When Samsung announced the Galaxy S II earlier this year, the phone received widespread positive reviews thanks to its fast dual-core processor, upgraded screen tech and significantly improved camera and battery life, and consumers were racing like mad to find out where to buy the AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II device.
That was a few months ago and finally the Galaxy S II is available in the United States under the AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile banners; Verizon is not joining the party though their LTE powered DROID Charge has similar specs to the Galaxy S II variants.
With the original Galaxy S, Samsung was able to catapult itself to the top of the Android manufacturers list and ultimately carve out a number two position for itself among phone manufacturers worldwide, so much that it caught the eyes of Apple’s lawyers who have been tying the company in legal battles across the globe for alleged copyright infringement.
That being said, the AT&T version of the Galaxy S II is here and from our usage, this is a serious competitor.
Design and Features
Not much has changed with the design of the Samsung Galaxy S II. Albeit, the U.S versions of the Samsung Galaxy S II devices have minute differences such as slightly bigger screens and different processor manufacturers. Other than that however, the phones appear identical.
Moving along with the internals, we have a 1.2GHz Exynos C210 processor with dedicated GPU as well. 1GB of system RAM is standard with 32GB of internal storage and microSD expansion slot that holds cards up to 32GB. So theoretically, the phone can hold a maximum of 64GB.
The 4.27 inch screen is 0.27 inches bigger than the previous device. Although the resolution is still 480 x 800, the technology behind the screen has been upgraded from Super AMOLED to Super AMOLED Plus. According to Samsung, this results in better power conservation, improved viewing angles and richer colors.
An upgrade to the camera has been made with the rear facing camera being bumped up to 8 megapixels, and the front facing camera having a full 2 megapixels. The rear camera does full 1080p video recording and the front facing camera can support video recording as well. Panorama mode is also supported on the 8 megapixel shooter.
Last but not least, connectivity includes quad-band GSM and UMTS with HSDPA+, HSPA, UMTS, HSUPA and EDGE data. A-GPS, Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n with mobile hotspot, microUSB 2.0, NFC and DLNA are all on board. The operating system of choice is Android Gingerbread 2.3.4. It is a feature set worthy of the Galaxy S II, and one that certainly makes you want to run out to purchase the Samsung Galaxy S II for AT&T.
Performance
If we could sum up our experience with the Galaxy S II for AT&T in one word, that word would be amazing. We don’t use that word lightly, but after putting the phone through ordinary and not so ordinary paces, we came away with a positive view of not only the phone, but Samsung’s tenacity to strive for excellence.
The Exynos processor blows away all the competition we could find and thanks to a dedicated GPU, 3D games performed a whole lot better than previous Galaxy S devices (which did return high marks as well). Let’s just sum up our view of the processor by saying it’s the best mobile processor we have tested thus far.
More praises go to the camera which has a CMOS that took astounding photos. There were a few times when colors appeared oversaturated, but those times were far and few and thankfully, you can manually edit many of the photos exposure though the camera settings. Videos were great as well and we really did become fans of the 1080p shooting capabilities.
Another award goes to the screen which may not be as pixel dense as other screens we have seen recently, but makes up for that with vivid colors and extremely good viewing angles. Speaking of the screen, thanks to the improved technology, the battery life has improved as well and it was very easy for us to pull a full days charge out of the Galaxy S II with moderate usage.
Call quality was great with little to no dropped calls whatsoever.
Conclusion
We enthusiastically recommend the AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II 4G Android smartphone, and willingly join in the resounding applause heard in favor of this mobile phone. From every respect we found the performance and feature set on the Galaxy S II for AT&T to exceed industry standards and to quite literally, blow the competition away. The only other phone on the AT&T network that holds a candle is the ‘sister phone’, the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket. We have provided information on authorized retailers for finding out where to purchase the Samsung Galaxy S II smartphone.