Still rocking the Samsung Galaxy S2? If so, we have some potentially very exciting news. It seems that Android 4.1 Jelly Bean is finally making its way over to the handset.

The news comes first from CNET, who reports that a Samsung spokesperson declared that the phone would get Jelly Bean in early February in Singapore, with it coming to other markets shortly after that.

From the sounds of it, the update isn’t just for the i9100 but should also cover other versions of the Galaxy S2 such as those in the United States and elsewhere. This is an interesting move considering the company just announced the Samsung Galaxy S2 Plus, which comes standard with Jelly Bean 4.1.2.

So how long before your S2 actually gets in on the great Jelly Bean action? Hard to say for sure, but all signs seem to put towards Jelly Bean starting to show up sometime in the first half of 2013. Are you ready to upgrade to Jelly Bean on your Galaxy S2 or will you likely already switch to a new handset by the time this hits your local area?

[ source ]

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The Galaxy Note 2 is on its way soon, but that isn’t stopping Samsung from still supporting the OG Note. If you’ve looked on at the release of the Galaxy S3 and Note 2 in jealousy, it’s okay. We understand that these devices are cool. That being said, an new OTA update will at least bring some of the features from those devices to the Note.

What kind of features are we talking about? The update introduces Pop-up Play, a Note 2-style 3D gallery app, lock screen and home screen enhancements with “S Cloud” contact back-up, and more. There are also general changes to the UI of the phone.

The update is hitting German users first, and will then float its way to other markets in the coming weeks. For markets like the US, with their LTE versions, the wait may be even longer though- perhaps as long as a month or more.

While the update is currently just bringing the new features to the OG Note, it is believed the Galaxy S2 owners may get in on the love soon enough. It’s hard to say when, just only that it seems likely.

Are you excited about these new features, or really not that interested?

[ source ]

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Yes, it was only last month that we had heard about a March 1st rollout of ICS for the Galaxy S II, but that date has come and gone. The new date of March 15 comes by way of a Samsung Israel post on Facebook, suggesting that Ice Cream Sandwich will arrive on that date for that phone. Even so, it could come out even earlier for certain European markets, based on what history has taught us thus far.

This doesn’t give much of an offiicial indication as to when the Galaxy S II (in all its variants) will get the ICS update in North America, but if you’re not opposed to some manual updating, I’m sure the European ROM will find its way onto the Internet soon enough.

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The Samsung Galaxy S II has finally launched on AT&T and can be had online for just $200 with a contract.

The Galaxy S II has made huge waves in Europe and it has reached over 10 million units sold in just a short period of time after it was rolled out in the market.

Galaxy S II was highly-anticipated and we were waiting in vain for its release which was rumored on September 18 but was a hoax. On the other hand, Sprint subscribers were able to purchase the company’s version of the Galaxy S II called the “Epic 4G Touch” September 16.

AT & T’s smartphone, however, supports Near Field Communication (NFC) which is a major difference with its Sprint counterpart. In addition to the NFC, the Galaxy S II has a 4.3 inch Super AMOLED Plus display, 8 megapixel camera and a front-facing camera for making video calls, Android Gingerbread with TouchWiz 4.0, 1.2 GHz dual-core Samsung Exynos processor and an app which allows you to view videos, photos, logs and send messages from your PC. The only flaw is that the smartphone has the tendency to unlock itself. AT & T is aware of that and is currently finding ways to resolve the issue.

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It’s hard to believe that Samsung’s attempt to tackle the iPhone three years ago was the abysmal Samsung Instinct. My, how far have they’ve gotten since then. Samsung has skyrocketed to become one of the top manufacturers of Android smartphones and arguably one of their greatest creations to date is the Samsung Galaxy S II 4G.

The version I was offered to review is available through Bell Mobility in Canada. A US release through Verizon, Sprint and AT&T is expected shortly the next week.

Features at a Glance

Just unveiled earlier this year, the Samsung Galaxy S II is the official successor to the wildly successful Samsung Galaxy S. Most of the variants of that phone were largely the same, like the Vibrant and Captivate, save for some minor design cues. The guts were all pretty much identical.

In the case of the Galaxy S II, the specs have pretty much been bumped up across the board. This starts with the positively gorgeous 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display. All of the original Galaxy S phones had the standard 4.0-inch screen. I don’t need to tell you that this screen is easily the most amazing one you’ve ever seen on a smartphone. Photos really don’t do it justice. The colors are amazing vibrant, making games and other graphic-leaning apps that much better. And yes, it’s damage-resistant Gorilla Glass to boot.

