The Samsung Galaxy S II (GT-I9100) is a smartphone running under the Android operating system that was announced by Samsung on February 13, 2011 at the Mobile World Congress. It is the successor to the Samsung Galaxy S, with a different appearance and significantly improved hardware. The Galaxy S II was one of the slimmest smartphones of the time, mostly 8.49 mm thick, except for two small bulges which take the total thickness of the phone to 9.91 mm.
The Galaxy S II has a 1.2 GHz dual-core "Exynos" system on a chip (SoC) processor, 1 GB of RAM, a 10.8 cm (4.3 in) WVGA Super AMOLED Plus screen display and an 8 megapixel camera with flash and full 1080p high definition video recording. It is one of the first devices to offer a Mobile High-definition Link (MHL), which allows up to 1080p uncompressed video output with HDMI while charging the device at the same time. USB On-The-Go (USB OTG) is supported.
The user-replaceable battery on the Galaxy S II gives up to ten hours of heavy usage, or two days of lighter usage. According to Samsung, the Galaxy S II is capable of providing 9 hours of talk time on 3G and 18.3 hours on 2G.
The Exynos branded SoC was the source of much speculation concerning another branded successor to the previous "Hummingbird" single-core SoC of the Samsung Galaxy S. The Exynos 4210 uses ARM's Mali-400 MP GPU. This graphics GPU, supplied by ARM, is a move away from the PowerVR GPU of the Samsung Galaxy S.
The Exynos 4210 supports ARM's SIMD engine (also known as Media Processing Engine, or 'NEON' instructions), and may give a significant performance advantage in critical performance situations such as accelerated decoding for many multimedia codecs and formats (e.g., On2's VP6/7/8 or Real formats).
At the 2011 Game Developers Conference ARM's representatives demonstrated 60 Hz framerate playback in stereoscopic 3D running on the same Mali-400 MP and Exynos SoC. They said that an increased framerate of 70 Hz would be possible through the use of an HDMI 1.4 port.
The Motorola Atrix advertised in June 2011 that it was "the world's most powerful smartphone"; in August 2011 the UK Advertising Standards Authority ruled that the Atrix was not as powerful as Galaxy SII due to its faster processor.
A newer Samsung Galaxy S II (i9100G) uses a 1.2 Ghz dual core TI OMAP 4430 processor with PowerVR SGX540 graphics.
The Samsung Galaxy S II uses a 108.5-millimetre (4.27 in)WVGA (800 x 480) Super AMOLED Plus capacitive touchscreen that is covered by Gorilla Glass with an oleophobic fingerprint-resistant coating. The display is an upgrade of its predecessor, and the "Plus" signifies that the display panel has done away with Pentile matrix to regular RGB matrix display which results in a 50% increase in sub-pixels. This translates to grain reduction and sharper images and text. In addition, Samsung has claimed that Super AMOLED Plus displays are 18% more power efficient than the older Super AMOLED displays. Some phones have display issues, with a few users reporting a "yellow tint" on the left bottom edge of the display when a neutral grey background is displayed.
Samsung has also included a new high-definition connection technology called Mobile High-definition Link (MHL). The main specialty of MHL is that it is optimized for mobile devices by allowing the device's battery to be charged while at the same time playing back multimedia content. For the Galaxy S II, the industry standard micro USB port found on the bottom of the device can be used with an MHL connector for a TV out connection to an external display, such as a high definition television.
The micro USB port on this device also supports USB On-The-Go (USB OTG) standard which means the Galaxy S II can act as a 'host' device in the same way as a desktop computer in allowing external USB devices to be plugged in and used. These external USB devices typically include USB flash drives and separately powered external hard drives. A video demonstration on YouTube has shown the OTG function to be readily available with an ordinary micro USB (B-type) OTG adaptor. The same YouTube video goes on to mention a successful test completed on a 2 TB USB external hard drive (requiring own power source) but however reports of failure when trying to connect USB keyboards, tested USB mice and tested USB game pads. Currently the only file-system supported for USB drives within OTG is Fat32.
