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
Cellular
So we’ve already mentioned that SGS2 contains Intel/Infineon’s latest and greatest X-Gold 626 baseband, which supports HSDPA 21.1 (Category 14) and HSUPA 11.5 (Category 7) support, though SGS2 actually only supports HSUPA 5.76 (Category 6) according to Samsung. Of course, this international edition includes quadband UMTS and GSM support.
I used the SGS2 on AT&T in the USA, and my particular market only has PCS 1900 MHz support, meaning both GSM and WCDMA carriers both only sit in the PCS 1900 MHz band. I remember that one of the first things I did with the SGS2 at MWC was check whether all of the same excellent dialer codes worked, and thankfully they do.
Samsung continues to have the absolute best field test / engineering menus of any handset vendor, and on the SGS2 dialing *#0011# gives you access to information about the current connected carrier, band, RCC state (what signaling state you’re in) and signal (ECIO and RSCP at the bottom). There’s a field marked HSPA+ used which I think has confused some people - this shows 1 when data is being transacted (DCH state). I should also mention that I’m incredibly grateful that SGS2 shows all the correct and proper status indicators for network connectivity at the top - 3G, H, and H+ appropriately, instead of this trend in the USA of calling every UMTS connectivity state “4G” - ugh. As an aside, it’s normal to see 3G when in the idle state, and then a negotiation up to H+ when in the DCH (Dedicated CHannel) state if you’re on an HSPA+ network. I haven’t seen H+ show when in the FACH (Forward Access Channel) state.
| Samsung Galaxy S 2 - Network Support | |||||
| GSM/EDGE Support | 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz | ||||
| UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA Support | 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100 MHz | ||||
| HSDPA/HSUPA Speeds | 21 Mbps / 5.76 Mbps | ||||
| Baseband Hardware | Infineon/Intel X-GOLD 626 HSPA+ | ||||
I ran 318 speedtests on the SGS2 using the Ookla Speedtest.net application, and did our usual thing and come up with a histogram showing throughput for those tests. Again, this is more indicative of AT&T speed than what the SGS2 is capable of, given that I’ve seen other SGS2 users seeing much faster on other WCDMA networks - I’m insanely jealous of all of you. I tested throughout my 1900 MHz market in Tucson, Phoenix, and on the positively dreadful 850 / 1900 WCDMA network in Las Vegas, which remains completely unusable even when CES or any other conference isn’t happening. But I digress.
First up is downstream, which develops a nice little normal distribution when you run enough tests like we’ve done here.
Again this is really more indicative of what you’re going to see in the markets I’ve tested in with AT&T. Speeds top out at 7 or 8 Mbps if you’re very lucky, with performance most of the time between 2 to 4 Mbps. The average here is 3.11 Mbps, with a standard deviation of 1.56 Mbps. That sounds about right to me given how many of these things I run when I’m not even testing a phone.
I’m also aware of the whole AT&T HSDPPB (“4G” unlimited data) versus DPPB (3G unlimited data) SOC code thing and the corresponding difference in APN. I used them interchangeably for a week or so and honestly didn’t see any difference.
Upstream is next, where AT&T continues to employ lots of artificial shaping, limiting upstream to at maximum 1.7 Mbps.
I’ve heard speculation that AT&T is limiting the HSUPA category to 2 or 3 (which is 1.46 Mbps), or category 5 (2.00 Mbps), but neither of those line up nicely with the artificial-looking wall that seems to exist on AT&T at 1.7 Mbps. I’m very positive however that there’s shaping going on here, the last remaining question is whether it’s enforced by only allowing a certain HSUPA category, or shaping somewhere else in the network. It’d make sense to me at least to do the latter of those two. It’s disappointing because there’s definitely the potential for much speedier upstream than what I see here.
Last is latency, which looks pretty typical, though there are some outliers in the data entirely from the abysmal Las Vegas performance tests:
Average latency works out to be 147 ms, which is pretty par for UMTS as far as I’m concerned, unless you’re lucky enough to be somewhere with much better backhaul and a flatter IP-based network architecture.
For the most part, I’m very pleased with SGS2’s cellular connectivity situation, though there’s a bit more to talk about. I noticed that sometimes cellular connectivity will stop and become unresponsive for anywhere between a few seconds, and minutes at a time, requiring a battery pull or lots of patience before working again. Toggling airplane mode doesn’t work when that happens, and usually it’s manifested by the data-type indicator disappearing. I’m not sure what the story is here, but it seems like I’ve seen a lot of Samsung phones having data sessions randomly lock up and then come back after a while, lately.
