Samsung Galaxy S2 Review

The Samsung Galaxy S2 has been one of the most highly anticipated smartphones to be released. Samsung was originally known as a decent, Korean electronics company that also released smartphones. It wasn't until the Samsung Galaxy S came out that Samsung truly began their domination of the smartphone market. Now, the Galaxy S2 looks to take on the throne. 

The Samsung Galaxy S 2 has the familiar candy bar design, with a 4.3 inch Super AMOLED Plus capacitive touchscreen taking up the majority of the front. Underneath the display you'll find the Android shortcuts for menu, and back, and in between a plain black button that is used as the home shortcut. The Galaxy S 2 is also officially the slimmest smartphone ever with a depth of 8.49 mm. On the right edge of the phone is the power / lock button, at the bottom is the microUSB, along the left edge is the volume rocker and on top is the 3.5 mm headphone jack. It takes many of the design cues of the original Galaxy S. A small 2 megapixel front facing camera resides above the display, and the back has a beautiful textured look and an 8 megapixel camera with LED flash. 

The 4.3 inch Super AMOLED Plus touchscreen is very vibrant and rich in color. It also has a very large viewing angle. You can view the screen at almost any angle, which is absolutely fantastic for sharing videos. The Super AMOLED Plus touchscreen really makes the Galaxy S 2 stand out above other currently released smartphones and looks absolutely stunning. The slim design and amazing Super AMOLED Plus display really make the Samsung Galaxy S 2 the smartphone to get. 

The Samsung Galaxy S 2 comes with an extremely fast dual core Qualcomm 8260 SnapDragon clocking in at 1.2 GHz each. From a storage perspective, the Galaxy S 2 offers 16 gigabytes of internal storage as well as a microSD slot to add on up to 32 gigabytes of additional storage. The Galaxy S 2 comes preloaded with Android 2.3 and TouchWiz 4.0. This new version of TouchWiz is extremely clean and slick and helps to really enhance the user experience.

The Samsung Galaxy S 2 is easy to pick up and learn for people of all ages, thanks to the fact that it runs Android. It's a familiar interface for people already using Android smartphones, and since it's touchscreen, new users can easily handle it as well. The only bad part regarding TouchWiz 4.0 is the fact that it will most likely prevent simple over the air updates to the Samsung Galaxy S 2. The Samsung Galaxy S has shown to have quite a few problems trying to get over the air updates so hopefully the Galaxy S 2 won't suffer the same fate. 

The 8 megapixel camera that comes with the Galaxy S 2 is great at taking photos and is also capable of video recording up to 1080p. Outside of the 8 megapixel camera, there's a second, front facing camera that's 2 megapixels. It's extremely useful for video chatting, and the 2 megapixels really help in making the video calls feel a bit more modern than the old webchat VGA cameras of the late 90's. 

The Samsung Galaxy S 2 is an incredible smartphone, from its design all the way to its features. It really is the smartphone to get for people who want slim, powerful and versatile smartphones. While the U.S. market seems to be sluggish in getting the phone, outside of the U.S. the Galaxy S 2 really is the smartphone to grab in 2011. 

Scoring

Design and Display - 5/5
Performance - 5/5
User Interface - 4/5
Features - 5/5

Overall Score - 19/20 - Buy this Smartphone