Samsung i9100 Galaxy S 2 - Q/A

valdigre

Hi guys,

I have received probably one of the first i9100 in Ireland, imported it from UK (Handtec).

Maybe I will make some review in the near future but until now I can answer questions, if you have any.

I also have i9000, previous Galaxy S so may do some comparison.
Whatever comes to your mind.

Take care.

tonto2010

You lucky git! I have a load of questions, I had the original Galaxy so a comparison review would be great if you had the time. Just a few questions I would like answered.

Does the phone feel more solid in your hand than the original?
Can you hold use it comfortably with one hand?
Can you see a real difference in the screen?
Any lag? does it run that media scanner thing on boot like the original?
Is the speaker any good, ie could you use it to listen to music
Was it worth the upgrade?

Cheers and enjoy the new toy

Rowley Birkin QC

Battery life, battery life & battery life!

Kenny Logins

Does it still rely on Kies? Is there a 'check for updates' in the settings menu?

thirtythirty

New gameloft games performance? Nova 2 or asphalt 6?

Kensington

Kenny Logins wrote: »

Does it still rely on Kies? Is there a 'check for updates' in the settings menu?

This! Kies is brutal. Would be great if they had OTA updates.

valdigre

tonto2010 wrote: »

You lucky git! I have a load of questions, I had the original Galaxy so a comparison review would be great if you had the time. Just a few questions I would like answered.

Does the phone feel more solid in your hand than the original?
Can you hold use it comfortably with one hand?
Can you see a real difference in the screen?
Any lag? does it run that media scanner thing on boot like the original?
Is the speaker any good, ie could you use it to listen to music
Was it worth the upgrade?

Cheers and enjoy the new toy

I played with the phone for a couple of minutes, but I can tell you straight away, that this phone is obviously not much bigger than i9000, but my hands can feel the difference.
I don't feel as comfortable and safe using it one hand as Galaxy S, especially because it is even thinner and plastic on the sides is a bit slippery.
I will be very afraid to use it without some proper silicon case, so that I have better grip.
In terms of solidness, I'd say that materials used are the same or better quality as Galaxy S, no question about it.
As I mentioned, I don't feel as confident holding this phone as Galaxy S in my hand, maybe because of the extra size, thinner case and not having silicone case. It should be fine once you get some "protection" for it.

Keep in mind that I don't have that big palms.

Phone boots very quickly, maybe I am exaggerating, but it seems like around 30-40% quicker using its TouchWiz 4, in comparison to Galaxy S with Launcher Pro.

Not in position to answer the rest of the questions, at this point tonto

Will try to answer rest of your questions later tonight, guys.

valdigre

@Tonto - The speaker is actually a bit louder then in Galaxy S, I find it the one in i9100 more than satisfactory.
I don't see any significant lag, everything is fluent and just great

@Rowley - I will be able to say a bit more about battery life when I actually make some charge/discharge cycles.

@Kenny and @Kensington - There is an option to update firmware from within settings menu (FOTA) however to enable this option, you have to have Samsung account.

@spottyelephant - Did not try any games yet, as it is not my priority, but I have seen video of Galaxy S 2 performing great while playing Nova 2, really impressive especially on this screen!

tonto2010

Thanks for all the info, sounds like what the original galaxy should have been like. Nearly a month till I get my hands on it though :mad:

valdigre

Still too early to give accurate opinion about the battery.

After 26 hours of phone being turned on (it was charged while turned off from empty to full) I now have 33% of juice remaining.
During this time I had:

- 1 hour of GPS navigation (Copilot),
- Around 20 minutes of phone calls,
- 1 hour of Skype standby using 3g (Most of the time phone not connected to any data network),
- 10 minutes of Skype Wifi call using bluetooth headset,
- about 5 minutes of iSyncr Wifi syncing of my 1.5 GB Music library,
- Other play/explore use, like email checking, app installation etc.

The battery reading is still not calibrated, as I fell asleep with battery status of 33% and woke up with it having 35%...

As for the speaker quality, I can give you an interesting opinion. Both phones, by accident, had alarm clock set for today and played the same song one after another. I was surprised when I heard the audio in i9100 to be much clearer and detailed, than in i9000.

Very positively surprised!

mccabecc

valdigre wrote: »

As for the speaker quality, I can give you an interesting opinion. Both phones, by accident, had alarm clock set for today and played the same song one after another. I was surprised when I heard the audio in i9100 to be much clearer and detailed, than in i9000.

Very positively surprised!

This is one of the things which i wonder, thanks : )
Another one is battery, but it seems to keep charged pretty long.

tman

I played around with mine for about 4 hours solid last night and it didn't seem to make much of a dent in the initial battery charge, but that means sweet FA really until it's gone through a few charge cycles...
Had it 100% charged this morning so I'll post my findings on battery life here as well

Video playback is great without the need for rockbox/mobo player etc (it played every avi, mkv and mp4 that I threw at it with ease!)

niall_f

This is great thread, i'm going to buy Galaxy S 2 and it will be great to know as much as it's possible.

valdigre

I decided to make a comparison of GPS accuracy, Galaxy S vs Galaxy S 2.

Well, here is a comparison of my morning route to work today, my Galaxy S and Galaxy S 2 were registering route details at the same time, using my tracks.

