INTRODUCTION

The Samsung Galaxy S II was Samsung's flagship phone and one its most successful phones ever for Samsung when it was released last year. The 1.2 GHz dual core processor, 4.3 in Super AMOLED Plus display and super thin 8.5mm profile made the S II stood out among all the Android based phones out there.

However since then, the S II has been eclipsed by many other phones including its successor the Samsung Galaxy S III. While the S III has many bells and whistles that the S II lacks, the S II is still a very capable phone and a recommended buy if you are not the type that has to own the latest and the greatest.

HARDWARE FEATURES

The beautiful Super AMOLED Plus screen is still a marvel to look at even though it cannot match the HD resolution of today's latest phones. It works well both indoors and outdoors.

The 1.2 GHz dual core processor may not match the quad core offerings but personally I have yet to find anything that I can throw at it that will choke it up. Playing the latest 3D games or watching HD movies has always been smooth. The interface is very responsive and flicking the screen or navigating on the web browser or apps is always smooth.

The camera is still one of the best I have even seen on a phone. It is 8MP but what is important is that the quality of the images taken are very good. It is also capable of taking 1080p HD video. I am so happy with the quality of the camera, I now use the S II as my main camera even when going on holidays. The only thing I miss when compared to my digital camera is optical zoom. As an added bonus, the front facing camera is 2MP and also of high quality. I even use the front camera to take self portraits and the quality is good enough for online postings.

The phone comes with either 16GB or 32GB storage but you can easily expand this by another 32GB with the external memory slot. The extra 32GB is more than enough for storage of hours of HD videos.

SOFTWARE FEATURES

The S II comes with Samsung's TouchWiz user interface which is very good although not considered the best. It lacks a bit in terms of wow factor but what it lacks in eye candy, it makes up by being user friendly and smooth.

Samsung has also released Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) for the S II so you are not missing out on new features that are only available on Android 4.0. If the phone did the come with Android 4.0, updating it is easy and can be done on the phone itself without the use of a PC. I updated mine from Android 2.3 and the new OS makes my S II feel like a brand new phone. If you are the tech savvy type, you can replace the ROM with tons of alternative versions of Android out there as the S II is widely supported by the hacking community.

CONCLUSION

If you are looking for a new Android phone and you do not care for the latest models, you can do much worse than considering the Samsung Galaxy S II.