Samsung Galaxy S II Reviewed: Beautiful and blazingly fast

One of the perks of my day job is a nifty new Smart phone every year. This year I got to replace my "aging" HTC EVO 4G with the shiny new Samsung Galaxy S™ II, Epic™ 4G Touch SPH-D710 (now that is a mouthful!). Some people may call me crazy, but I chose that over the new iPhone 4S. I liked the new Personal Assistant on the iPhone, but I also like all of the Android apps I'd been using for my home network. Realistically I can't even say there was a thing wrong with my EVO, except that I got tired of constantly trying to clean up internal storage when apps would get me under the low limit. The new Galaxy S II afforded me 16GB of internal storage vs. the 1GB on my EVO. Added to that is a dual core 1.2GHz processor vs a single 1GHz processor, and wireless N, on top of a beautiful screen. In a phone I was really skeptical of the benefit of wireless N, but as I proved in the old laptop wireless upgrade shootout, it might be a benefit, even on the internet.


At a glance
Pros

• Beautiful, vivid screen
• Blazingly fast CPU
• Blazingly fast wireless (the fastest WAN wireless performance of any device on my home network)
• 16gb of internal storage means no more cleaning up apps (at least for a good long time)
• Very nice allshare DLNA integration

Cons

• Power button on the side is sort of weird and I end up changing volume every time from opposite hand position
• Subtle differences between manufacturers even with the same Android version can be annoying when you like a feature one manufacturer has that the new one doesn't provide
• Plastic back feels and looks cheap

Beautiful screen
The 4.52” Super AMOLED™ Plus Screen on the Samsung Galaxy S II is more vivid than I've ever seen on a smartphone, even when sitting next to the iPhone. I hate to say it, but it is like the commercial, anytime I pull it out of my pocket jaws drop of people standing around me. It really is that bright and the colors really are that rich. I don't like gushing so much during reviews, but compared side by side against any smartphone it will shine. Pulling out my old EVO feels like using an LCD phone from early 2000.



Useful included apps
One of the things that always annoys me about smartphones are the included apps. NASCAR, Amazon, and who knows what else, they're annoying, not useful, and you can't get rid of them. Not that this has a wealth of useful added apps, but having a Samsung TV and really liking it's DLNA integration, I do appreciate the addition of the allshare on the Galaxy S II. It let's me clear the phone memory of iMediaShare and Skifta. DLNA streaming of music, pictures, and videos to our Samsung TV via allshare was flawless, with zero setup, which I love about DLNA. In did surprise me a little bit how slow the streaming was however, especially when considering the wireless performance shown below. Over Christmas I'll attempt to DLNA stream my phone contents to the new Sony TV my retired parents just purchased, and we'll see how well that works.


Crazy wireless performance
One thing that REALLY impressed me about the Samsung Galaxy S II is its speed. Yeah, speed in applications with the dual core processor, but that's expected. Wireless speed was what far exceeded my expectations. With the Samsung Galaxy S II I was able to get the exact wireless WAN speeds as I did on a quadcore desktop on a wire, blew me away. I used Speedtest.net for these tests as my usual standby SpeakEasy does not have an Android app.




I really only had 3 complaints with the phone. The first was the power button on the side versus the top. While not a huge deal, it's hard to get used to, but even more I often end up changing volume as opposing fingers to the power button need a place to rest, and that happens to be right where the volume controls are. For a powerful, expensive, and very nice smart phone, the plastic on the back just feels and looks cheap. It's also very slippery, often sliding off surfaces like the couch where my charger usually is. Lastly, one thing that is a bummer about the Android OS not being platform-specific, are the subtle differences you find between manufacturers. A few features I liked on my EVO were not available, or simply different, on the Galaxy S II. Conversely I found a few features on the Galaxy S II that I liked better than my old EVO.

All in all, the Galaxy S II is a great phone, and on your home network it will be blazingly fast. The screen is bright and beautiful. Samsung's apps like allshare are great and work flawlessly. The wireless performance will rival about anything you have wirelessly on the network. The things I found to gripe about were admittedly rather superficial and small peanuts compared to its many benefits.