In recent memory, we struggle to think of an Android smartphone that has received as much buzz as the Samsung Galaxy S II 4G. Some call it the greatest Android phone to date, while others say it’s simply the best phone to day. The question is: Is the Galaxy S II worthy of all of the hype? Click on through to find out.

Hardware and Design

The overall design of the Galaxy S II is minimalist, with the front bearing nothing but Samsung’s logo, speaker grille, a front-facing camera, and a single physical button, the home button. Two-thirds of the way up on the right-hand side is the power/lock button, and on the left-hand side is the volume rocker and a tiny hole for lanyards. The top of the phone has nothing but a 3.5mm headphone jack, while at the bottom sits a micro-USB port. The back of the device is bare except for the battery cover, and the housing for the 8 megapixel camera and LED flash. The battery cover, while a flimsy piece of plastic, is nicely textured and provides a very secure grip. The device is quite large (125.3mm x 66.1mm) owing to its 4.3” display, yet it’s only 8.49mm thick.

Display

The display on the Galaxy S II is gorgeous. Its 4.3” WVGA Super AMOLED Plus display, and produces incredibly rich and vibrant images. Owing to it not being an LCD display, the blacks were very dark and the overall contrast was greatly enhanced. It performed very well in direct sunlight, and had exceptional viewing angles. As previously mentioned, the resolution is WVGA, or 480×800. While we wish it had a higher pixel density, we really cannot fault it because it already makes everything look wonderful.

Camera

The 8 megapixel camera on the Galaxy S II is amongst the best we have used on a phone. Combined with auto-focus, 4x digital zoom, and a single LED flash, we took some of the best photos we have ever taken on a phone. Even when fully zoomed in on full-resolution images, there is an abundance of sharpness and none of muddiness that one so often sees on photos taken with a phone. The auto-focus was quick to lock on, and the time it took to take a photo, have it save to the devices memory, and start again was barely noticeable. Videos recorded on the device were particularly a treat, and we can confidently state that the Galaxy S II records the best 1080p video of any smartphone available in Canada. Although the rolling shutter could cause for some strange effects in very busy environments, we feel that the average person would hardly notice this.

Performance

With a 1.2GHz Exynos 4210 dual-core processor and 1GB RAM, we had very high expectations about how the Galaxy S II should perform. Let’s get it out of the way right now: it’s by far the fastest Android smartphone we’ve ever used. Not only does it outperform anything currently on the market, but we expect it will be able to remain extremely competitive against handsets to be released in the near-future. No matter how hard we pushed it, the Galaxy S II never showed even the slightest signs of strain.

TouchWiz and Customizations

We’ve often joked that a Pokédex has a nicer UI than TouchWiz, and we still feel that way. Sure, some parts of the UI are tastefully done, but others are hideous. The email and calendar apps, for example, made us feel that we were attending a rave; there’s just no need to have everything be black, and then liberally throw around a bunch of bright colours. Another feature of TouchWiz we didn’t care for was its default keyboard. We had a terribly difficult time typing on it, so it wasn’t long before we swapped it out for the stock Gingerbread keyboard. (Oh, the joys of Android.) We know we say this in practically every Android review, but for once we’d love the option to disable all of the customizations and run plain ol’ Android as Google intended it to be. Then again, that’s what rooting and flashing are for. But it’s not all bad. TouchWiz does have some features that are very user-friendly, such as network toggles in the notification drawer, and the ability to view and edit all of your homescreens by pinching the homescreen. Samsung also deserves kudos for allowing screenshots to be taken by pressing the home and screen lock button at the same time, something which most Android handsets need root access and third-party apps to do.

Being a Bell smartphone, the Galaxy S II came pre-loaded with a number of Bell applications including Bell PVR, TV & Radio, and Self Serve. We were unable to test out Bell PVR owing to our not having a PVR, though we know from past experience that it’s a great application for those who watch a lot of TV and would like to control their PVR from anywhere in the world. No matter what we tried, we were incapable of getting TV & Radio to work, as the app would shoot out an error message stating there was “a problem connecting to the service” and that we should check our data connection. Well, out data connection was fine, so we’ll chalk this up to a beta software bug, one which should be quashed before the Galaxy S II goes on sale to the public.

Connectivity

When we last reviewed a Bell smartphone (the HTC Sensation 4G), we noted that the device was incapable of delivering anything near the data speeds promised by Bell. For whatever reason, the Galaxy S II had no such problems. In multiple speed tests conducted over several days in Metro Vancouver, we averaged 4500Kbps down and 1750Kbps up, with pings that rarely ever topped 100ms. As for reception itself, we imagine we had full bars 95% of the time, and not once did we enter an area with coverage poor enough that the phone became unusable.

Phone Calls

Phone calls on the Galaxy S II were unremarkable, and to us that’s a good thing. You simply punch in the number you want to call, or select someone from your contact book, and away you go. Call quality was excellent, and everyone we spoke to sounded natural. Background noise was also at a minimum on both ends. The loudspeaker wasn’t quite as good as the earpiece, though it was still far better than most phones we have used.

Battery Life

The Galaxy S II ships with a 1650 mAh Li-ion battery. Talk-time is rated at 6 hours, with standby hovering around 370 hours. We’ve never been too keen on talking on the phone, but when we did, we hardly noticed a drop in battery life. The same holds true for pretty much everything else we did on the phone. We once put it through over three hours of non-stop email, WhatsApp messaging, gaming, and web browsing only to find we had barely made a dent in the battery life. When each day ended, we never managed to get the battery to drop below 35%. Much of this can be attributed to the phone’s Super AMOLED Plus display and processor, both of which are designed to sip power, but clearly there are some other things going on behind the scenes. Either way, the battery life is great.

Conclusion

For our money, the Samsung Galaxy S II 4G is the best Android smartphone on the market, and easily in the top three for best phone overall. Whether you’re seriously into Android or just want to get a feel for what all of the hype is about, you owe it to yourself to check it out. Trust us.

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The Samsung Galaxy S II 4G will be available on July 21st from Bell Mobility.