replaced by a Super AMOLED Plus screen on the new GALAXY S II. And that’s not all this high-end Android OS 2.3 equipped smartphone has to offer. How do specs like a 1.2GHz dual-core processor and an 8-megapixel camera sandwiched in a thin profile sound? We're sure, you're keen to know of its performance, but more on that later.
The new Galaxy S II sports a lot of similarities to its earlier Galaxy S predecessor, but not under the hood.
Off the bat, the Galaxy S II bears a strong resemblance to its predecessor in terms of design. Except this time, the successor ditches the chrome bezel in favor of a plastic one, with ports and buttons shifted around. The ultra-slim (8.49mm thin) smartphone sports an extremely slim bezel and a clean design that draws attention to its huge 4.27-inch Super AMOLED Plus screen. It is still has a plasticky feel to it, just like the original Galaxy S, but this gives it an edge - the phone's weight is kept to a minimum at just 116 grams (which brings it three grams lighter than its predecessor).
Samsung Galaxy S (left) and Samsung Galaxy S II (right). Notice the absence of the chrome bezel on the latter. On the Galaxy S II, the Menu and Back touch buttons lit up once the screen was activated.
The textured back gives the new phone (in the photo's foreground) a better grip as compared to the rubbery surface on its predecessor (background).
The power button remains on the phone's right profile but is longer compared to the one on the older Galaxy S. However, there isn't any dedicated camera button on both devices. Also note that the Galaxy S II is slightly thinner at 8.49mm compared to Galaxy S' 9.9mm profile.
On the left profile, you will find a thin volume button.
A 3.5mm audio port sits slightly off-center on the top of both phones. The only difference is that the micro-USB port has been shifted to the bottom.
No USB slide-out cover this time as well.
The back cover is extremely easy to pry open without having to break a nail. Simply snap it off from the little opening at the top. The usual suspects are found here: the battery compartment, MicroSD and SIM cards. The SIM card is hot swappable.
Getting to Know TouchWiz 4.0
As with most Android smartphones, the Samsung Galaxy S II comes with Samsung's own patented TouchWiz 4.0 UI, an upgrade from Samsung Galaxy S's TouchWiz 3.0. The latest version of the interface comes with a couple of small tweaks here and there; from sleeker widgets (including more to choose from), to new gesture functionality and improved camera interface.
Similar to Motorola's Motoblur UI, you can resize Samsung-specified widgets on the TouchWiz 4.0 UI as well.
Additional widgets have been added to the selection, with some looking really polished and classy. Take the clock widget shown here for example.
One of the major upgrades in the TouchWiz 4.0 UI is the inclusion of touch gestures. Simply access the menu from the settings options. For example, you can select to mute incoming calls and audio playback by turning over the phone or double tap to auto-access voice commands in voice talk.
Placing the phone in landscape orientation will activate the split-messaging format. This feature is especially useful on phones with bigger screens.
Productivity apps like Kies Air, Photo editor and Video maker are now made integral to TouchWiz 4.0. Kies Air is not new to the Samsung portfolio of gadgets - like Motorola's Moto Phone Portal app, it allows users to access their phone's content on a web browser through a given URL via a Wi-Fi connection or a self-created Wi-Fi hotspot. From there, you can manage almost everything on your Samsung Galaxy S II.
The app is extremely easy to use. Simply follow the instructions, and set-up will be done in one to two minutes.
The photo editor app is pretty extensive, allowing for some pretty cool editing options on an interface that's extremely simple to use. As you can see, simply click on the respective icons for your desirable effect - crop, rotate or add effects.
The video maker app is slightly more basic than the photo editing app but allows for quick, on-the-spot editing. You start off with choosing a theme, say Movie, Home Video or Party, and editing options will vary.
Users will also see four Hubs, with the Music, Readers and Games Hubs acting like Samsung's own multimedia stores, as well as a Social Hub that collates all your social networking and messaging feeds into one place.
In the Game Hub, you will get titles that are categorized into Social games and Premium Games. Clicking on the latter will bring up a list of Gameloft games, which is a nice addition since they are not listed on the Android Market. You can try these games before buying them, just like how it is on the Xbox Live Hub on Windows Phone 7.
You can convert your Samsung Galaxy S II into a dedicated e-book reader with the Readers Hub. There are book previews to download before buying the actual products, or you can subscribe to digital print media like newspapers or magazines.
