Overview

The Galaxy S II is Samsung’s latest superphone and serves as the flagship for the Korean company.  It is a monster of a device that builds nicely on the original Galaxy S’s success. The original was the best-selling Android phone in the world by a large margin. It was the phone that single handedly set the pace for Android solutions. The new device features a bigger screen. The fastest processor avaialable in the market right now. The processor has been put head to head with HTC’s similar processor found in the Sensation. Samsung’s proprietary processor comes out on top. It also features a new version of the Touch Wiz UI which adds further to the Android Gingerbread that this phone comes shipped with.

Hardware

The front of the phone is covered with a large Super AMOLED Plus display protected by Gorilla Glass. The display is better than any display we have seen before. Just like the original AMOLED the blacks are as dark as can be while the rest of the colours are crisp and a pleasure to look at.
The most notable feature of the device is the thickness of the device. It is even thinner than the iPhone 4, which is to say that it is thinner than almost all smartphones present in the market today. The back of the phone is covered with textured plastic which is a welcome addition compared to the smooth plasticy feel that the original had. The device also features an 8 MP camera which captures pictures which are above the average Android fare. A welcome addition over the original Galaxy S is the presence of LED flash which we cant imagine how Samsung thought they could do away the the flash in the first place.
All in all the phone is a delightful package and gives you a premium feel in the hands.

Software

As far as the software is concerned, the dded Touch Wiz UI makes the user interface familiar to the older versions. It adds to the notification bar with one touch toggle of the connectivity features as well as silent profile. The customary Samsung shortcuts can still be found as the bottom but the large screen adds much more detail to the web pages that you see. The processor is fast enough to breeze through anything you can throw at it. High definition videos as well as high performance games are a breeze with this phone.
Overall, the software on this phone feels like a tightly knit package and everywhere in the interface you can see nice finishing touches that show that Samsung put in a lot of effort and time into making sure that the device has no parallels.

Conclusion

For those of you without budget constraints, this device is the device to have. It has all the mobile technologies that are available right now baked into it in a neat and shiny package. With this phone, Samsung as come very close to throwing Apple off its high perch, though only time will tell.
It is rumoured that Samsung will release the GalaxyS III in cometition with Apples new iPhone in September this year. It will be a blast to see what more Samsung can add to this device. Perhaps a quad-core processor?

Full Specs

A 4.3" wide Super AMOLED Plus capacitive touchscreen display that sports a 16 million colors

Multi Touch with Swype Support.

Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) with the TouchWiz UI 4.0

1.2 GHz Dual-core Cortex-A9 Processor and PowerVR SGX540 GPU along with 1GB of RAM.

16GB Internal Storage Memory, along with a microSD slot expandable up to 32GB. Meaning a maximum of 64GB!

8MP autofocus camera with LED flash at the rear and a 2MP camera at the front. It shoots video at 1080p/30fps.

This device supports Wi-Fi, 3G and also 4G and Bluetooth 4.0+HS. It also plays DivX formats.

* Android Ice Cream Sandwich Compatible

Gallery