Galaxy S2 owners, former iOS users: your thoughts?

[Tsuchiya]

I didn't want to post this on the iPhone board and just get flamed, so figured this might be a better place. Mods please feel free to move this thread if need be, and while I realise this is a forum for those with an interest in Apple, I figure that there will be a lot of experienced iOS users who might have made the switch and might thus be able to give me honest and balanced opinions.

Right with that out of the way: I've just ordered my iPhone 4S, a 64gb model in white that should be with me in the next couple of days. I've upgraded from an iPhone 4 which to be honest, served me well.

It's probably just cold feet, but I'm honestly wondering why I didn't go for the S2. Here are my reasons:

- I wanted a bigger screen, and I've seen first hand how good the one on the S2 is. It's not "retina" sure, but good enough.

- I'm curious about Android, and want to experience the flexibility it offers after using nothing but iOS for the past 3 years. Being brutally honest, iOS feels a little stale at this point. I can work with it, but I wouldn't mind something fresher.

-I have an iPad 2 if I want to use iOS or any App which might be of interest.

-Feature-wise the S2 seems to be a beast, there just aren't many faults and even the camera apparently compares favourably with the newly released 4S.

What I wanted to know was if there were any S2 users here who wouldn't mind sharing their experiences with the phone and how they adjusted after being tethered to iOS and iTunes (e.g. how easy was it to port over contacts, did iTunes let you put your music on the S2 etc).

Any info would be much appreciated

 

[r.j.s]

I have a SGSII, and I love it.

1. I really like the google sync of contacts and calendar - enter it once and it is done, even if you have to replace the phone or access it on the computer.

2. Installing from the Market - it's easy, even from the computer. I click Install on my computer, and the app starts downloading on my phone.

3. I love widgets. I have 4 of them in use right now.

 

[Phil A.]

I moved to an SGS2 rather than get the iPhone 4S, but still have an iPad (in fact, I just bought an iPad 2 today after giving my old iPad to my dad) so am very much an iOS user rather than a former iOS user

I've posted the reasons for moving to the SGS 2 in another thread but in brief it was so I could get my work email without having to give my employer the ability to remotely wipe my entire phone (with the SGS2 you can keep your corporate email separate and a remote wipe by the exchange admins will just wipe that data rather than the entire phone)

I also have an Asus Transformer Android Tablet, so definitely have a toe in each camp and have spent a lot of time making sure things interoperate as much as possible

I have an iMac so all this is for OS X

I have an iCloud account and a Gmail account (which is actually a google apps account for my wife's business) but i set this up before transitioning to iCloud, so it was a MobileMe and a Gmail account. This is important because you can't sync contacts to both Gmail and iCloud in address book for some reason

The first thing I did was move my contacts from MobileMe to the Google account by turning sync on for both accounts in Address Book. Once the sync had completed, I turned off MobileMe syncing in Address book on both my iMac and iPad and turned on Google contact syncing on my iPad and Android devices

For calendars, I created calendars in the Gmail account to reflect what I had in MobileMe and then used a trial copy of BusyCal to move the data from the MobileMe Calendars to the GMail Ones (I used BusyCal because it has a list view that made selecting all and changing the calendar easy)

Once that was done, I had effectively made Gmail my primary store for Contacts and Calendars: all my devices work well with Gmail whereas only the iOS and OS X ones work well with MobileMe (Android can still pick mail up fine from MobileMe / iCloud though)

For music syncing I use ISyncr WiFi which allows WiFi syncing of music in iTunes playlists to the SGS2

The next thing I wanted to tackle was Photo Stream (which obviously has no support in Android). However, I did manage to hook my SGS2 and Transformer into my Photo Stream by a rather roundabout route: First, I modified my iPhoto Library so that the Auto Import folder in the library was a symbolic link to a folder in my Dropbox. Then I setup a 2 way sync between this folder and my camera folder on my phone using DropSync. This means when I sync my phone all the photos are uploaded to dropbox and back to my Mac, then iPhoto imports them from the Auto Import folder.

I then did some investigation as to where iPhoto was storing the PhotoStream photos and symlinked the sub folder to Dropbox so that as photo stream is updated, the pictures get uploaded to Dropbox. Another 2 way sync on my phone from this folder means I now have a folder that is in sync with Photo Stream on my Android devices and it's all in sync

That's pretty much all the technical details of moving my data from iOS to Android - as far as using Android day to day, it is different to iOS but I wouldn't say it's either better or worse: from my experience it's just as smooth but some of the UI isn't as polished as Apple's. It took me a couple of days to get used to the differences (I have used Android before though) but after that, I t's just as easy to use as my iPhone was

Hope this helps a bit!

 

[thormarketing]

Heretics! You have disgraced the Holy Church of Mac

 

[steviem]

I know it isn't a galaxy s2, but I'm really sick of my Galaxy S based Epic 4G. But here are both sides of my thoughts with it:

- Google sync is nice on Android, but google's activesync support is great for iOS, and gives you just about everything android has.
- Google Music Beta is nice, but the Music app, (which isn't Beta) can be infuriating. iTunes Match is much better, took a while to match my songs, but only needed to upload 1GB out of 40GB of Music.
- Sure I can get to the Android Market and get apps synced to my phone instantly, but the edge is no longer there with iOS 5 and iCloud.
- Samsung is no Apple when it comes to keeping your phone, which you would hope lasts the term of your contract, up to date. They have promised gingerbread for this phone since April or May, it's October now and nothing has appeared. Expect ICS to never touch your Galaxy S2, regardless of Samsung's fruitless 'promises'. The 3GS, a phone where most owners are at the end of their contracts is still up to date and on iOS 5.
- Battery life is more than disappointing, even with 4G switched off.
- I downloaded the This Is My Next podcast, just a plain MP3, and it refused to play the file.
- Google voice is great. Best part of having Sprint and an Android phone.
- Touchwiz is awful. It mimics iOS badly and is a big reason for Samsung being so crap about keeping phones updated.
- it just doesn't feel as well made or as high a quality as iPhone 4 or 4S and specs really count for nothing when the experience is still jerky and unpolished.

If you change your mind about the iPhone 4s, the only Android phone I can suggest with any honesty is the next Nexus device.

 

[Tsuchiya]

Thanks for the replies guys, it's been helpful. Right now I'm about 50:50 between the 4S and an Android phone (the Nexus Prime due to be announced soon might tempt me away from the S2)

I dont expect my 4S to despatch for a couple of days at least so I guess I've got time to decide still.

 

[Abstract]

My Samsung Galaxy 2 is better than my old iPhone. The UI is slightly more difficult to get your head around, but.....well.....only if you're scared of learning this sort of thing. I'm not a real techie, but I was willing to spend a few hours playing with it.

The screen is fantastic, and better than the iPhone's display. It's big and bright, and I can't see the pixellation whatsoever, so I can't really see why a tiny 3.5-inch "Retina Display" is all that impressive, even if the resolution is higher.

I don't use the default music and video apps. I have the choice of using whichever apps I prefer most!! The stock Samsung web browser, music player, and video player are all pretty good (maybe 3.5 stars out of 5), but the music player I have chosen is fantastic (UberMusic....which is supposed to look like WP7/Zune Music Player, funny enough), and same can be said about my video player.

And I have personalised ALL aspects of the homescreen (unlike in iOS).

I can sync with iTunes using iSyncr (as someone else has mentioned).