T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S II Review: A High-Quality, Top-of-the-Line Phone

At a Glance

Skilful's Rating

Pros

• Massive and colorful display
• NFC chip
• Extremely powerful mobile C.P.U.

Cons

• Tiny bezel around the screen
• No MicroSD add-in included

Our Verdict

Like the rest of the Galaxy S II series, the Galaxy S II on T-Mobile is unmatchable of the Sunday-go-to-meeting phones presently available, handily.

Considering the massive screen, the crazy-powerful processor, and the NFC and 4G support, it's hard not to get together dearest with the Samsung Galaxy S II connected T-Mobile. Available for $220 with a new biennial contract (as of October 10, 2011), the Galaxy S Cardinal is a great phone. IT has sporty a couple of nipper flaws that keep it from being unfeignedly amazing.

A Tablet-Size Telephone set

The Galaxy S II boasts the same large, 4.52-inch (480-by-800-pixel solvent) screen we saw on the Epic Contact 4G for Sprint–and that arresting screen is emphatically the phone's biggest draw. Colors happening the Super AMOLED Plus display appear bright and vibrant, if a trifle oversaturated. The phone is extremely lightweight, thanks largely in part to its impressible case. I was never really a fan of the plasticky body of the original Galaxy S, but the Galaxy S II feels solid-state enough that I can overlook it here.

At 5.11 by 2.71 past 0.37 inches, the T-Mobile Galaxy S II is slightly taller and thicker than the adaptation made for AT&adenosine monophosphate;T. When comparing the two phones incline away side, I found that I preferred the AT&T Galax urceolata S Cardinal concluded the T-Moving one simply because it was much more comfortable to hold out. Although large screens are bully for activities much as watching movies Beaver State browsing the Web, I thought that the screen size of the T-Mobile Galax S Cardinal seemed like a bit of overkill on Samsung's part.

The biggest problem I have with the T-Mobile Extragalactic nebula S II is how narrow the bezel is at the sides of the screen. When I navigated the large screen, the bottom contribution of my hand would perpetually hitting one and only of the capacitive buttons under the screen, Beaver State thicket against the bottom poop of the touchscreen. Whenever I went to check a presentment Oregon enter a URL in the browser, I also ended up opening a menu or launching the dialer. In one instance, I was in the middle of composing a text edition message, and I wound up closing out of it several times before I could send IT.

Specs and Performance

With a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon C.P.U., the T-Motorized Galax S II is the most powerful one of the bunch. Everything from staple phone functions to uttermost 3D games run as smooth as silk. The only time the phone ever slowed down operating theatre got perplexed was when I tried unlocking it: The engage riddle hung for about 3 seconds before responding. To be fair, at the time I was downloading and installing 15 apps directly, so that could explain the minor hiccup I experienced. The phone comes with a Task Manager; since the handset has 1GB of Ram down, however, you shouldn't ever need to purpose it.

To–ahem–better test how well the Galaxy S II handled games, I downloaded and played Minecraft: Pocketbook along the device. The game ran well and looked dandy on that massive display–the Galaxy S II makes for an higher up-average mobile gaming gimmick. Later a good hour of wager, I noticed the phone getting really warm, simply it wasn't hot enough to be uncomfortable to hold. I also noticed that my hour of gameplay had smallish impression on the battery–I probably could have squeezed another 2 to 3 hours of Minecraft in if I were so inclined. After about 4 hours of heavy habit over 4G, I managed to drain the phone's battery all. Samsung has rated the phone as perpetual 167 hours on standby, but we'll have to wait for the PCWorld Labs to mental test the phone officially to see if that claim holds up.

Call quality on the T-Mobile Galaxy S II was nice and straight-grained in San Francisco, merely the people I named aforementioned that I sounded slightly distorted. The occasional hiss and warp planted informed my close, just it was hardly noted. Overall I bum enjoin that making calls using the Galaxy S II was an superior experience.

Using the Speed Test app arsenic an informal network test, I managed to get 3 megabits per second down and 0.44 mbps up in San Francisco. We don't get the best T-Mobile 4G coverage here, only those speeds are typical of what we have seen with past 4G T-Mobile devices.

Software and Extras

The Samsung Galaxy S II runs Humanoid 2.3.5 (Gingerbread) and has a few preloaded apps. Netflix comes preinstalled, and runs exceedingly well over 4G. I could make done without the Blio and Zinio apps, but I crapper see their usefulness for people who comparable to read while active.

Organism a Samsung earpiece, the Galaxy S Two also sports the latest version of TouchWiz. Personally, I favor vanilla Humanoid or the HTC Sense overlayer, but TouchWiz has a couple of things that I really enjoy. Aside from the intelligent and colorful icon set, this iteration of TouchWiz employs movement controls for basic actions. To zoom in on a Webpage, for instance, you simply place both thumbs on the riddle and list the phone forward or backward. I found this motion far more intuitive than pinch-to-zoom, and far more precise.

To boot, I was pleasantly gobsmacked to ascertain that the T-Mobile Galax S Deuce comes with a Near Field Communication chip. With such a chip, the Galaxy S II can read NFC-congruous tags. We haven't seen galore phones that support NFC, and it's a neat technology that I wish more phone manufacturers would let in in their devices.

Multimedia

Considering the phone's giant test, you'll likely want to watch movies on this handset. Although I'm not normally a buff of using a phone as a media player, I terminate watch the appeal of doing so with a display of this size of it. If you are adamantly against watching videos happening your phone, you can well share them with your DLNA-enabled devices using AllShare.

The phone has 12GB of intragroup storage, only unfortunately it doesn't come with a MicroSD batting order. The Galax S II is a stellar music player, though, and could easily replace your stand-alone MP3 player. Should you decide to pull in the Galaxy S II your primary audio gimmick, the phone comes with a pair of (mediocre) headphones that you can use.

Photos that I took with the phone's 8-megapixel camera turned out acuate and clear. Colors seemed a little off, but still looked good overall. The 2-megapixel front-facing camera also did a satisfactory farm out of capturing still images, though information technology works better for telecasting chat. The Galaxy S II records picture at 1080p, and holds its own as a video photographic camera; IT picks up voices nicely, but the footage suffers from a jelly effect when you move the phone round.

Bottom Line

The Samsung Galax urceolata S II is the optimum earpiece you can buy right now on T-Mobile. This is a top-of-the-line phone, and it's stark for people who love larger screens. Though some people may ascertain the French telephone a bit likewise extended, the inclusion of 4G and NFC way that this device won't smel unfashionable pour down the line. If you crave true power from your smartphone, and if you want the best that your carrier has to offer, the Galaxy S Deuce is the phone to get down.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/477264/t_mobile_samsung_galaxy_s_ii_review_a_high_quality_top_of_the_line_phone.html

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