Yes, the newest hotness in town is the Samsung Galaxy S III, but you may not be prepared for the $700+ outright price to get your hands on an unlocked one. Go ahead and save yourself over $300 by picking up an unlocked Samsung Galaxy S II (SA-I9100) instead. The international version (SA-I9100) just went on sale for 44% off.

It may not be the newest kid on the block anymore, but there’s a good reason why the Galaxy S II received such overwhelmingly positive reviews by the Android community. You might remember my S II review last year where I gave it a 9/10. I still firmly believe that it’s a fantastic smartphone and if you’re not a fan of the supersized screens as of late, the 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display on here may feel much more comfortable and suitable.

This is the international version, so it gets the dual core 1.2GHz processor, 8MP camera, aGPS, 1GB RAM, 16GB storage, and microSD expansion, along with the usual suite of wireless radios like 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot support, HSDPA 21Mbps, and Bluetooth 3.0+HS.

You can buy the Samsung Galaxy S II from Amazon for just $449.90, which is $350.09 (44%) off the regular unsubsidized price of $799.99. And yes, that comes with the same free super saver shipping that you’ve come to expect.

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The undisputed leader of all sales from all carriers that offers the iPhone is the iPhone 4S for last two months of 2011. Who would have thought otherwise?  More interesting and telling is the struggle for second place. The Samsung Galaxy S II looks like the leader for the second spot, except for Verizon where Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus took the position in December 2011, while in November 2011 it was Motorola’s Droid RAZR as Verizon’s second big selling phone.

T-Mobile doesn’t offer the iPhone 4S, so their best selling phone is the Samsung Galaxy S II. But it’s easy to imagine that if they could cater iPhones to their customers, the iPhone 4S would have been the leader with T-Mobile, too.

Another interesting feature in these trends is the fall of original iPhone 4 popularity which can be seen on a full span of six months research. Can Samsung’s Galaxy S II overtake iPhones one day? I don’t think so. Samsung is still the fourth in the race for the best vendor prize,  after Apple, HTC, and Motorola. Even if Samsung is on the rise now, who knows how much time it will take them to beat HTC? And if it will be quite rather long wait, then there will be the iPhone 5 available by then which will start a totally different game.

Carriers which are piggybacking on “big guys” bandwidth didn’t make it into this report. But volumes of their sales of handhelds most probably cannot really change the picture.

The post Top Selling Phones of 2011: iPhone 4S Leads The Way appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

As Christmas is approaching it seems that everything around you is turning white; from the streets, to the trees, and even the new Samsung Galaxy S II. For those who love the holidays as much as I do, the color of white certainly is inviting. Even beyond its holiday appeal, there is just something about the color white that is simplistic and yet elegant. Sure there are still people who prefer black over white, but as the Spanish saying goes, “In the matter of tastes, there is nothing written”. For those who do love white, the Samsung Galaxy 2 is sure to be a treat.

Recently, T-Mobile announced the entire world that they will be the only US carrier that will have this white SGS. Oddly enough the pictures above were leaked from an AT&T source, although the company has yet to make any comments or announcements regarding the white Samsung Galaxy S II.

The Samsung Galaxy S II has the quality we’ve come to expect from Samsung in an elegant package. Insiders suggest the phone will be out in time for the holidays, so all Samsung fans can have a White Christmas.

The post What Is Whiter Than Snow? A Samsung Galaxy S II! appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

As far as Android phones are concerned, the Samsung Galaxy S II is easily one of the best. That brilliant Super AMOLED display, that peppy Tegra2 processor, that super slim profile. She’s an absolute beauty, but maybe you’re not a fan of the color scheme. Well, Samsung is trying to spark some additional interest in this superphone by announcing a white variant.

It’s amazing, really, how excited people get over just a new color for an otherwise identical phone. Look at how long it took Apple to figure out how to release a white version of the iPhone 4. In any case, the white variant of the Galaxy S II will be made available initially to UK customers, nabbing their pre-orers through Clove. The expected arrival date is August 15 and we’re hearing of the full retail price being pegged at 492 GBP (almost $800!).

The assumption is that Samsung will also be shipping the white Galaxy S II to other markets. Carriers like Bell in Canada that already have the Galaxy S II will likely be offered the white variant too. From what I can see, both the front and the back have been emblazoned in the snowy glow, including that single hardware button on the front.

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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.

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