Of course, the processor is worth mentioning too. Whereas both the original Galaxy S and the Samsung-made Nexus S were doing the 1GHz single core thing, this phone gets bumped to a 1.2GHz dual core Cortex-A9 processor. The full gig of RAM certainly helps too.

Other highlights include the 8MP rear camera (which I’ll get to in a moment), 2MP front camera, 1080p video recording, accelerometer, proximity sensor, 16GB of internal memory, microSD slot (up to 32GB), WiFi-N, Bluetooth 3.0+HS, microUSB, and GPS (plus aGPS support).

Design and Layout

With the Google Nexus S, they did that curved oleophobic screen and a cheap-ish glossy black plastic back. With the Galaxy S II, Samsung abandoned both of those ideas. You get back to a regular flat screen and that’s perfectly fine for me. I’m also happy to see that they got rid of that cheap black plastic and opted for a slightly textured back. It offers just enough grip and just enough “class” to make this feel like a premium product.

Two things will still strike you immediately about the Galaxy S II. First, it’s thin. Like seriously thin. Like 8.49mm thin. That’s pretty amazing, easily outdoing many other smartphones in this realm. It’s also very light at 116 grams. When you compare that to something like the iPhone 4 (137 grams) or the Motorola Atrix (135 grams), the difference becomes immediately apparent.

In terms of layout, there’s not a lot to report. You get the volume controls along the left edge and the power button on the right edge. The microUSB connector is in the bottom, but unlike the first Galaxy S, the port is exposed. You’ll also notice that this phone gets rid of the usual “home” and “search” buttons that accompany most Android phones, relying on the “menu” and “back” buttons instead. There is a hardware button in the middle, seemingly taking a square-ish approach to the iPhone home button, that serves as, well, the home button.

Gingerbread with TouchWiz UI

If you want a stock Android experience, you’re not going to get it here. You’re probably better off getting the Nexus S or waiting for the Nexus Prime. That’s because, not surprisingly, this phone does TouchWiz UI v4.0.

Yes, it’s somewhat iPhone-esque in that the apps are arranged in pages and you swipe horizontally to get through them. This is quite different than stock Android or HTC’s Sense. For some, TouchWiz is going to be a turnoff, but I have no quibbles about it. Aside from that, the customizable homescreens (as usual) come in handy with all the widgets and such. Interestingly, the “main” home screen is screen 1 (all the way to the left), which is different from some previous Samsung Android phones where “home” was the middle screen (4).

Front and Rear Cameras

That’s an eight megapixel shooter on the back, but we all know that megapixels are not the same as image quality. I’m surprised that Samsung didn’t equip the Galaxy S II with some sort of specially-skinned camera app, but the resulting quality is quite good given the right lighting conditions.

Consider this shot and this shot, both of which were taken outdoors under natural light. The second one is challenging, because I was in a space between a darker shadow and overbearing sunlight, so there is some significant “washing out” of detail.
With more even lighting, this photo turned out quite well. A photo I took with flash shows how strong the flash is, but it can easily blast out the photo too. Even though the front-facing camera is only 2MP, the quality of this shot is perfectly reasonable too.

As far as smartphone cameras go, I have little to complain about here aside from the lack of additional controls. That can likely be saved with a better camera app, giving you options like zoom, color balance, and so forth.

Performance and Network Speeds

When it comes to so-called Android superphones, the Samsung Galaxy S II is currently among the top of the heap. Spec for spec, it beats out the HTC Sensation 4G in a few areas, for instance. The processor is fast, there’s plenty of RAM, and I experienced virtually no slowdown even when running more than a few apps and widgets. This was even true when streaming media over the Internet. Unless you’re doing some heavy lifting, though, it’s unlikely you’ll notice a huge difference over the single core 1GHz smartphones out there.

Interestingly, battery life is largely unaffected by the increase in clock speed and the addition of an extra core. With intermittent “normal” use, I was able to get a solid day out of the phone without having to reach for a wall outlet. This is with the automatic brightness settings activated, and with both GPS and WiFi mostly turned off. I would like to see even more battery life, but all Android phones face this challenge. Compared to single core smartphones, even with smaller screens, the Galaxy S II might even outperform their battery life.

In terms of network speeds, Bell is marketing this phone as the Galaxy S II 4G. It’s up to you to decide if HSPA+ is really 4G, but in a very real sense, it’s pretty fast. I used the iPhone mobile speed test, ensured I was on the H+ network with full bar of signal. The download was clocked at 16.32 Mbps (based on 7936KB in 4 seconds). That’s not quite the theoretical limit of 21Mbps, but it breaks the 14.4Mbps limit of the HTC Sensation 4G (also through Bell). Upload, though, was pretty abysmal at 0.37Mbps.

