Samsung Galaxy S2 Pros and Cons


Samsung Galaxy S2 Pros

Unparalleled Super AMOLED Plus screen

Quad-band 3G support
21 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA

4.3" jumbo screen

16M-colors

Super AMOLED Plus capacitive touchscreen

A display of WVGA (480 x 800 pixel) resolution

Android OS v2.3.3with TouchWiz 4 ( upgradable to 2.3.4)

1.2 GHz dual-core Cortex-A9 CPU

Mali-400MP quadcore GPU

1GB of RAM

8 MP autofocus cam

Face, smile and blink detection

Geo tagging

1080p HD video recording at 30fps

Dual-band Wi-Fi
802.11 b, g and n support

GPS with A-GPSconnectivity

Digital compass

Large16GB internal storage and microSD slot which can be filled with a 32GB card

MHL port for dual-purpose USB or HDMI out (video) the first smartphone to feature an MHL port

USB host

TV-out (1080p)

Stereo Bluetooth
v3.0

Stereo FM radio with RDS

Real slim body , slimness measured only at 8.5mm

Heavy light weight (116g)

2MP secondary video-call cam

Full Flash support ( flash player 10.1 ) and 1080p flash video playback

GPU-acceleration for web browser

NFC

Doc viewer and editor

The richest video format support under the sun by a mobile

Viewable under sunlight

Multi touch input

Accelerometer Sensor for UI auto rotate

Swift SWYPE text input

Proximity sensor for auto turn off

Unlimited call logs

Gorilla Glass display

Touch focus

Image stabilization

Snail-paced RFS file system is replaced with EXT4

An 8GB card included ( market dependable )

Wide viewing angles with no loss of contrast or color distortion

A new screen setting ; Background Effect , which lets you adjust saturation with three saturation descending modes

A power efficient display which is capable of turning individual pixels off . Backlighting is less required , so consume less energy

A hot-swappable SIM card slot

The power widget lets the user control the screen time out on the homescreen itself and furthermore provides one-click access to the settings menu

The pinch zoom-out fetches a view of all screen panes , which then enable the user to easily rearrange ,delete or add new onces

Can create folders inside the app launcher and then drag to the screen

App launcher panes can also be rearranged in the exact way the homescreens are arranged , pinch zooming and swiping around

The Samsung-specific swiping gesture is everywhare , just swipe a contact right to make a call and left to compose a message

Can take a note, use the keypad, mute , hold a call or add another call to ongoing conversation during a call

Can create new custom menu pages browsing through existing ones , picking the icons that need to be placed on the new page

After syncing social networks , the phonebook automatically merges contacts and contact details are pulled from your desired social networks

Third and fourth tabs in the contact info screen , handle the social status updates and the contact’s online galleries

Swiping on a message header left lets start a new message, while swiping to the right will start a call.

A specific search function that lets you quickly find any given message from all stored SMS and MMS.

Type the corresponding name or number and choose from the contacts offered , when you need to add message recipients

When add multimedia to messages, they are automatically turned into MMS

A translate option to translate composing messages or messages you’ve stored

Email batch operations like multiple emails archiving labeling or deleting can be carried out on Gmail app

The generic email app supports multiple accounts , multiple POP or IMAP inboxes and sports a combined inbox, where all your mails will be flocked into a single folder . Pretty smart if you have several accounts

Turning the phone landscape activates the split view . Where the left shows the list of emails, while the right shows the message

The standard Android gallery automatically locates the images and videos wherever they are stored and imports the photos from Google Picasa web albums

The gallery is capable of displaying high-resolution images

The two-finger tilt zoom, double tap and pinch zoom are added to the gallery

My Files app lets user move, copy, lock rename files in bulk and send multiple files via Bluetooth

The image editor is equipped with a selections tool and a Context fill tool

The video editor lets instant sharing

TouchWiz music player allows user to look up a song on YouTube or via Google

The look up by artist, song title or the album is available

Most importantly the video player remembers the last
video viewed and the last viewed position

5.1 channel virtualization

Subtitle customization . Changing font size , adjusting subtitles and syncing (move them back or forward a few seconds ) etc

The cam app and the videocorder let pick four shortcuts to put in their interfaces . Fourmost commonly used features will be a tap away.

Wide-angle lens

Dual band Wi-Fi , both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands compatible

AllShare

Wi-Fi Direct
Products that bear the Wi-Fi Direct certification mark can connect to one another without joining a traditional home, office or hotspot network . Simply , with Wi-Fi Direct, you do not need an access point or internet connection . Your personal Wi-Fi network goes with you wherever you go.

