Samsung Galaxy S II i9100 Review

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JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – It’s not very often that I receive a phone that makes me stop and appreciate it, but that was the case with the Android-based Samsung i9100 Galaxy S II smartphone.

It’s not even the first time I look or touch the handset, PhoneRPT was actually present at the Mobile World Congress, where the Galaxy S II announcement occurred and Samsung’s CEO J.K. Shin excitedly ran through the many features. It’s amazing how such advanced features managed to fit a device that measures 8.49mm in thickness and feels as if it doesn’t weight anything.

One must note that when a manufacturer produces almost every single component of a device, the quality should be phenomenal, and Samsung, who even makes parts for Apple’s iPhone, took advantage of this and gave everything it had to what could very well become this year’s best-selling smartphone.

If we look at the original Galaxy S, that sold well over ten million units all over the world, it’s not difficult to understand that these handsets offer the best mobile technology available at the time, and pack the successful Google Android operating system.

But not all that glitters is gold, as Samsung is currently being sued by its customer Apple, who claims that the Galaxy S devices are a rip-off of the iPhone. It’s not very hard to imagine why, the Galaxy S II itself seems to be an imitation to the iPhone, if we ignore the latter’s metallic sides and the former’s larger screen.

Potential customers don’t need to be worried with this, as the Galaxy S II already sold over a million units in Samsung’s home country South Korea – with a dual-core 1.2GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, a 4.3″ touchscreen display with Super AMOLED Plus technology, an 8 megapixel camera with auto-focus and flash, full 1080p HD video recording, NFC, GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, PC Suite access over Wi-Fi, and much more, all running on Google Android 2.3 Gingerbread covered by TouchWIZ 4.0.

For specific review sections, jump to the hardware overview, Android 2.3 Gingerbread intro, TouchWIZ 4.0 review, camera quality and samples, or straight to the Galaxy S II rating and conclusion.

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