Okay so at the moment i own both an iPhone 4 and a Samsung Galaxy S II and have decided to write up my impressions. I initially did this as general notes for my own benefit to help me make a choice between the two, however it has expanded it into something that others may be able to get some useful information from. I am a fan of the iPhone and IOS but approached the SGS2 with an open mind, if it wowed me I decided I would switch and sell the iPhone. Being classed as THE best android handset on the market, if anything would sway me then this would probably be the handset to do it. I have tried to summarise my experiences into a few categories in a bid to keep it simple and maybe help out a few potential buyers, before I start though I would just like to point out that I LOVED the SGS2, anyway:
THE HANDSET:
The SGS2 is all plastic, it has an incredibly thin battery cover on the back which houses the battery and sim card slot. It does not use micro sim. The handset is comfortable to hold and very light. Its more comfortable in the hand than the iPhone, but the iPhone has a much more solid overall build quality. The screen initially impresses however after a little use you can clearly see that it has a lower pixel density and resolution than the iPhone. This is very apparent when viewing web pages and photos. The size of the screen actually proved to be awkward in some cases. As an example if I were on the Android Market and holding the phone in my left hand, it was almost impossible to reach the search icon with my thumb situated in the top right of the screen.
Saying this it still manages to look very vibrant and impressive most of the time and if you had never used the retina display to compare you would be none the wiser. Even though the screen is vibrant it can at times look very over saturated, kind of like when you turn the contrast up too high on a TV. Holding the phones side by side the signal strength on the SGS2 was always lower than the iPhone, there would be times where the iPhone would have say 4 bars and the SGS2 would be down to two or none! This could be down to the way the phones display the signal but I though that it was interesting none the less.
THE CAMERA:
Another thing I compared was the quality of the front facing camera. Again this looked marvellous on the big display, however under direct comparison with the iPhone4 in low light the image was very dark with grainy lines running vertically down the image. The iPhone's front facing camera in comparison produced a brighter image with much less grain and no vertical lines across the image.
NOTE: I did not directly compare the rear camera however the pics i took with the SGS2 appeared very good and I also noticed that the camera app opened noticeably quicker on the SGS2.
THE OS:
Gingerbread is very competent and enjoyable to use and features such as the DNLA sharing are an excellent addition. Widgets are initially fun (as an iPhone user they are something new) but very soon you realise they just take up valuable screen space, and widgets such as twitter are pointless, you are far better off just opening the app itself. I think apple agree hence the reason they have avoided widgets apart from the notification drop down in IOS 5 where they are not taking up space on the home screen. Most of the time they don't improve the user experience and cause the home screens to lose continuity in the process. My initial home screen had mostly icons with only the clock widget at the top, then I realised that the clock shows in the notification bar above it rendering it pointless and taking up valuable app icon space - you can have a minimum of four additional icons in the space that a widget takes up. The other widgets I used were cast to the second page and looked untidy. I also noticed that sometimes when I scrolled to the page I had three widgets on, they were not there instantly and sometimes loaded in. In fairness they loaded quick but as the SGS2 is pretty powerful this surprised me and added to the untidy feel of the widgets.
Whilst the OS is snappy on the phone even with it's dual core processor flicking through pics in the gallery still doesnt have the silky smooth flow you find on the iPhone. That's down to the OS coding though rather than the phone I would imagine.
I loved the notification area (that Apple have copied), this showed the status of downloads which I thought was very impressive (not sure if IOS5 with show this in the same way). I did enjoy being able to download files such as .MP3 directly to the handset.
I really like haptic feedback A LOT, i have read that a jailbroken iPhone can have this but is it as nice as the Android implementation? I also really like the two soft keys either side of the home button, they light up when you touch them and also provide haptic feedback.
At the end of the day though there are a lot of nice little features that apple would be wise to ‘borrow’ for IOS5 (ahem, like they did with the notifications).
THE APPS
The app icons though are ugly and a simple upgrade in quality would make the home screen look a lot nicer. Many of the apps look much rougher around the edges than their iPhone counterparts, eBay for example, and many more look and perform noticeably worse on android.
iPhone 4 (640x960):
SGS2 (480x800):
ebay (iPhone4):
eBay (SGS2):
More to follow......
I did some side by side performance comparisons. Opening and closing app's etc. What I found is that the opening time of say BBC News etc would usually be the same but very often marginally slower on the SGS2. It was almost nothing but thought it was worth noting mainly because the SGS2 has a higher spec than the iPhone 4, and I have seen a lot of people make bold claims about its performance blowing the iPhone away. From my side by side comparison I can safely say that the performance of the SGS2 only matches the iPhone 4 in the majority of situations.
I have taken some screen shots comparing the same app's on each of the devices for people who have not seen the difference between the two. I took the shots using the home & power keys so they are direct from the handsets in the correct resolution. I will add them to this section when I get the time.
Google Maps app seemed to perform better on the iPhone 4, I was very surprised by this. With the SGS2 it struggled to find my exact location and managed to be about a mile off. I waited and it didnt seem to close in any further, so I fired up Maps on my iPhone and it located me straight away.
VERDICT:
I like the SGS2 a LOT, initially I was tempted to switch until I realised that I was just entertained by something new and different. After some use though, I am even more convinced of apples choices with IOS. Before this comparison I wanted widgets, now I don't, I wanted live wallpapers, now I don't. I have to say though the SGS2 IS a fantastic phone, but if this handset is still not quite enough to make me switch then I know no other android could.
