Samsung Galaxy S2
Finally upgraded from my Nexus One to a Samsung Galaxy S2.
A little on the expensive side but will hopefully be worth it.
So why was this phone bought:
Awesome screen.
1GB RAM
16GB internal memory + Micro SD card slot
Awesome camera which shoots 1080p HD
Dual Core 1.2 Ghz
Looks awesome, feels awesome!
A short review after spending a couple of days with it…
The phone had a very plastic-cy feel to it. It just doesn’t feel like a phone which you shelled out 30K for!
Though its unbelievably light and a beauty to look at! My advice will be to get the Black Rubber Case-Mate cover for this phone. Cost me Rs 675/- at Alfa. Costs around Rs 710/- on ebay. The cover adds to the beauty and the feel of the phone.
TouchWiz seemed lame. Replaced it with GO Launcher. I’ve always been a fan of GO SMS Pro and GO Launcher…even though most people prefer ADW and Launcher Pro. This launcher works superbly on the phone. The GO widgets are pretty cool.. Especially the task killer widget on screen and the GO Weather update (w/ the HTC Widget Theme).
Gaming - Well have only played Angry Birds on this till now. Was pretty smooth. Best thing was being able to recover all my 3Star scores from my Nexus One via the app AngryBirdsBackup. Will try out other games which utilize the Dual Core nature of the phone over the next week or so.
Camera quality is ok. Video camera quality is superb. This phone has the capability to retire the sub-20K handycam category for sure.
Battery life - Pathetic. One of the reasons I bought this phone was because I was pretty sick of my Nexus One not lasting a complete day. This doesn’t last through a day either. Will have to probably root it and use another ROM. Some guys at XDA have reported a battery increase of nearly 50%.
Browsing - Pretty cool. The large screen makes internet browsing awesome. Will definitely cause an increase in content consumption graphs. Better have 3G on your phone. If you don’t…please don’t buy this phone and buy a Micromax phone instead or maybe a Nokia 1100.
2 things which might take you a little time to figure out…
Plug and use as a USB drive…
This will get you to scratch your head for a few minutes. The default plugging is usually to access the SD card. So how do you access the pictures you’ve taken and add songs to your phone?
Settings > Applications > Development > USB Debugging (Keep this checked)
Toggling between 2G and 3G:
My Nexus One had a simple switch between 2G and 3G on the Mobile Network Settings page. But the Samsung Galaxy S2 doesn’t have it.
So basically you need to switch the network mode…
GSM/WCDMA (3G) / GSM Only (2G)
Will put up another review next week!