Bluetooth 3.0 , up to 21Mbps

USB On-The-Go

The Browser is garnished with dainty gestures like double tap , pinch zooming and additionaly two-fingertilt zoom is newly added

The Social hub lists all incoming messages as one list and let it be filterd by message source

Music Hub lets browse music online with lists of new releases and a free 30 seconds preview of all new releases is also provided

The Readers Hub turns Samsung Galaxy S2 to an e-reader

Game Hub's try-before-you-buy option enable the user to pre-taste desired games . And also titles by Gameloft are exclusively inclusive

5.1 channel virtualization
Dolby virtualization technologies like Virtual Dolby Surround and Virtual Dolby Digital do not deliver the same delectable 5.1 Channel listening experience

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Samsung Galaxy S2 Cons

The MHL adapter ( required for HD TV-out) and the USB adapter ( that enable the USB host functionality ) aren’t included in the box

Stock browser is armed with 21st century GPU acceleration which immensely decrease battery life

Do not display SIM contacts

Split view in email app and messages which allocates the left side of the screen with a list of emails or ms messages , while the right side with the corresponding messages , halves the 4.3 screen where there isn't enough room left for comfortable reading

In landscape mode, the keyboard takes up most of the display

My files will only browse the memory card and the large internal storage and wont access the system drive

No option to manually load subtitles, they have to have the same filename as the video file to load

When battery level reaches 10% , the video player shut downs

The outcome is not impressive when plug-in a pair of headphones. Stereo crosstalk increases ,volume levels decreases and intermodulation distortion starts having business in

Nothing in the way of lens protection

Mono audio recording

Video cam starts to focus only after it has started recording . In other words the first few seconds of every clip will be out of focus

USB On-The-Go wont recognize USB keyboards

Lacks a Dual LED flash which would have been a delight delivering better captures in low light conditions . It has got only a single flash

Memory card slot is buried under the battery making the card not hot swappable

No dedicated HDMI port for the headset

Android market has thousands of apps but in Samsung Galaxy S2 , the user is left only with a 2GB memory out of hyped16GB . Most apps need to be nestled in the 2GB aforesaid dedicated system memory . and reluctant to be placed in the phone USB memory or external memory

Alarm wont wake you up if the phone is turned off

Sync of contacts with Outlook is a real trouble area

Android is not in its purest form . Samsung has added its own UI discrepancies ; TouchWiz 4 which is described by many as a work of a bunch of cartoonists . Many negative responses are leveled against TouchWiz user interface

A jumbo display with a tiny pixel count 480 X 800 , less than peers

MALI GPU that inbuild to the set is not compatible with most of today game texture compression formats ( EA GAMELOFT etc )

Many negative feedbacks are levelled against the inbuilt Gmail app . Many have failed to refresh it manually with a single try

Voice dialling wont respond when the phone screen is locked

Audio Player not stylish ( its TouchWiz after all )

When recording videos at full HD , the angle of view changes . The higher the video resolution , the narrower the field of view becomes ( When recording video at 1080p the lens become zoom and when recording video at low resolution of 720p format , becomes wide lenses . Doesnt record full HD video at wide and zooming in , apparently
looses wide angle )

Replace burden
A claim for a replace is a mission impossible . If your having a phone with a faulty display . and hoping to convince the sales personal its faulty , its strictly advised that you better take him to a more darker place in the store . So my advice , you take the phone to the store even if its your wifes phone that need to be replaced

When initiate a call , sound quality of the voice on the other end is terrible (low microphone volume ) . In most cases , the calling party is barely heard by the other party . Number of complaints claim that they have had to yell to be heard . The only known fix is not a permanent one which vanish into thin air with every single restart that follows

Airplane mode doesnt do Bluetooth . You cannot listen to that desired playlist inflight through Bluetooth headset

On the SWYPE keyboard the mic button is horribly prone to be accidentally hit

Stock mail app does not support Doc attachments

When recording videos from a distance the camera constantly shifts focus causing videos blur on and off
( video focus issue )

Problems reported with AVC high video file playings using stock video player

Some major audio video sync issues have been reported when playing high definition videos

More keypad chaos
The space bar is too small and constantly makes the full stop a hit

Managing call logs and contacts is bit cumbersome

Cannot set individual text ringtones

Icons not pleasing

From exiting apps and returning to the homescreen there is a considerable lag . Also after installing apps , adding widgets to homescreen is bit sluggish

Any single Android game or app cannot exceed 50mbs

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3 comments:

  1. Android market has thousands of apps but in Samsung Galaxy S2 , the user is left only with a 2GB memory out of hyped16GB . Most apps need to be nestled in the 2GB aforesaid dedicated system memory . and reluctant to be placed in the phone USB memory or external memory??

    So not many things can be added? huh?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've had this for a short time and there are pros and cons.

    The two that I don't like is I miss having a LED light indicating I have an email, text message, missed called etc. Mostly importantly I use by smartphone for my business emails, when I send emails from the Gallaxy Samsung they are marked low priority. When I go to my mail box it repeats the message twice and the receipitants name is repeated 4 times.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cons not mentioned= You canot swype to answer calls at times only reject. When typing on keyboard it moves up & down messing you up to press the wrong key.

    ReplyDelete

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