In addition, Samsung makes the mistake of going with a signal bar visualization with very compressed dynamic range. Since the whole iPhone 4 debacle, I’ve seen something of a trend towards a strict linear scale (which makes more sense), but SGS2 definitely doesn’t go that route. It’s not a huge deal however, just something to be aware of. I’m willing to overlook that issue considering that getting the real story on connectivity is no harder than dialing *#0011# and looking at the real number.
I’ve also read a bunch of accounts which claim that the SGS2 has iPhone 4-like deathgrip, which needless to say piqued my interest. Of course, I’ve been religiously measuring unintended signal attenuation on every device I’ve encountered ever since, so the SGS2 doesn’t get spared that treatment.
| Signal Attenuation Comparison in dB - Lower is Better | ||||||||
| Cupping Tightly | Holding Naturally | Holding in Case | On an Open Palm | |||||
| Samsung Galaxy S 2 | 18.4 | 5.9 | - | 12.2 | ||||
| Droid 3 | 16.0 | 11.3 | - | 5.0 | ||||
| HTC Sensation | 15.0 | 10.0 | 8.0 | 0.0 | ||||
| Samsung Droid Charge | 10.0 | 10.0 | 5.0 | 0.0 | ||||
| HTC Thunderbolt - LTE | 5.3 | 2.5 | - | 4.4 | ||||
| HTC THunderbolt - EVDO | 6.5 | 0.8 | - | 7.2 | ||||
| Verizon iPhone 4 | 16.5 | 15.5 | 9.0 | 7.9 | ||||
| LG Optimus 2X | 13.7 | 9.3 | - | 5.9 | ||||
| Nexus S | 13.3 | 6.1 | - | 4.3 | ||||
| Droid 2 | 11.5 | 5.1 | - | 4.5 | ||||
| BlackBerry Torch | 15.9 | 7.1 | - | 3.7 | ||||
| Dell Streak | 14.0 | 8.7 | - | 4.0 | ||||
| Droid X | 15.0 | 5.1 | - | 4.5 | ||||
| AT&T iPhone 4 | 24.6 | 19.8 | 7.2 | 9.2 | ||||
| iPhone 3GS | 14.3 | 1.9 | 3.2 | 0.2 | ||||
| HTC Nexus One | 17.7 | 10.7 | 7.7 | 6.7 | ||||
The data is actually quite interesting, with the SGS2 showing more than the 15 dB average attenuation in worst case, and an unusually high open-palm result as well. If you go back to the disassembly and look at that antenna module, you can start to see why this is so bad. It’s located right in the plastic bulge, and the active region of the antenna printed on the plastic is less than a mm separated from the exterior. The result is that though there’s obviously no galvanic contact (there’s a plastic insulating layer between), there still is some coupling and attenuation in the near field right here.
I honestly don’t think it’s an iPhone 4-level problem at ~18 dB in this worst case (which I’ll remind you literally involves both hands clasped around the device as close as possible), but it’s still more than average.
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tipoo - Sunday, September 11, 2011 - link
The iPhone 4 always scores near the bottom of the 2.0 test since its native resolution is so high, but I'd be interested to know how it does with the resolution independent 2.1 test?B3an - Sunday, September 11, 2011 - link
...but the iPhone 4 is already in the 2.1 tests which are all run at 1280x720 so it's equal on every phone... and unsurprisingly it's the worst performer.Lucian Armasu - Sunday, September 11, 2011 - link
The iPhone 4 has a GPU that is one generation older than the one in the first Galaxy S phone. So that's the main reason why it performs the worst in all these GPU tests.LostViking - Saturday, September 17, 2011 - link
You can do the math already.If you calculate the pixel ratio (width * height) between the iPhone and the others you can correct the numbers.
3lackdeath - Sunday, September 11, 2011 - link
When are you guys going to start adding WP7 to the Comparisons list WP7 is soooo lacking in your reviews.It has been out for a while now you know, a long long time did i say long?.
shamalh108 - Sunday, September 11, 2011 - link
Hi Brian.. first off thanks for the great review..its quite honestly the best I've read on the SGS2..As an SGS2 user i need to just testify to my experience of the AOS bug..
