Samsung Galaxy SII Review (AT&T)

It's the superphone that has been ruling the rest of the world since April, with Samsung selling 10 million of them faster than you can say "Apple". And now it is here, in the U.S., after much anticipation, packing the same powerful 1.2 ghz Exynos SoC seen overseas. But with a plethora of competition from all sides of the aisle, is the Galaxy SII worth your considerable investment?

Hardware: Your first thought when you pick up the device is "This is a premium device", and then "This is a very thin phone". I would say that the industrial design is exceeded only by that of the iPhone 4S in terms of beauty. It is super thin at 8.89 mm thick, and thinner than any Apple smartphone. Ergonomically, the phone does pretty well, although 4.3 inches is pushing it in my opinion for screen size. 
Around front are the four standard capacitive touch buttons, a 2 MP front facing camera, and a duo of logos. Turn it over and you'll find the 8 MP camera with LED flash, and a slight bulge at the base of the device.

Though the device is constructed mainly of plastic, it still feels solid. The plastic that Samsung used to construct the device has so far proved to be pretty scratch resistant, if not scratch proof, and the textured battery cover provides some much needed purchase for the hand. Speaking of that battery cover, apparantly Samsung used a special material in it that allows it to be very flexible without creasing. Here is a picture showing me almost bending it in half: 

 Score: A

Performance:


This is one of the areas where the Galaxy SII really excels. I have yet to encounter a single lag whilst using the SII, and the reason why is all beneath the pretty skin of the device. The 1.2 ghz Exynos processor is crazy fast. Even processors with higher clock speeds consistantly score lower in benchmarking tests and in real world performance. As an example: the newly announced HTC Sensation XE with a 1.5 ghz Snapdragon processor scored 2048 in quadrant, and in the single thread version of Linpack, it scored a 43. The Galaxy SII scored a 3700 and 55 respectively. I cannot get over the fact of how fast this device is. Data speeds were ample, hitting around 5 mb/s down in most cases.

Score: A+

Battery Life:


Battery life is another area where the SII excels. I unplugged the phone this morning at 5:45, and now at 9:30 p.m. it still has 50% battery left after a day of moderate to heavy usage. One caveat is that when you turn on auto brightness, it tends to hunt around for the correct setting, which gets annoying.


Score: A


Camera:


I'll let these amazing pictures speak for themselves:

These were all taken with the Galaxy SII's camera.
The video camera is just as good, and it records in 1080p at 30 fps.


Grade: A+


Software:


This is one of the areas that really surprised me. I expected TouchWiz to be slow, bloated, uncustomizable, and just downright ugly. It was none of these. First off, props to AT&T to letting its customers delete any unwanted apps that came with the device. Secondly, it really wasn't ugly at all, and I actually grew fond of the look and feel. 


The lockscreen allows you to go straight to any new messages or emails, which is a nice touch. Another feature that I personally liked was the fact that you can create your own equalizer profile in the Music application. It really is crazy how much customization Samsung included here.


Grade: A


Screen:


Amazing. If I had to describe the screen in one word, that would be it. Colors pop, the pixel density is ample, and is actually visible in direct sunlight. It is everything that Samsung promises, and more. You really need to try out the phone to get a sense of how amazing it is.


Grade: A+


Overall:


In short, the Galaxy SII lives up to all of our expectations and more. I cannot think of any real thing to harp on, that is how well Samsung did. 


The answer is yes.


Go Buy This Phone.


A+