The Social Hub allows you to combine your email and IM accounts with social networking such as Twitter. These will be filtered accordingly to feeds and messages. Previously on the Galaxy S, the Social Hub stands as a very basic tool (i.e., you can't like posts, or direct message your peers), but it has seen improvements on the TouchWiz 4.0 UI. You can now do almost everything by simply clicking on the arrow button next to the individual feed update.
Benchmarking the Samsung Galaxy S II
We have adopted a few benchmark tests specific to the Android platform for a few reasons. With the Google Android platform maturing so quickly, choosing a suitable phone in a growing sea of Android devices with close to identical specs is extremely difficult. To add on, with manufacturers jumping on the dual-core processing bandwagon, these results will give a gauge of how they will fare against their lesser endowed counterparts. Hopefully, these benchmarks will allow for a clearer picture on which smartphone is worth your while.
Within this page, we'll be looking at two specific benchmarks, both of which are downloadable via the Android Market.
- Quadrant: It measures the device's performance based on its CPU, I/O and GPU. Simply put, Quadrant is a benchmark that gives you a general idea of how your device performs against other Android devices.
- NeoCore: It is targeted towards the device's GPU performance. This is especially important given how smartphones of today have evolved into an alternative, high-powered device that dabbles in heavy graphical interfaces and gaming.
Do note that the above two benchmarks are not absolute in measuring performance, but they give you a good rough estimate of how the device performs. Our tests were conducted on devices from a fresh reboot on a stock firmware. To show how the Samsung Galaxy S II performed against similar smartphones, we compared its results against the following high-end Android devices - LG Optimus 2X, Motorola Atrix, and Samsung Galaxy S.
Device | Samsung Galaxy S II | Motorola Atrix | LG Optimus 2X | Samsung Galaxy S |
CPU | ARMCortex-A9 Exynos
(Dual-core 1.2GHz ) | NVIDIA Tegra 2
(Dual-core 1GHz) | NVIDIA Tegra 2
(Dual-core 1GHz) | ARM Cortex-A8 Hummingbird1GHz |
GPU | Mali-400MP | ULP GeForce | ULP GeForce | PowerVR SGX540 |
RAM | 1GB | 1GB | 512MB | 512MB |
OS | Google Android 2.3 | Google Android 2.2 | Google Android 2.2 | Google Android 2.1 |
The Samsung Galaxy S II boasts better scores than its predecessor. No surprises there since it comes with more than twice the CPU power (dual-core vs. single core) and almost twice the RAM capacity. The Galaxy S II is also loaded with the latest Google Android 2.3 OS, which is further optimized for performance. Having the best hardware specifications out of the lot, it managed to beat the 1GHz dual-core smartphones from Motorola and the LG in the Quadrant benchmark scores. Though the Motorola Atrix came closest in terms of specs, it still lagged significantly behind the Galaxy S II.
However when we take a look at the NeoCore benchmark scores, the Galaxy S II's score is actually within the same range as the Motorola Atrix and Samsung Galaxy S, possibly due to a capped framerate. Though the LG Optimus 2X scored higher with its uncapped frame rate, this isn't a definitive indication of the graphics performance on the Galaxy S II.
Equipped with a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 1.2 GHz, the latest Mali-400MP GPU and ample amount of RAM (1GB), the Samsung Galaxy II is nothing short of a speed racer. As a result, we found no problems with its performance as it ran smooth and loads apps extremely swiftly. We experienced no lags and crashes in performance while surfing the web, navigating on the phone and running various apps during our test run.
Multimedia & Battery Life Performance
The Galaxy S II’s display is nothing short of spectacular. To start off, its size is optimal for mobile entertainment, be it watching clips or playing games on-the-go. Secondly, it boasts of excellent color reproduction, contrast, and viewing angles even under sunlight. Thirdly, AMOLED screens are known for its higher level of power efficiency, and with the Super AMOLED Plus display, the phone managed to last for 8 hours and 13 minutes. This is almost 80 minutes more than the Galaxy S on our standard battery test. If you are not a big fan of the intensely saturated colors on the screen, the phone comes with a new screen setting called Background Effect with three saturation modes – dynamic, standard and movie – to choose from.
The Samsung Galaxy S did pretty well in the photography aspect so naturally, we had high hopes with the Galaxy S II.