A 3.5 mm TRRS headset jack is available and is located on the top side of the device. The micro USB connection port is located on the bottom side of the device.
BCM4330 combo chip integrates 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0 + HS and FM radio. BCM4330 supports Wi-Fi Direct that communicate directly with one another without having to interact with an access point.
Samsung Galaxy S II US variants begun shipments with the slightly updated Android 2.3.5 (Gingerbread) installed. The Android 2.3.6 firmware update from Samsung was made globally available from Dec 12 2011.
In December 2011, Samsung confirmed that it would offer a firmware update to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) within the first quarter of 2012.
Cisco’s AnyConnect VPN for Samsung devices is now currently available on Android Market,.
The Galaxy S II has a 1.2 GHz dual-core "Exynos" system on a chip (SoC) processor, 1 GB of RAM, a 10.8 cm (4.3 in) WVGA Super AMOLED Plus screen display and an 8 megapixel camera with flash and full 1080p high definition video recording. It is one of the first devices to offer a Mobile High-definition Link (MHL), which allows up to 1080p uncompressed video output with HDMI while charging the device at the same time. USB On-The-Go (USB OTG) is supported.
The user-replaceable battery on the Galaxy S II gives up to ten hours of heavy usage, or two days of lighter usage. According to Samsung, the Galaxy S II is capable of providing 9 hours of talk time on 3G and 18.3 hours on 2G.
Hardware
Processor
The Galaxy S II has a 1.2 GHz dual core ARM Cortex-A9 processor that uses Samsung's own 'Exynos 4210' System on a chip (SoC) that was previously code-named "Orion".The Exynos branded SoC was the source of much speculation concerning another branded successor to the previous "Hummingbird" single-core SoC of the Samsung Galaxy S. The Exynos 4210 uses ARM's Mali-400 MP GPU. This graphics GPU, supplied by ARM, is a move away from the PowerVR GPU of the Samsung Galaxy S.
The Exynos 4210 supports ARM's SIMD engine (also known as Media Processing Engine, or 'NEON' instructions), and may give a significant performance advantage in critical performance situations such as accelerated decoding for many multimedia codecs and formats (e.g., On2's VP6/7/8 or Real formats).
At the 2011 Game Developers Conference ARM's representatives demonstrated 60 Hz framerate playback in stereoscopic 3D running on the same Mali-400 MP and Exynos SoC. They said that an increased framerate of 70 Hz would be possible through the use of an HDMI 1.4 port.
The Motorola Atrix advertised in June 2011 that it was "the world's most powerful smartphone"; in August 2011 the UK Advertising Standards Authority ruled that the Atrix was not as powerful as Galaxy SII due to its faster processor.
A newer Samsung Galaxy S II (i9100G) uses a 1.2 Ghz dual core TI OMAP 4430 processor with PowerVR SGX540 graphics.
Memory
The Galaxy S II has 1 GB of dedicated RAM (in either LPDDR or possibly DDR2/DDR3 by Samsung) and 16 GB of internal mass storage. Within the battery compartment there is an external microSD card slot.Display
Audio
The Galaxy S II uses Yamaha audio hardware. The Galaxy S II's predecessor, the original Galaxy S, used Wolfson's WM8994 DAC. User feedback on Internet forums as well as an in-depth review at Clove, have expressed the Yamaha chip's inferior sound quality compared to that of the Wolfson chip featured in the original Galaxy S.Camera
On the back of the device is an 8-megapixel Back-illuminated sensor camera with single-LED flash that can record videos in full high-definition 1080p at 30 frames per second. There is also a fixed focus front-facing 2-megapixel camera for video calling, taking photos as well as general video recording, with a maximum resolution of VGA (640×480).Connectivity
The Galaxy S II is one of the earliest Android devices to natively support near field communication (NFC). This follows on from the Google Nexus S which was the first de-facto NFC smartphone device. It has been reported that the UK version will be supplied without an NFC chip at the beginning of its production run,with an NFC-equipped version released later in 2011.Samsung has also included a new high-definition connection technology called Mobile High-definition Link (MHL). The main specialty of MHL is that it is optimized for mobile devices by allowing the device's battery to be charged while at the same time playing back multimedia content. For the Galaxy S II, the industry standard micro USB port found on the bottom of the device can be used with an MHL connector for a TV out connection to an external display, such as a high definition television.
