Samsung Galaxy S II Review
By Jo Wilkes on October 27th, 2011
The build of the Galaxy S II oozes quality. Its premium position amongst the phone market is certainly reflected in its build and design, with a nicely textured finish on the back and a glossy black front. Due to the size of the screen, the phone is quite large. It measures 5.11 inches in height, 2.71 inches in width and is 0.37 inch thick. Still, despite its quality construction and large size, the phone is kept relatively lightweight at a respectable 4.77 ounces. Sure it isn’t the lightest phone on the market, but its light enough to not become a nuisance when carrying or handling the device.
The screen is a Super AMOLED touch screen which measures 4.52 inches diagonally. It supports a resolution of 800x480. Though the size is certainly top of the range, its resolution falls short of equalling that of the iPhone’s Retina Display. With that said it is still a positively vibrant and sharp screen, with detailed clarity throughout. The screen is very responsive, as you would expect from a phone of its price. The phone is also capable of receiving motion gestures. For example, flipping the phone will mute it and a quick flick of the wrist left or right will navigate the direction of the home screen. These add-ons may be gimmicky in the eyes of some but they do give the phone its own futuristic charm.
The phone ships running Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread with Samsung’s TouchWiz 4.0 interface. Luckily since its first iteration TouchWiz has received constant improvements. It is now less intrusive to the overall experience and has added options for customizing and personalising your phone. It comes with seven home screens each of which can be customized with your favourite shortcuts and widgets. Additionally there is now a pull-down notification menu which allows you to easily switch on and off some of the phone’s main functions, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS.
Under the hood of the phone rests its incredibly powerful 1.5GFz dual-core Snapdragon processor. This ensures fast speeds and seamless interaction with the phone. Touch commands are received and acted out promptly and all applications are launched and closed without issue. The phone offers 16GB of internal memory with the added option of an additional 32GB through an SD card.
Lastly, the phone comes equipped with an 8-megapixel camera capable of recording in 1080p video. Included with the camera is LED flash, auto focus and digital zoom capability. The pictures produced are of an excellent quality. The phone also has a front facing 2-megapixel camera which provides good quality for video calls.
