Samsung announced a new flagship Android phone, the Galaxy S II, at MWC 2011. This model succeeds the original Galaxy S and comes with quite a number of notable feature improvements. Here are our thoughts after spending some time with it on the showfloor.
One of the biggest change is the use of a new Super AMOLED Plus display. The "Plus" indicates a transition from the Pentile matrix to a panel technology that has three sub-pixels for each pixel. The Pentile matrix shares eight sub-pixels between four pixels while the new pixel layout in Super AMOLED Plus follows what has been commonly done in LCD panels. This means the same four pixels will have a total of 12 sub-pixels. This should translate to improved color reproduction and a generally sharper-looking images.
From what we can see, the Galaxy S II's screen looks very good. As expected from an AMOLED display, colors are rich, making it great for viewing videos. We can't tell how much better it is than the older Super AMOLED panel found on the Galaxy S, but we will definitely make the comparison when a review unit becomes available.
The Galaxy S II has a 4.3-inch screen, giving it a fairly large footprint of 125.3 x 66.1mm. Even then, the phone is very slim at 8.5mm and didn't feel too unwieldy. It is extremely light and has a matte finish plastic chassis that felt good in the hands.
Equipped with a Samsung dual-core processor, the Galaxy S II felt snappy in the short time that we played with it. We had a go at the graphically intensive Nova first-person shooter game. It ran smoothly and loaded quite fast. Of course, it'll take a proper review to really find out how the phone performs but our initial observations are mostly positive.
Other features of the Galaxy S II include an 8-megapixel camera with LED flash, 1GB RAM for running applications and up to 32GB of internal storage. Connectivity wise, it has HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and A-GPS for satellite navigation.
The Samsung Galaxy S II is expected to ship starting this month in some markets, so look out for operator announcements in your country. For those in Asia who can't get their hands on the Google-branded Nexus S smartphone, the Galaxy S II could be a viable alternative. Of course, you have to take note that it will come with Samsung's software customizations, so OS upgrades will not come as quickly as with the Nexus S.
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