This bug or its effects aren't actually experienced by me while the phone is actually in use, but actually results in a dramatic use of battery when in suspend.. it is intermittent so it won't occur all the time but over the last month I've been able to identify it using battery monitor pro.
what i find is that in the morning when unplugged i can put my edge data on and then leave the phone in standby for up to two hours and see no drain... if i then proceed to use the phone for about 20min and note the battery percentage , i then lock the phone and leave it in standby again with edge data enabled and push email... after closing all tasks but the battery percentage will drop by up to 10% in those two hours while battery monitor pro reports an estimate usage of 100+ mah ..compared to the same running conditions it was in when just unplugged and consumed almost no power. this isn't always the case though sometimes the phone will only drop 2% or less per hour with the battery monitor pro reporting usage of 25~35 mah ... As you can see this bug actually affects standby time more than nonstop usage and that is probably why the benchmarks havent been affected.. also im not sure if its normal but when the phone is experiencing the high usage and i look at the process cpu usage the events and suspend process are consuming around 15~20% cpu... this checked immediately after unlocking the phone using watchdog task manager pro.
while i understand all the measurements are estimates .. i really feel the effects of this as with the same usage i can't be certain if ill get the 14hours battery life i need or 10.. what is the normal power consumption for an android phone in suspend as I've noticed my brothers HTC desire consistently consumes 10~15mah in standby with a similar set up..
again thanks for the great review..
my international SGS2 is running stock with no root , XXKF3 .
willstay - Sunday, September 11, 2011 - link
I have been using SGS2 for two months now and this is my 3rd Android. In the past, I always flashed closest to stock ROM, now after 2 months, I think google should consider touchWiz kindof UI as default. It is really minimalistic with just few tiny bit feature that makes it way better than stock - folders and page scrolling where I can put important apps in page 1, system apps in page 2 and so on.One consistent touchWiz feature to swipe contacts left for message and right for call is a must have.
I must be having over sensitive eye that comfortable brightness level I use during day (indoor) is zero and for evening and night, I am using app called "Screen Filter" to make it dimmer. (I know this is only me - for my laptop I had to hack drivers to make it dimmer than allowed normally).
When idle, processor goes back to 200 MHz and normally with wifi off, cellular net off, SGS2 lives through the night depleting only 1% of the battery. When I only use it for phone and sms, I get two days. Most of the time when I have access to desktop, I turn off wifi and push mail. My usual battery indicator runs as follows - fully charged before going to sleep - 99% when I wake up - I turn wifi and push mail on and by the time I move out to office it is 97% - wifi off in office but sometimes on when I move out of my desk to run SIP client and get my desk extension routed to phone and by lunch time it is 90% - push mail on and cellular net on during lunch time 86% - when I reach home it is from 80 to 75% - that is when my phone gets highest load of games, browsing, wifi, pushmail until I plug for charing around 11 pm and before I plug in it is usally 30%. For comparison, the lowly Nokia 1280 I am using for backup ran for 15 days in single charge and there was still 1/5 bar left in it.
"light weight seems to imply a certain level of cheapness" - people will soon start to understand weight has no correlation with quality and when devices grow bigger and bigger, they will appreciate lighter weight design.
As for me, this is my first Samsung and I am impressed!! Unfortunagely SGS2 has short life it seems - I am so impressed with this light weight, thinness, SAMOLED+, touchWiz that I am getting SG-Note at whatever cost when it comes out :)
shamalh108 - Sunday, September 11, 2011 - link
hey willstay.. wow ! please help me , how are you getting such astonishing battery life ? what Rom are you on ? is your phone used at all during the day ? i simply can not get that kinda standby consumption between my few use periods during the day.. i love my phone and right now its just the battery life that's frustrating me.. why are the reports so varied .. any info you have would be welcome :)ph00ny - Sunday, September 11, 2011 - link
I'm also getting a full day of usage like the user above. I ran stock rom forever until i ventured over to the some of the newer custom roms and i'm getting slightly less battery life with the newest sensation 1.6 rom (2.3.4) compared to stock and cognition 1.07.willstay - Sunday, September 11, 2011 - link
I am using default ROM but flashed kernel for rooting. I guess it must be rouse app. I've found Location And Security -> Use Wireless Networks eats up around 7% of battery through night (which otherwise is only 1%). Sometimes service called MediaService (after I've played songs through Btooth) eats up around 25% through sleep hours. Once I used very nice network bandwidth monitoring app to find individual data usage, it was sipping 25% during sleep hours (I install this app only when I need it). Pushmail on low signal cellular network eats battery like hell - my phone gets warm at the back. Interestingly, always-on low light digital clock of app NoLED eats only 20% through night. For most of the bug related drainage, flushing RAM helps.If I were you, I would temporarily uninstall few apps at a time to find the culprit. You may be able to short list possible apps through battery usage tool of the phone too.