The micro USB port on this device also supports USB On-The-Go (USB OTG) standard which means the Galaxy S II can act as a 'host' device in the same way as a desktop computer in allowing external USB devices to be plugged in and used. These external USB devices typically include USB flash drives and separately powered external hard drives. A video demonstration on YouTube has shown the OTG function to be readily available with an ordinary micro USB (B-type) OTG adaptor. The same YouTube video goes on to mention a successful test completed on a 2 TB USB external hard drive (requiring own power source) but however reports of failure when trying to connect USB keyboards, tested USB mice and tested USB game pads. Currently the only file-system supported for USB drives within OTG is Fat32.
A 3.5 mm TRRS headset jack is available and is located on the top side of the device. The micro USB connection port is located on the bottom side of the device.
BCM4330 combo chip integrates 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0 + HS and FM radio. BCM4330 supports Wi-Fi Direct that communicate directly with one another without having to interact with an access point.
Accessories (optional)
- Dock connector for battery charging and audio-visual output
- MHL cable which makes use of the device's micro USB port for HDMI output
- USB OTG adaptor for use with external USB devices such as USB flash drives.
- Stylus pen for use on the device's capacitive screen.Support for a stylus on the Galaxy S II is precursor to the Samsung Galaxy Note.
Software
Android operating system
The Galaxy S II ships with Android's 2.3 (Gingerbread) installed.Samsung Galaxy S II US variants begun shipments with the slightly updated Android 2.3.5 (Gingerbread) installed. The Android 2.3.6 firmware update from Samsung was made globally available from Dec 12 2011.
In December 2011, Samsung confirmed that it would offer a firmware update to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) within the first quarter of 2012.
User interface
The phone employs the latest proprietary Samsung TouchWiz 4.0 user interface. It follows the same principle as TouchWiz 3.0 found on the previous Galaxy but adds new improvements, such as hardware acceleration. It also has a new optional gesture based interaction called 'motion' which (among other things) allows users to zoom in and out by placing two fingers on the screen and tilting the device towards and away from you to zoom in and out respectively. This gesture function works on both the web browser and the images in gallery used within this device. There have been improvements to the widgets drawer and layout in how many widgets can be added and how they are presented. Additionally there is another new optional gesture-based control called 'panning' on TouchWiz 4.0 for the movement of widgets and icons shortcuts between screens, by allowing the device to be held and moved from side to side to scroll through home screens. This gesture-based management of widgets is a new optional method next to the existing method of holding and swiping between home screens.Bundled applications
- Social Hub
- Which integrates popular social networking services like Facebook and Twitter into one place rather than in separate applications.
- Readers Hub
- This hub provides the ability to access, read and download online newspapers, ebooks and magazines from a worldwide selection.
- Music Hub
- An application store for downloading and purchasing music tracks on the device. Samsung has teamed up with 7digital to offer this service.
- Game Hub
- An application store for downloading and purchasing games. Samsung has teamed up with partners including Gameloft to offer this service.
- Other applications
- More applications include Kies 2.0, Kies Air, AllShare (for DLNA), Voice Recognition, Google Voice Translation, Google Maps with Latitude, Places, Navigation (beta) and Lost Phone Management, Adobe Flash 10.2, QuickOffice application and 'QuickType' by SWYPE.
Cisco’s AnyConnect VPN for Samsung devices is now currently available on Android Market,.
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