Launched in June of this year, global unit volumes have already crossed the 5 million mark. A hands-on feel on what takes this Smartphone product ahead of the pack.
- Comparison of screen displays between Galaxy SII and iPhone 4
Brightness, contrast and colour balance
The Galaxy SII has an almost near perfect image quality balancing the extremely difficult attributes of enhanced colour contrast, sharpness, brightness and balance of tones. The Galaxy SII was placed next to an iPhone with the same still and video images loaded, to remove the subjectivity factor, and a picture taken. The side by side pictures do show the difference of image quality and size in both the devices. However if the original picture or video is of low quality, the displayed image on a Galaxy SII may appear no different from that displayed on another wide display phone. While the iPhone does allow full screen horizontal and vertical image rotation with automatic cropping, the Galaxy SII allows only allows horizontal rotation. In the vertical format, the full image is displayed in a screen fitted size without any cropping.
Browser power
Other than the more than alive display panel and the coupled slim fit in the hand, the next most powerful feature is the speed at which the browser comes to life. Technically termed as download speed, the rating is three times faster than today’s closest competitor. The dual computing processor also helps to reduce time take to open a fresh browser screen or to refresh it. Youtube clips run especially well and the SII works at the same speed as an adjacent laptop on high speed Wifi network, when serious benchmarking is done. Running a high definition Youtube clip at full sound volume in a horizontal end to end video format with nil time lag is an impressive performance. Browser email accounts from Yahoo, Gmail and others and POP3 email accounts can be set seamlessly. Screen and font sizes are set up for running Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites and along with the fast connect speed make the total experience a pleasurable one.
Synchronisation
The primary application for synchronising files between a PC device and Galaxy SII is Samsung Kies application using an USB or Bluetooth connection. The Kies interface has almost the same look and feel as currently available media transfer players including Real Player. File transfer using Kies is faultless and smooth and the Galaxy SII can also operate in the Windows 7 plug and play mode with visible directory structure. However there is an interesting variation. The Galaxy SII has a client version called Kies Air. When the Galaxy SII is online either on Wifi or telco network, Kies Air generates a unique IP address for the phone. If the IP address is pasted in a browser, the Galaxy SII’s directory is accessible by remote access. Digital images or videos out of the SII can be viewed and even streamed remotely.
Navigation
Google Maps is available on the Galaxy SII with a multi-layer display. Switching on the terrain and traffic layer is a plus for anyone moving off main highways onto secondary and tertiary tracks and finally off road. Other than these two layers you also have the satellite and coordinate overlays.
Value plus
The Galaxy SII is loaded with a host of entertainment, ease of use and value feature options. The FM radio has a neat dial tuner and an exceptional frequency detection capability. The audio-video media players give excellent playback quality. The gallery for clips, pix and sounds has a nice graphical stacked-up feel to it. Other than the social media hub, the Galaxy SII has reader, game and music hubs, which require subscription. It has a voice SMS solution, eight mega pixel forward facing camera and HD video recording amongst the many other features.
Specifications
Processor: 1.2 Ghz dual core processor
Memory: 16/32 GB micro SD
Operating system: Android 2.3 Gingerbread
Connectivity: Bluetooth, USB2.0, Wifi 802.11, Wifi Direct
Sensor: Accelerometer, gyroscope sensor, digital compass
Dimensions: 12.5×6.6×0.9 cm
Applications: Adobe Flash, Quick Type, Android Browser, Google Voice Search, Google Maps, Lost Phone Management, QuickType, Samsung TouchWiz