Conclusion

Unequivocally, the Samsung Galaxy S II is one of the best Google Android smartphones on the market today. It’s incredibly thin, the Super AMOLED Plus screen is simply breathtaking, and it has performance up the wazoo. The only thing that might hold you back is the TouchWiz UI, which isn’t everyone’s bag.

That and you know that there is always something nicer in Android land just around the corner. At some point, you need to draw your line in the sand and choose what suits your needs right now, rather than waiting for the next Android phone to come out a few months from now. And the Galaxy S II is a great place to draw that line right now. I just hope that Samsung keeps up with the Android updates.

The post Samsung Galaxy S II 4G Android Smartphone Review appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The official successor to the Nexus S is coming with all sorts of rumored specs and features, perhaps the most notable of which is Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. After all, it is through the Nexus family of phones that we’ve seen most of the major upgrades to Android, aside from the tablet stuff with Honeycomb. Naturally, the rest of the specs are pretty darn impressive too.

One of my gripes about the Nexus S was a lack of a dual core processor. That’s not a problem with the Nexus Prime, as it’s said to rock a 1.5GHz dual core courtesy of Texas Instruments (OMAP4460). That gets backed up by a hefty 1GB of RAM, 4G LTE connectivity, “Super AMOLED HD” display with 720p, and a PowerVR SGX540 graphics accelerator. OMAP4 chips are said to support up to 1080p HD recording and playback, in addition to up to 20MP stills. On a bloody phone.

That said, if Samsung is indeed the manufacturer, they could stick with their in-house dual-core Exynos chip instead, the same processor used in the Galaxy S2. You’ll also notice the lack of physical buttons, as those are integrated into the mobile OS instead.

All of these features sound awfully sweet, but there’s going to be at least one spec that’ll likely have you weeping: battery life. With Super AMOLED HD and a 1.5GHz dual core, I’d imagine you’ll be reaching for a wall outlet every 20 minutes. In any case, the current rumor mill points toward a Thanksgiving 2011 launch for the Nexus Prime, if that is indeed its name. Roll out.

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Let’s put this into perspective. The first Galaxy S sold over 10 million units last year. That’s a pretty huge success. If you consider that there are already three million pre-orders on the Galaxy S II you’ve got to wonder how many sales will happen that aren’t pre-orders.  I think the whole Super AMOLED display is a huge factor for setting Samsung’s Android offerings apart from the HTCs and Motorolas of the world.

As a quick refresher, the Samsung Galaxy S II gets a pretty significant spec bump over its predecessor. The single-core 1GHz Hummingbird processor gets replaced with a 1.2GHz dual-core Orion processor. They’ve also included TouchWiz 4.0, Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread, and an 8MP camera with 1080p HD video support. The Super AMOLED screen is a little bigger too at 4.27-inches versus the old 4.0-inch display.

If it were not for the recent push towards dual core processors, I’d recommend the Samsung Nexus S. As it stands, the Galaxy S II will truly be a sight to behold and I’m pretty stoked about it all. Apparently, I’m not alone.

The post 4.3-inch Samsung Galaxy S II Pre-orders Break 3 Million Units appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The financials have just come out for Q4 2010 and it seems that Samsung has busted several of its previous fiscal records. It has the most total revenue ($139 billion), most net income ($14 billion), and most operating profit ($15.5 billion). Pretty soon they’ll want a Scrooge McDuck-style money bin!

Not surpringsly, the smartphone arena contributed a great deal to this success. They sold over 80 million mobile devices, as well as two million Galaxy Tabs. The nearly 13 million flat panel TVs shipped certainly help too.

Years ago, Japan was the be-all and end-all when it came to primetime electronics (and reliable cars). That’s changing. South Korea is a force to be reckoned with, given the drastic improvements at Hyundai and Korea, as well as the huge growth enjoyed by Samsung. Competition. It’s good. Let’s just hope that Samsung does a little better with pushing out those Android updates in 2011, ‘kay?

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While nothing will be confirmed for certain until the MWC, the widely-expected specs will undoubtedly cause some sort of premature orgasm in hardcore Androidians. Hidden behind a 4.3″ 800 x 480 Super AMOLED Plus touchscreen, the Galaxy S2 will sport Samsung’s 1GHz Orion dual-core processor, the same processor expected to power the upcoming second-gen Galaxy Tab tablets. They’ve cut down the width almost a milimetre to 9mm, but still managed to pack in 1GB of RAM, an 8 Megapixel camera that will record video in 1080p Full HD, while the processor will be able to output Full HD via HDMI 1.3a with power to spare. Other features, such as GPS and NFC, will be carried over from the Galaxy S to this well-endowed successor.

[Phone Arena via Samsung Unpacked]

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