Hi all… First time reviewing a mobile phone in a looong time! So I don’t really know where to begin. Dan mohon maklum klo banyak kekurangan. Alright, here’s my review of Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II! I hope you enjoy…

THE SCREEN

The first thing that you can’t help but notice while looking at this phone (GS2), is its large, beautiful screen. Really, I’m telling you, it’s beautiful! I used to own Galaxy S (GS) and I thought its display was near perfect already. So I think that really describes how amazing GS2’s display is.

As we all know, GS2 implements Super AMOLED Plus screen. Its physical size is larger compared to GS’s screen. Normally, larger screen means less sharp display. But that’s not the case here. The new technology allows the screen to display more subpixels, which means sharper display.

A couple of comparison pictures (both screen are set to maximum brightness):

• Picture 1 - In this picture, we can’t really see the difference. But if we look closely, the sand appears slightly brighter on GS2. Also, the text “Set wallpaper” on GS2 is a lot smoother.

• Picture 2 - This picture highlights the difference in how both phones display text. Take a look at the text “Set wallpaper” and see the difference yourself! :)

• Picture 3 - Another comparison picture. Can you see the difference here? Although the dark transition on the bottom menu in GS really improves the readabilty there (I prefer it this way), we can still see that GS2 displays crisper text despite having the larger screen. If you notice the top-right clock in GS appears slightly brighter, it’s because the top-right clock in GS2 is actually grey!

• Picture 4 - Another close look to the screen. I know we don’t normally look at our mobile phone’s screen this close. But look at how clear the text is on GS2!

• Picture 5 - Here is the shocking results of the comparison. Contrary to what many other reviews said, GS2’s screen is indeed much brighter than GS’s. It’s really apparent when we’re viewing something with bright colours (e.g. white).

There’s also an interesting new feature for the display… It’s called “Background effect”. It’s actually an option to change the colour saturation/tint of the display. (See here) The options are: dynamic (very high saturation, punchy colours), standard, and movie (the lowest saturation among the three, with slight yellow tint).

Overall, all I can say is… The screen is amazing. More subpixels allows the screen to display everything a lot smoother. This means we can now use a very thin/light fonts (e.g. MyriadPro Light, Zegoe UI Light, etc.) without sacrificing readabilty. However, if I’m being very picky and particular, I wish that they opted for maintaining the physical screen size of 4”, which would mean higher pixel density. Another minor issue is the colour tint inconsistecy. I notice that grey would sometimes have blue tint, sometimes yellow. This is rather apparent on the keyboard. But it’s not really a big deal, I rarely notice it. If it’s getting worse, I may have to ask for a new replacement through the warranty! Haha.

THE PERFORMANCE

The phone sports a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor and 1 GB of RAM. It definitely improves the speed of any kind of operation inside the phone. Some of the main improvements:

• Media scanning. When I was using GS, this used to bug me a lot. It takes a really long time for it to complete. Especially, if you have a lot of media files like me. But now, it’s just a breeze. It only takes seconds. Very convenient.

• Game loads. Many games now load a lot faster.

• Page loads. Browsing the internet is now a lot faster too. I used to think this only relates to the internet speed. But apparently I was wrong. Page rendering also plays a part here. Additionally, loading the pages in the Market (including “My Apps”) is a lot quicker too.

• Switching Wi-Fi and Bluetooth gets immediate reaction now. It doesn’t lag or get stuck at all.

THE MULTIMEDIA

MUSIC PLAYER

The sound reproduction in GS2 is very different compared to GS. I tested it with Sennheiser CX300-II. GS2 produces more kicking bass. Also, the difference that the sound effects make is now a lot apparent. Other changes are minor and cosmetics only. For example, the title of currently playing track is now displayed in bold font, the trackseeker (or whatever it is called) is now green (it used to be blue), the option to browse the music library in Disc style is no longer there (Good. I never use it anyway). There’s also an option to find the tag info for the audio files.

Now that the phone has a more powerful processor, viewing all the albums in thumbnails is now actually very practical. It looks beautiful too, thanks to the new Super AMOLED Plus screen. (See here).

VIDEO PLAYER

Video player is still awesome as usual. It plays almost every video format that is out there. It plays HD videos too. With the amazing screen, viewing videos is such a pleasure. Honest! (See here)

CAMERA

The main camera is 8 MP (with AF and LED flash) and the secondary camera is 2 MP. One of the main disappointments with GS’ camera was its lack of flash and its horrible VGA secondary camera. I know, cameraphones’ flash is useless most of the time, but still… We may need to use it sometimes. But now, it’s a whole different story. The 8 MP is beautiful. It captures sharp photos with great colour and good contrast level, the flash works very well, and the front-facing camera is usable this time!

Some sample photos (all taken with Auto settings) (sorry if some photos are blurry, my hands are shaky… it’s genetics):

Samples from the 8 MP main camera:

• Photo 1 - Outdoor shot. Very bright sun, causing very dark shadow casts.

• Photo 2 - Outdoor shot. “Oh, we’re going grocery shopping!”

• Photo 3 - Indoor shot. Inside the store.

• Photo 4 - Indoor shot. Inside the store.

• Photo 5 - Another outdoor shot.

• Photo 6 - Object shot. Taken outdoor in a dark cloudy day.

• Photo 7 - Object shot. Taken indoor at night with dim light.

• Photo 8 - Object shot. With flash. Taken indoor in total and complete darkness (nothing was visible from the viewfinder, basically).

• Photo 9 - Macro shot. Sorry I’m not really good at taking this kind of photos. Hehe.

Samples from the 2 MP secondary camera (WARNING! Foto2 narsis! Skip this part if you don’t wanna see my ugly self. Haha. You’ve been warned!)

• Photo 1 - Indoor. At night. In a well-lit room.

• Photo 2 - Indoor. Daylight coming in from the window.

I took the photos like this not because I like it, but because this is how it’s gonna be commonly used. Okay!? Haha. :-p

The main camera also records videos up to HD-1080p resolution, 30 fps. However, when it’s set to that maximum resolution, the camera doesn’t seem to use its widest angle. It’s like a bit zoomed in. So, for that reason, I prefer to record videos in HD-720p instead. Video recording works very well too. But I’m sorry I can’t really provide any sample videos here because I don’t know where to upload them!

THE OTHER THINGS I HAVEN’T MENTIONED

• GPS used to be an issue in GS. But here in GS2, not anymore. I can play Foursquare without any frustration now. :-p

• Text messaging got a facelift! We can now choose “skins” of the messaging function. This is what I currently use: See here - I think it’s a small yet very nice feature.

• Some widgets can be resized. For example, the weather widget from [tautan dihapus] (See here)

• The internet browser can have maximum of 8 tabs opened at the same time. (It was 4 on GS).

• Battery life is a lot better compared to GS. With GS, I usually need to recharge in the afternoon and then in the evening as well. With GS2, I only need to recharge in the evening.

• The phone speaker, although it IS louder, it’s quite shrill and thin, compared to GS’s. This is definitely a disappointment for me, but it may not be important at all for some people.

• Some games (e.g. Gameloft’s Shadow Guardian, N.O.V.A 2, etc.) are still incompatible with GS2. It’s about the GPU or something. This is a very annoying issue. In my opinion, this shouldn’t happen to such a powerful phone like this. But they say all those games are coming to GS2 soon. We’ll see.

Hmm… Anything else? Maybe we can just discuss it here! :)

Thank for reading, by the way!