Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

SGS2: Just looking right now

I don't understand the purpose of this thread. :confused:

Are you making this thread because you don't like the SGS2? Or are you making this thread because you're tempted to buy it? Regardless, this is an iPhone forums and I don't think one should make a thread unless it's related to the iPhone in some way. I don't think the OP has any of this in mind...

Of course, I had an iPhone 4 and switched to a Galaxy S II. Personally, I believe that the iPhone 4 is a superior handset in every way except the sheer hardware specs, which to be honest, is unimportant for the regular consumer. I only switched because I wanted my device to decode MKV files without converting.
 
I dont own the SGS2 but did own the SGS1 with the 4" Super AMOLED screen and what i can say is....visually very cool and the big screen is impressive but the wow effect wears out quickly (i am not assuming the SGS II has the same issues but in the core it probably does).

1. The big screen means more battery consumption which is usually in the stats screen the biggest battery killer in these Samsung android devices.

2. Android OS Gingerbread and previous is open for developers but in my own opinion is still a cheap version of IOS. Yes the appstore is open to anyone and everyone who desires to create an app but the problem is...the appstore is open to anyone and everyone who desires to create an app. That means that for every well designed app you get 10 really cheap crappy looking apps. There are also a lot of apps that when you open only take you to the website of whatever they are promoting which is nerve wrecking.

Widgets are cool but don't kid yourself besides a clock widget you rarely use them because any clickable stuff is very small and hard to press on a lot of them.

Also, FLash 10.3 on a phone just doesn't work...crashed half of the time and a lot of the video interfaces are not touch screen friendly so pushing the play button is a pain.
 
You should stick a footnote on your post ... "In my opinion." because that's all it is.

In my opinion the battery on the sg2 matches or outlasts the iphone4 (my wifes) so point number 1 is mute. I get 24 solid hours on it and thats using it a lot (over 3 hours of voice calls a day). Much better than my previous HTC handset.

Appstore (its called the market) is open to anyone but most of the regular apps are just great - twitter, facebook, evernote , springpad. tweetdeck, etc etc all work great and not I've never found one yet that takes me to a website unless I asked for it to do so.

Widgets- how about email? I get lots of email and glancing at the widget means I don't have to open the email app every time I get a notification of a new email. Same with text messages. Same with calendar. They are great for a quick glance as to whats happening without having to distract me too much.

Flash. Tell that to my kids. They play moshi monsters on the asus transformer all the time. Maybe I should tell them they can't do that any more because it just doesn't work! :)

Again, my opinion.

As for the original poster. I don't think you should ever compare hardware vs hardware. After a while the hardware differences fade into the background and its the software that you use. If you have an existing investment in IOS (ie the appstore) , or you have a lot of other apple kit, then stick with IOS as its just going to be easier for you.

If you don't have any ties to the appstore then the SG2 and Android are great.

My 2 cents.

barnetty said:
I dont own the SGS2 but did own the SGS1 with the 4" Super AMOLED screen and what i can say is....visually very cool and the big screen is impressive but the wow effect wears out quickly (i am not assuming the SGS II has the same issues but in the core it probably does).

1. The big screen means more battery consumption which is usually in the stats screen the biggest battery killer in these Samsung android devices.

2. Android OS Gingerbread and previous is open for developers but in my own opinion is still a cheap version of IOS. Yes the appstore is open to anyone and everyone who desires to create an app but the problem is...the appstore is open to anyone and everyone who desires to create an app. That means that for every well designed app you get 10 really cheap crappy looking apps. There are also a lot of apps that when you open only take you to the website of whatever they are promoting which is nerve wrecking.

Widgets are cool but don't kid yourself besides a clock widget you rarely use them because any clickable stuff is very small and hard to press on a lot of them.

Also, FLash 10.3 on a phone just doesn't work...crashed half of the time and a lot of the video interfaces are not touch screen friendly so pushing the play button is a pain.
Click to expand...
 
Please note the following are my opinions and experiences only.

now.that we got the polotical correctness out.of.the way, here is how.my third foray into abdroid ended.

Just returned ny sgs2 and.rebought an iphone 4 losing $100 in the process. I retirned.it because:

contrary to reviews battery life is no match for iphone 4. Dont get me wrong, it will last you a day if you don do much and rely on widgets etc. i played real soccer for an hour, an hour of browsing, 34 mins of music playback and a 23 min long episoge of bbt.3g was on the entire time. the phone took 6 hours and 27 mins to hit 0% from 100%. With exact same usage run, it took the iphone 4 32 hours to die while 3g was on all the time. I made sure.the usage was.the same and.sgs2 failed to match my expectations.
In other words, as long as the awesome samoled+ is on, expect battery level to drop likea rock. Not a viable trade off for me.

You have a huge choice of keyboards. Personally except for swype, rest suck. Its annoying to type on most including the gb one. swype is useless in im and txting but the only great kb. For regular typing though, rest are substandard.

Camera is on par with iphone 4 and lacking compared to xperia arc. In daylight even the iphone 4 struggled to carch up to arc camera. Not so with this one. Lots of room for improvement.

widgets feel clunky and not so useful after a week of use. Personally when it comes to live data, wp7 got it right. Updating tiles are easier to look at and pack info without draining battery to draw useless animations and blocky graphics.

