- Large display - all the grandeur of OLED (perfect black, high contrast, looks good in direct sunlight) without the ugliness that PenTile. Here you just get bright colors popping. Oh, and 4.3 "is a feast for the eyes from any distance. The resolution is still 800x480, though. I wish there to match the iPhone.
- Very light. I mean, very light. Samsung was not kidding when he emphasized that point. Given the size of this thing, it's hard to believe. When you put the phone in the hand of another, for the first time, usually confused, and we hope you feel more "solid" and not a featherweight case.
- Pretty slim. Well if you use your phone in the pocket of his pants.
- The user interface is butter soft, smooth common to all other Android phones I've seen. I'm not sure if it is new and powerful GPU Samsung (Exynos) software optimizations that did, or a combination of both, but overall this is as elegant as the iPhone 4.
- It may have its roots, and custom ROMs already exist. Not signed bootloaders or similar nonsense.
- Comes with Android 2.3. This means better drilling, immobilization WiFi access point / outside the box, and the ability to tilt and rotate the map on Google Maps - among other things.
- Comes with the Office of Polaris. It is a very good office suite for Android - what I've seen so far, with more features than Docs to Go, QuickOffice, etc. - especially when it comes to supporting the advanced features of MS Office, such as graphics. You can not buy in the market, and only comes with certain devices, such as this or a transformer Asus.
- Slot for microSD cards for all the gigabytes of music.
Bad things:
- Battery life does not seem as good. It is done through the day, but if you forget to charge for the night will not last a second day (except if only in standby mode).
- A little warm when in use. More than any other phone I've used. Not exactly a surprise considering that 1.2 GHz dual-core CPU and a powerful GPU, and I suspect that ultra-thin form factor makes cooling less efficient than it could have been otherwise. It is generally tolerable, but very noticeable.
- Some applications seem to be showing pictures of 16-bit color instead of 32 bits (especially the browser). This leads to unpleasant blurring artifacts, especially in the bands of colors and gradients. Head to XDA-developers forum for Galaxy S II for more details on this. Seems to be a software problem, so that future updates may solve the problem.
Things to consider:
- Front cup full back is plastic texture. I love the back of the texture, which looks very nice and gives a good grip when held, but not like "oh, shiny" as the iPhone 4. The lack of metal seems to be what makes it so light, among other things. On the other hand, I have not noticed any crackling, so that the Assembly is of high quality.
- 2.3.3 Runs Android, not any later version (as of this writing). This means no voice chat / video in Google Talk. Google Voice can be installed (in USA) and works well. There is no clear plan on the official updates so far.
- Android is about values, but the Samsung TouchWiz. This is much less invasive than is often seen in HTC's Android phones, and some changes are quite nice. However, many people prefer actions.
- No CyanogenMod (as of this writing). There is a thread on XDA forums where you can pledge $ $ for the first person to run on the CM, if you care.