The Galaxy S II comes with an 8-megapixel camera with auto focus and LED flash capabilities. The device also comes with a 2-megapixel camera that's found on the front, specifically for video calls and low-res self portraits.
The built-in camera app comes with a clean and simple interface that is easy to use. You can select up to four shortcut buttons from a whole list of features to place on a strip on the right.
The Galaxy S II comes with a comprehensive list of settings, including metering modes, scene modes, effects, ISO settings and more.
We found that the overall photographic performance for the Galaxy S II was pretty good, and we had no problems shooting on the smartphone - colors were well-contrasted (sometimes, a bit over-saturated) and photos exhibited a high level of detail and clarity and low level of noise. We especially like the shortcut functionality of the built-in camera app as well as the extensive settings that it offers (touch focus, face/blink/smile detection, ISO levels and more). However, the annoying quirk that showed itself on the Galaxy S comes back on the Galaxy S II: the camera app won't start when the battery indicator falls into the red zone.
Next up, we compared the Samsung Galaxy S II's battery performance with a selected group of devices chosen for their similarities across battery capacities, display sizes, resolution and processing power. This standard battery test consists of looping a 480 x 800 pixels resolution video clip at 100% volume and screen brightness, with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth active with push email or data being pulled at regular intervals. For this handset, we compared it against other similar Android devices such as the Motorola Atrix, LG Optimus 2X, and Samsung Galaxy S.
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The Galaxy S II performs extremely well in battery life testing. The Samsung Galaxy S has always been known for its good battery life amidst the other Android phones (even those that have been released after it) and the Galaxy S II ups the ante with an even better battery life. AMOLED screens are generally more power efficient than its peers, and the Galaxy S II's Super AMOLED Plus display has shown its worth in this case.
As a result, the Galaxy S II also exhibits the lowest level of power consumption. This is pretty impressive given that it shares similar hardware specs with the Optimus 2X and Atrix but requires only 2/3 of their levels of power consumption.
The Galaxy S II is the lightest smartphone in the lot, and followed closely by its predecessor. It comes with the second highest battery capacity, with Motorola Atrix taking the highest spot with a battery capacity of 1930mAh. With all these factors combined with the longest battery life, the Samsung Galaxy S II naturally scored the highest in our Portability Ratio index. To recap, this ratio derived from dividing battery life against (weight x volume).
Overall, the Galaxy S II did extremely well, lasting way beyond its fellow peers. To give a good gauge, while rationing the phone for normal day-to-day operations, the phone could last for at least a working day and a half.
Is Two Better Than One?
The Samsung Galaxy S II took what we liked about the Galaxy S and made it better. Heck, it does a better job than most other high-end Android smartphones. Like the Motorola Atrix and the LG Optimus 2X, the Samsung Galaxy S II belongs to the new age of dual-core smartphones that are also heavily armored with impressive hardware specs. The Galaxy S II itself comes with a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, a whopping 1GB of working memory, a 4.27-inch Super AMOLED Plus screen, and an 8-megapixel camera.
Not only did it have good specs to boast, but it also performed like a pro. The Samsung Galaxy S II performs well in every aspect that matters to a consumer - CPU performance, battery life, and multimedia performance. We experienced no crashes or lags while using the smartphone; its battery life lasted much longer than others in a similar class; it plays 1080p smoothly with the experience visually enhanced by a favorable Super AMOLED Plus touchscreen. Lastly, its 8-megapixel camera comes with not just above average performance but an extensive built-in camera app.
Like the other prominent Android phones, the Galaxy S II comes with its own dedicated TouchWiz 4.0 UI that comes with really good Samsung apps like the Photo Editor, Kies Air, and Video Maker. Best of all, the user interface on the phone is a notch better than those we've come across so far. Straightforward, intuitive and at the same time offering extensive options in a clear manner.
The Samsung Galaxy S II with its brilliant Super AMOLED Plus touchscreen is seemingly unmatched in performance by its competitors. For now.
There is nothing much to dissuade those looking for a high-performance smartphone from getting the Samsung Galaxy S II. You are practically looking at one of the better Android mobile devices out there that comes with the complete package, offering a good balance of performance, features and battery life. Its plastic build might not sit well with some users, but it is a small price to pay in exchange for an extremely lightweight and ultra-thin body. Besides, most users would end up protecting the device with some form of case anyway.
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