Appstore still lacks a lot. In canada amazon is not available, so have to make do with marketplace. First five productivity apps: rom manager, a live wallpaper pack, titanium backup and launcher pro and finally a pdf reader. Really?

It has drag and drop. Frankly nothing amazing. why? for the last 3 months i have been dragging and dropping on my iphone. Pwntunes is amazing. no need for itunes or any other software. In my opinion, jailbroken functionality trumps root functionality.

All i am losing is an awesome and huge screen. I can manage. After this experiment i am looking forward to nokia wp7s and next years iphone. Icecream probably will not be able to entice me to visit the android world again. Too many little quirks to spend time on fixing.
 
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the speed improvement the SGS2 has over the iPhone 4. Everything just seems twice as fast. Opening applications, browsing, etc. are super fluid. Right now, I've got both. I hope the iPhone 5 offers a bigger screen, widgets, and a file system and I'll go back to iOS.
 
Dmunjal said:
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the speed improvement the SGS2 has over the iPhone 4. Everything just seems twice as fast. Opening applications, browsing, etc. are super fluid. Right now, I've got both. I hope the iPhone 5 offers a bigger screen, widgets, and a file system and I'll go back to iOS.
Click to expand...

Is it due to the dual processor?
 
@dumbar I totally agree with you. If it comes later then september I will wait for the nexus (3) I never used an android phone with a manufacturers skin. So I kind of fear them.
 
Dmunjal said:
browsing, etc. are super fluid.
Click to expand...

Errm...no? I have both phones too and browsing on the SGS2 is still as horrid as any other Android phone. The animations are NOT slick and it doesn't match your gestures at all. iOS is still leagues ahead in this area.
 
ImperialX said:
Errm...no? I have both phones too and browsing on the SGS2 is still as horrid as any other Android phone. The animations are NOT slick and it doesn't match your gestures at all. iOS is still leagues ahead in this area.
Click to expand...

Well considering your previous statement (where you said the iphone 4 is better in every way), it's obvious that you aren't looking at this objectively. Even the most staunch iphone supporter would have to admit that statement isn't accurate. The point of this thread is to have a real and honest comparison, not just a "fanboy" type response from either side. That being said, I will disagree with what you said about the browsing. The browsing is just as fluid as the iphone 4 if not more fluid, including when there is flash content playing (there is no performance hit). Also when scrolling on the iphone 4 there is a lot of checkerboarding, something you don't see much of on the SGS2.
 
ImperialX said:
Errm...no? I have both phones too and browsing on the SGS2 is still as horrid as any other Android phone. The animations are NOT slick and it doesn't match your gestures at all. iOS is still leagues ahead in this area.
Click to expand...

did you get yours shipped over via royal mail mate?
 
agreed. We have a 3gs, an IP4 and an SG2 in the house and the android is as good as either of the iphones. The reason I went with Android is that it gave me more flexibility than IOS in terms of what I could do with the phone (change the keyboard, the widgets, maps/navigation etc). IOS has caught up in some of these areas (isn't competition great!) but FOR ME, Android is still ahead.

The SG2 is super fast and always fluid - never a pause or stutter and I believe the current android version doesn't even make much use of the dual core (next version will) so there's room for more improvement there. I don't like manufacturer skins and have a minimal Launcherpro installed which works great. Add in the swype keyboard which is fantastic for speed typing and I'm happy.

For my wife - she likes the IP4 for its simplicity (her words). It does drive me nuts at times (single home button, itunes, email cache, audio formats ... I'm the one that she hands the phone to when it doesn't do what she wants :) ) but she loves it and won't change.



stevensr123 said:
also looking at this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pofeom_Vq-E

the browser on the sgs2 seems far faster and more fluid.
Click to expand...
 
I'd get the SGS2 if the iPhone didn't exist. But then again, the SGS2 probably wouldn't exist if the iPhone was never released, we'd all still have flip-phones. OooOOoooo:D
 
Just a quick mod note - -

I cleaned up the recent discussion (last few posts, for those of you who saw them) simply to make sure the conversation didn't veer off course again, not because of any huge problem.

But I'm glad the air is cleared now, so carry on...:)
 
First things first. I'm a pretty die hard apple fanboy. I love my iphone4. I was jailbroken prior to the iOS 5 beta and became spoiled by a more functional lockscreen (lockinfo + biteSMS). I love the direction that iOS 5 has gone with notifications and the possibility of widgets via the homescreen and notification center. As it looks, i'm sure the jailbreak community will develop some stellar widgets (calendar, email management, twitter feed, etc.) that will mesh seamlessly with iOS 5's notification screen.

That being said, I'm thinking I'm going to burn one of my family plan upgrades to get the SGS2. I will still likely get an iPhone 5 and pass down the SGS2 to a family member, but I've gotta say the SGS2 is looking like a really attractive device between hardware specs and android maturity.

The only thing that would prevent me from getting the SGS2 at this time would be a proper lockscreen (give me my next calendar appointments at least) and access to proper functionality via the notification center.
 
3.1 seems to have adressed half of those demands. 2.4 will add even more functionality to smart phones. I like the home devices idea. They also have ways for you to use popular game controllers on tablets (one person played final fantasy 7 using a dualshock 3 on a moto xoom) right now do to the fact that google.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back