If iPhone didn't exist I would absolutely cherish the SGS2. If you LIKE android OS more than IOS then this phone is the ultimate handset. Now that I have tried the best the competition has to offer I will be selling the SGS2 and using the cash for the iPhone 5. Everyone is different though and if you decided to move to the SGS2 you could make far worse choices in life that’s for sure.
PICS
iPhone 4 pics added for comparison (as you can see I was a fan of the SGS2 wallpaper):
THE HANDSET:
The SGS2 is all plastic, it has an incredibly thin battery cover on the back which houses the battery and sim card slot. It does not use micro sim. The handset is comfortable to hold and very light. Its more comfortable in the hand than the iPhone, but the iPhone has a much more solid overall build quality. The screen initially impresses however after a little use you can clearly see that it has a lower pixel density and resolution than the iPhone. This is very apparent when viewing web pages and photos. The size of the screen actually proved to be awkward in some cases. As an example if I were on the Android Market and holding the phone in my left hand, it was almost impossible to reach the search icon with my thumb situated in the top right of the screen.
Saying this it still manages to look very vibrant and impressive most of the time and if you had never used the retina display to compare you would be none the wiser. Even though the screen is vibrant it can at times look very over saturated, kind of like when you turn the contrast up too high on a TV. Holding the phones side by side the signal strength on the SGS2 was always lower than the iPhone, there would be times where the iPhone would have say 4 bars and the SGS2 would be down to two or none! This could be down to the way the phones display the signal but I though that it was interesting none the less.
THE CAMERA:
Another thing I compared was the quality of the front facing camera. Again this looked marvellous on the big display, however under direct comparison with the iPhone4 in low light the image was very dark with grainy lines running vertically down the image. The iPhone's front facing camera in comparison produced a brighter image with much less grain and no vertical lines across the image.
NOTE: I did not directly compare the rear camera however the pics i took with the SGS2 appeared very good and I also noticed that the camera app opened noticeably quicker on the SGS2.
THE OS:
Gingerbread is very competent and enjoyable to use and features such as the DNLA sharing are an excellent addition. Widgets are initially fun (as an iPhone user they are something new) but very soon you realise they just take up valuable screen space, and widgets such as twitter are pointless, you are far better off just opening the app itself. I think apple agree hence the reason they have avoided widgets apart from the notification drop down in IOS 5 where they are not taking up space on the home screen. Most of the time they don't improve the user experience and cause the home screens to lose continuity in the process. My initial home screen had mostly icons with only the clock widget at the top, then I realised that the clock shows in the notification bar above it rendering it pointless and taking up valuable app icon space - you can have a minimum of four additional icons in the space that a widget takes up. The other widgets I used were cast to the second page and looked untidy. I also noticed that sometimes when I scrolled to the page I had three widgets on, they were not there instantly and sometimes loaded in. In fairness they loaded quick but as the SGS2 is pretty powerful this surprised me and added to the untidy feel of the widgets.
Whilst the OS is snappy on the phone even with it's dual core processor flicking through pics in the gallery still doesnt have the silky smooth flow you find on the iPhone. That's down to the OS coding though rather than the phone I would imagine.
I loved the notification area (that Apple have copied), this showed the status of downloads which I thought was very impressive (not sure if IOS5 with show this in the same way). I did enjoy being able to download files such as .MP3 directly to the handset.
I really like haptic feedback A LOT, i have read that a jailbroken iPhone can have this but is it as nice as the Android implementation? I also really like the two soft keys either side of the home button, they light up when you touch them and also provide haptic feedback.
At the end of the day though there are a lot of nice little features that apple would be wise to ‘borrow’ for IOS5 (ahem, like they did with the notifications).
THE APPS
The app icons though are ugly and a simple upgrade in quality would make the home screen look a lot nicer. Many of the apps look much rougher around the edges than their iPhone counterparts, eBay for example, and many more look and perform noticeably worse on android.
iPhone 4 (640x960):
SGS2 (480x800):
ebay (iPhone4):
eBay (SGS2):
More to follow......
I did some side by side performance comparisons. Opening and closing app's etc. What I found is that the opening time of say BBC News etc would usually be the same but very often marginally slower on the SGS2. It was almost nothing but thought it was worth noting mainly because the SGS2 has a higher spec than the iPhone 4, and I have seen a lot of people make bold claims about its performance blowing the iPhone away. From my side by side comparison I can safely say that the performance of the SGS2 only matches the iPhone 4 in the majority of situations.
I have taken some screen shots comparing the same app's on each of the devices for people who have not seen the difference between the two. I took the shots using the home & power keys so they are direct from the handsets in the correct resolution. I will add them to this section when I get the time.
Google Maps app seemed to perform better on the iPhone 4, I was very surprised by this. With the SGS2 it struggled to find my exact location and managed to be about a mile off. I waited and it didnt seem to close in any further, so I fired up Maps on my iPhone and it located me straight away.
VERDICT:
I like the SGS2 a LOT, initially I was tempted to switch until I realised that I was just entertained by something new and different. After some use though, I am even more convinced of apples choices with IOS. Before this comparison I wanted widgets, now I don't, I wanted live wallpapers, now I don't. I have to say though the SGS2 IS a fantastic phone, but if this handset is still not quite enough to make me switch then I know no other android could.
If iPhone didn't exist I would absolutely cherish the SGS2. If you LIKE android OS more than IOS then this phone is the ultimate handset. Now that I have tried the best the competition has to offer I will be selling the SGS2 and using the cash for the iPhone 5. Everyone is different though and if you decided to move to the SGS2 you could make far worse choices in life that’s for sure.
PICS
iPhone 4 pics added for comparison (as you can see I was a fan of the SGS2 wallpaper):
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