We spent a little while with both devices at Mobile World Congress, and while they're impressive, they aren't mind-blowing. Samsung's Galaxy S phone rocked America with a new level of Android elegance, and the Galaxy Tab was the first decent Android tablet. These devices enter a much more competitive marketplace. But they're both physically beautiful, which may make the difference
Samsung Galaxy S II
First, the phone. The Galaxy S II feels a bit like the Samsung Infuse 4G for AT&T, with its super-thin body and textured back. It uses a new Samsung dual-core processor rather than the Nvidia model I've seen elsewhere, and it's much thinner and more elegant than the other dual-core phones I've seen so far, which include the Motorola Droid Bionic, Motorola Atrix and LG Revolution. At 0.33 inches, it may actually be the thinnest phone on the U.S. market. That is, if it ever comes to U.S. shores - this evening's announcement specifically excludes the USA.
The Galaxy S II's 4.27-inch, 800-by-480 Super AMOLED Plus screen looks rich and beautiful; colors seem super-saturated. It's not as high-res as the Motorola Atrix's 960-by-540, though. The phone has a 2-megapixel camera on the front and an 8-megapixel camera capable of 1080p video capture on the back. Interest access is fast with an HSPA+ 21 modem. The Galaxy S II will come in 16- and 32-GB models (there's also a memory card slot under the back cover) and NFC, interestingly, is an option.
The phone runs Samsung's TouchWiz skin over Android 2.3 Gingerbread, and Samsung has poured a lot of new apps into the new version. Samsung used to have Media Hub and Social Hub. Now, it also has Reading Hub (which includes the PressReader newspaper app and the Kobo e-book app), Music Hub (a music store) and Games Hub, an alternative to Android Market for games that are so big that Google won't allow them in the market. How that will interact or overlap with Nvidia's very similar Tegra Zone remains to be seen.
There's also some fresh software here from Cisco: this will be one of the first Android phones to actually run a Cisco VPN client, and it also has enterprise Wi-Fi calling and WebEx login capabilities.
The phone I handled was extremely pre-release, so I can't make any promises about performance. Samsung did make a promise about upgrades, though, with reps saying that the ongoing disaster involving upgrading the current Galaxy S line to Android 2.2 "will never happen again."
The more I think about the Galaxy S II, the more I like it. That doesn't surprise me; the Galaxy S grew on me too, eventually becoming my personal phone. If Samsung can bring this to market quickly and solve their upgrade problem, they may have the best balance of power and style on the market. The Galaxy S will arrive this month in Europe and Asia; Samsung isn't announcing U.S. plans.
Source:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2380223,00.asp
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