Samsung Galaxy S 2 (International) Review - The Best, Redefined
by Brian Klug & Anand Lal Shimpi on September 11, 2011 11:06 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Samsung
- Galaxy S II
- Exynos
- Mobile
Applications
The next thing is a bit of enumeration of the skinned or custom applications that come bundled with SGS2 as part of TouchWiz 4.0. I’ve taken some screenshots of the default application bundle and some of the apps and tossed them into a gallery, and for the most part there isn’t much to talk about in detail.
Contacts takes you into samsung’s dialer application which thankfully is smart dial enabled, just like HTC’s.
Among the extras are a voice recorder, task manager, FM radio app, and of course Kies air. Voice recorder gets the job done and is pretty basic, as it should be. The TouchWiz task manager also is snappy and has some nice - kill everything - buttons to free up all RAM. The FM radio app supports multiple regions, RDS, and auto search. It has a nifty analog-feeling manual tuner too.
There’s also a video editing and photo editing application bundled. Photo editor lets you make some basic changes like crop, saturation, and some filters. It’s actually pretty decent.
Video editor does what you’d expect and seems to be a rather basic facsimile of iMovie for iOS, complete with a few themes and basic editing. The interface does a surprisingly good job at letting you trim and combine video clips, complete with transitions, and also stills. The live preview is a bit low framerate, which seems surprising to me, though my source material was 1080p video captured on the camera. Export is limited to 720p and does take a while.
Storage
Our SGS2 was the 16 GB unit, which came partitioned as follows:
Filesystem Size Used Free Blksize /dev 418M 76K 418M 4096 /mnt/asec 418M 0K 418M 4096 /mnt/obb 418M 0K 418M 4096 /mnt/usb 418M 0K 418M 4096 /app-cache 7M 4M 2M 4096 /system 503M 456M 47M 4096 /cache 98M 4M 94M 4096 /efs 19M 8M 11M 4096 /data 1G 402M 1G 4096 /mnt/sdcard 11G 1G 10G 32768 /mnt/sdcard/external_sd 7G 977M 6G 32768
What’s a bit curious to me is that it’s very well known that SGS2 has 2 GB of internal storage, however the /data partition above clearly shows only 1 GB. Apparently this is a known rounding error with the version of df in the firmware we’re running, and newer leaked 2.3.4 images show 2 GB for data appropriately.
Either way, having 2 GB is more than enough for application storage and shouldn’t result in anyone running out of space - this isn’t the 150 MB or so that early Android 2.x devices offered. Of course you can also add a microSD card for additional external storage and move apps to it, like I’ve done above as shown in the sdcard/external_sd mount. What’s really good, however, is that RFS is gone right out of the box, and in its place is EXT4:
/dev/block/mmcblk0p9 /system ext4 ro,relatime,barrier=1,data=ordered 0 0 /dev/block/mmcblk0p7 /cache ext4 rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,barrier=1,data=ordered 0 0 /dev/block/mmcblk0p1 /efs ext4 rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,barrier=1,data=ordered 0 0 nil /sys/kernel/debug debugfs rw,relatime 0 0 /dev/block/mmcblk0p10 /data ext4 rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,barrier=1,data=ordered,noauto_da_alloc,discard 0 0 /dev/block/mmcblk0p4 /mnt/.lfs j4fs rw,relatime 0 0
The result is none of the filesystem lag that plagued the original SGS, looks like Samsung has learned its lesson here.
Software Conclusions
There are a bunch of other small things part of TouchWiz 4, including the ability to change the system font (which is becoming a pretty common feature) and motion-based gestures in some parts. Probably the most subtle extra I’m grateful for is screenshot functionality - screenshots can be taken by holding home and pressing power quickly.
For the most part, the experience is pretty pleasant and Samsung does make some welcome additions that improve browser and UI smoothness in Android 2.3 that likely won’t be part of mainline until Ice Cream Sandwich.
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ph00ny - Sunday, September 11, 2011 - link
Btw you can launch search by holding down the menu buttonAloonatic - Sunday, September 11, 2011 - link
Just curious, but have MS given up on the smartphone market? Or have I just missed out on all the new (or soon to be release) WP7 devices?At this rate, I'm just going to have to go with Android and a SGS II, even though I'd love a WP7 phone, but what there is out there are just all old handsets, and I'd have to change carrier to get one now too, as T-Mobile (UK) don't seem to sell them at all any more!?!?!?111!
dagamer34 - Sunday, September 11, 2011 - link
If I had to guess, OEMs are working on their new handsets, but want to load them with Windows Phone 7.5, which only RTMed officially a few weeks ago.My best guess is we'll see some more phones around October or so, with a Galaxy S II shaped WP7 device.
Aloonatic - Sunday, September 11, 2011 - link
Well, October is what I figured too, but... We're already over a week into September and there still aren't any "coming soon" 7.5 devices to be seen anywhere, so I'd be surprised if October (as in the start of October) is anything but wishful thinking.It starting to seem like MS just aren't that bothered. Where's the "ooh, look at this coming soon phone" stuff? The SGS 2 like WP7 phone has been mentioned all over the web for months, but there's nothing remotely official, and with only the odd photo shopped image from net dreamers.
It's a shame, as I'm not a fan of Apple, their products or how they behave. And I've tried Android and been annoyed by their poor updating system, where too many companies have been allowed to let year old hardware languish at the back of the update queue (if it's lucky) while the new devices get all the attention and you're left with juddering menus and in some cases shocking security holes.
Maybe it's just me, and my problem, for hoping that WP7 might offer a solution to my woes, but MS are just leaving this all waaaaaaayyyyy too late. By the time they get to the party someone will be handing them a bin bag and asking them to help clear up.
ph00ny - Sunday, September 11, 2011 - link
What do you mean? It was in the video presentation for the mango announcement month or two agohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABO_LyD_SXs
right around :40 he whips it out of the pocket. I guess he couldn't wait to use it as his daily phone
Aloonatic - Sunday, September 11, 2011 - link
Oh, so they have a few units the they showed on a video presentation that who saw exactly?Yes, I may have been exaggerating slightly before (and I know that that doesn't stand on geek boards) and we've all (well, a reasonable percentage, as I am sure that at least 1 person reading this hasn't) seen the "leaked" video that no one *wink wink* should video and get out.... But really, there's nothing to be seen here. Those videos are no more proof of a finished product than a concept car at a motor show.
I'm just disappointed that they hare dragging their feet on this product, and really don't seem to care either.
ph00ny - Sunday, September 11, 2011 - link
This was posted on a lot of major tech blog/news sites. As for devices, there are quite a few announced devices but they're all waiting for the mango updatevision33r - Monday, September 12, 2011 - link
Samsung phones are outdated in one quarter. They release small updated features to the same platform.The Galaxy line had 4-5 different variant versions within the same year.
This makes update very difficult for them and also buyer confusion.
I'll stick with HTC, since Samsung takes forever to fix software and issue timely updates.
ph00ny - Monday, September 12, 2011 - link
which device outside of the US carrier branded ones didn't get updates as soon as HTC devices? In fact, which android device manufacturer doesn't release 4-5 different variants within the same year?aegisofrime - Sunday, September 11, 2011 - link
Had mine here in Singapore for about 3 months now, and you Americans will be joining the party with plenty of custom ROMs and kernels to choose from :)So yeah, welcome to the party!
This forum will probably be your new best friend now:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f...
(Galaxy S II Original Android Development)