Interface and Software, Performance Tests and Battery Life
User Interface and Software
Samsung has been bragging about their TouchWiz 4.0 user interface design that overlays the Android operating system way before they were able to implement it into production models of their smartphones and tablets. Finally seeing it in action in the Galaxy S II will let me know if it adds a new user experience or just puts a damper on the phone’s performance and functionality.
There are several usability changes that Samsung made to how Gingerbread functions. The Android’s application list was changes to scroll from left to right on the Galaxy S II, which differs from Android’s reference design. The icons are also much brighter and vibrant on this phone, which is most likely due to the AMOLED display.
Another unique feature of the TouchWiz UI is the new "motion" capabilities it brings to the Galaxy S II. Users can now physically move the phone to do a variety of functions like panning, zooming, and muting incoming calls.
I’m also impressed with the Kies Air application that allows users to wirelessly connect their smartphone to their PC without any additional software. This app is great for on-the-go users who need files off their PC or want to upload data from their smartphone to their home or work computer. I actually used this app to move over sample photos and video for this review and it worked like a charm.
Performance Tests
I ran a host of performance benchmarks on the Samsung Galaxy S II as well as two other T-Mobile smartphones I had on hand – the LG T-Mobile G2X and HTC T-Mobile G2. This suite of benchmarks evaluates every piece of hardware that affects a smartphone’s performance like the CPU, memory, graphics, storage, and other key components. Let’s see how the Galaxy S II faired in these benchmarks below.
Our benchmark results showed that the Samsung Galaxy S II and its dual-core 1.5GHz processor was the clear winner in every test we ran today. To be fair, the G2X was the only other competitor with a dual-core CPU (Tegra 2x1GHz) and the original G2 has a single 800MHz core. All three smartphones are running Gingerbread., but the Galaxy S II’s TouchWiz UI streamlined and somewhat improved some of the features and functionality which may have contributed to the lopsidedness of these benchmark results.
Battery Life
To evaluate the Samsung S II’s battery life, we fully charged the device, set the brightness level to 50 percent, enabled wifi, and began to do a variety of tasks on it for an extended period of time to deplete the battery power. After more than seven hours of web browsing, watching YouTube videos, answering e-mail, texting friends, playing Angry Birds, and calling my wife, the Samsung S II still had around 15 percent of battery life left on it. That’s an amazing amount of power that we can completely attribute the bundled 1850 mAh battery that Samsung included with this smartphone.
While the back cover may
While the back cover may appear flimsy, it’s pretty high grade plastic. Here’s a youtube clip of it being being bent to the extreme and not breaking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErXqnQKs-tA
I agree that it is a
I agree that it is a higher-grade plastic, but my personal preference is to have something more durable. Thanks for sharing the link to give our readers more information about this product too.
playing with one of these at
playing with one of these at the local mall, i was really impressed by the screen, and how thin it was….
That said, i think i might wait for the first Kal-El smartphones to ship, by all benchmarks that’s going to be a punishingly good core.
battery has 1850mah of power
battery has 1850mah of power not a850mah, please correct that typo.
I corrected the error.
I corrected the error. Thanks.
ryan you should do a review
ryan you should do a review of the MOTOROLA PHOTON 4G i was going to get a Galaxy SII till i saw what that phone is capable of
ryan great job in reviewing
ryan great job in reviewing this phone could you do a review of the MOTOROLA PHOTON 4G for tmobile?
I’ll look into it, but we
I’ll look into it, but we currently don’t have The Photon 4G on our review schedule.
Come on maximus: The article
Come on maximus: The article shows at the top that Steve is the author. Give him the love. Ryan gets enough love as it is. =)
Indeed!
Indeed!
Looks so different to my
Looks so different to my version of the S2. But then I am in England and we have had this better than the I-phone Mobile for months.
Nice phone with good
Nice phone with good features.Love to use it Mobile Zone
I would like to business
I would like to business development contact email address.
We are smartphone accesoories comapny in Korea.