Nope guys, this is not another Samsung Galaxy S2 (hereinafter referred to as SGS2) review. But I'm writing this post to share the experience of me migrating to another smartphone platform, an open yet fragmented platform known as Android (the cute, little green robot)
My journey into the smartphone has always been a simple but an interesting one. It started off with me having a feature phone that only support text messaging and call. Then in December 2008, there was a huge leap in which I was given an iPhone 3GS. The cultural shock was so great; from a feature phone to one of the most powerful (at that time) and robust smartphone OS in the world. For weeks, I learnt from scratch to utilize all the features that 3GS offered, and at the end of my transitional period, 3GS actually replaced my netbook and pc as my main device to connect to the internet.
The iPhone 3GS was my best buddy, trying its best to fulfill my quest hunting for perfection in every sense, and to my surprise it has succeeded in every way I could remember as a little smartphone device, where even men fail to even think about their duty of care.
Armed with a 600Mhz ARM Cortex A8 processor, accompanied by PowerVR SGX 535 and 256MB of RAM, it was fast, the user interface was smooth and the experience surpassed even that of a full fledged PC. But its heyday has long ended, so I planned for its replacement and drafted the requirement for the next smartphone, which are as follows;
1) Must be more capable than what 3GS has to offer
2) Latest hardware that can stand for another 2 years
3) Open and customizable
4) Future proof
There you have it, i was given the SGS2 as a replacement for 3GS. The first day i began using Android could be described as awkward. I was trying my best to adapt the feeling of openness where I could decide how Android and SGS2 would behave. Its very different from the straightforward, limited iOS on the 3GS (albeit not being inferior). The 1st week of using SGS2 was more towards porting all features of iOS into Android, which pretty much a headache and the steep learning curve slowed me down.
The second week was more towards adapting to Android. I've picked up on how to customize my homescreen, apps folders, widgets and some core options in Android. I've began to install several apps from the market either straight from SGS2 or through the PC (cool feature). SGS2 performed galantly particularly due to its muscular 1.2Ghz dual core ARM Cortex A9, coupled with PowerVR SGX 540 and humongous 1GB of RAM. The UI is silky smooth due to full hardware acceleration that Samsung has provided in its TouchWiz UI, something that is absent on many Android devices.
Week 3 which is the week I'm writing this post, I can say that I've mastered the BASIC things in Android. There are more to come actually, as SGS2 has not been stressed tested yet. All I can say up until now SGS2 is a worthy replacement. A little advice from me is that, don't treat an Android device like you treat an iOS device. They are both good in their own way so you have to accept the weaknesses of the platform of your choice, which I'm applying in my real life as well.
WHAT I LIKE...
- The open, plenty of customization, and lots of options and settings
- Silky smooth hardware accelerated Samsung's Touchwiz UI
- 1.2Ghz dual core prowess with lots of RAM
- Live wallpapers (although i dont use them)
- Large Super AMOLED Plus screen, vibrant and detail
- The camera with flash!!
WHAT I DON'T LIKE
- Flimsy, slow and laggy Android market
- Some crapwares that come together with Touchwiz and cannot be removed
- Samsung Kies (iTunes like software)
- el cheapo home button
- The sound quality of SGS2 is inferior compared to my iPod Nano and 3GS (I can tell the difference)