- Galaxy S: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=211531279532048944891.0004a3227ff46bf619c86&z=12

- Galaxy S 2: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=211531279532048944891.0004a32301b1a7f63a9cd&z=12

Both on Gingerbread firmwares, GS 2 updated yesterday to latest firmware.

mossie

tman wrote: »

I played around with mine for about 4 hours solid last night and it didn't seem to make much of a dent in the initial battery charge, but that means sweet FA really until it's gone through a few charge cycles...
Had it 100% charged this morning so I'll post my findings on battery life here as well

Video playback is great without the need for rockbox/mobo player etc (it played every avi, mkv and mp4 that I threw at it with ease!)

I did much the same with mine, did an overnight charge and now it's down to 41 % without using it very heavily today. Still that's 41% more than my hero would have after the same use for the same time and I'm sure it will get better.

Overall it's a great phone, my only quibble is with the sound quality on calls. I found that the person on the other end sounds very tinny and crackly, anyone else find this/?

dfdream

Lads,

Anyone with the Galaxy S 2 connecting it to an RSAP Car System as in VW/Audi/Skoda etc.

The old one connected with RSAP but didnt download the address book, something Im hoping is fixed in the S2.

D

route66

valdigre wrote: »

<snip>

- 1 hour of GPS navigation (Copilot),

<snip>

I've read varied reviews of Copilot on Android. I've an S2 on order and am very interested to hear how you are getting on with it on yours:

• How up to date are the maps
• Can it work with no data connection of any sort (I know it should be able to ...)
• Does it accept live updates on traffic, etc
• Is it stable

Some background - I've used TomTom on Windows Mobile for many years and was generally happy with it. If CoPilot is any good I'd probably buy the Europe version.

TIA!

valdigre

route66 wrote: »

I've read varied reviews of Copilot on Android. I've an S2 on order and am very interested to hear how you are getting on with it on yours:

• How up to date are the maps
• Can it work with no data connection of any sort (I know it should be able to ...)
• Does it accept live updates on traffic, etc
• Is it stable

Some background - I've used TomTom on Windows Mobile for many years and was generally happy with it. If CoPilot is any good I'd probably buy the Europe version.

TIA!

Hey mate,

I think I can give you a satisfying answer, I currently have following Navigations installed and have been using:

- Navigon,
- Copilot,
- Sygic (aka Aura, although now it is called Sygic in android market).

1) Maps
Most recent Maps has Aura (one of the main reasons why I bought it, has recent 2011 maps as it seems, plus free map updates).
Navigon and Copilot have last year maps from Navteq (I think), while Aura supposedly has maps from TomTom (TeleAtlas).
Aura Maps are updated, they actually have the latest highways which were opened in the last months.
Very satisfied with maps, although have been using it for just one day.

2) All three navigations will work without data connection, however you will miss certain features, like for example live traffic info, which is free with Navigon, 10 Euro per year for Sygic and not sure how with Copilot.

3) Most stable of those three is Navigon, no problems with it. Copilot is stable in the new version, although it used to crash sporadically before. Least stable is Sygic, I get random crashes when opening the application.

In summary, all of those three are very good navigations and if all of them had the most recent maps, I would choose Navigon.

Why? Because it's simple, has advanced routing (for each navigation it lets you choose three different routes), has clean and sleek UI and works great.

Copilot is most advanced, very customizable and has a couple of nice features, like turning of screen when not needed (turns back on when close to turn etc).

Aura is my current choice because of the fact, that it promises regularly most recent and detailed maps, has a nice, gpu accelerated UI, huge POI database.
People seem to complain about it most, though, because of many problems with latest update, not entirely working on Gingerbread devices, like HTC, and issues with activating/reactivating of the app.

I think I managed to activate mine no problem, but I have some problems with live traffic feeds, which I think, are not working for me

Trying to sort it out with support.

smurra3

dfdream wrote: »

Lads,

Anyone with the Galaxy S 2 connecting it to an RSAP Car System as in VW/Audi/Skoda etc.

The old one connected with RSAP but didnt download the address book, something Im hoping is fixed in the S2.

D

I use the Galaxy S "old one" with a 2011 Octavia.
The phone book downloaded to the car just fine.

mossie

mossie wrote: »

I did much the same with mine, did an overnight charge and now it's down to 41 % without using it very heavily today. Still that's 41% more than my hero would have after the same use for the same time and I'm sure it will get better.

Overall it's a great phone, my only quibble is with the sound quality on calls. I found that the person on the other end sounds very tinny and crackly, anyone else find this/?

Just an update on the battery life, so far not great. 12 hours with little use 7 or 8 with moderate to heavy use. There seems to be some issue with Android OS and Android System as they are responsible for the majority of the battery use.

The issue with sound quality on calls is the only other issue I have - otherwise it's a fantastic phone.

tman

mossie wrote: »

Just an update on the battery life, so far not great. 12 hours with little use 7 or 8 with moderate to heavy use. There seems to be some issue with Android OS and Android System as they are responsible for the majority of the battery use.

The issue with sound quality on calls is the only other issue I have - otherwise it's a fantastic phone.

Mine is bad, but nowhere near that bad...
Easily get 24 hours out of mine with fairly heavy usage. Android system is right at the bottom of my list of battery suckers at 2%...

mossie

tman wrote: »

Mine is bad, but nowhere near that bad...
Easily get 24 hours out of mine with fairly heavy usage. Android system is right at the bottom of my list of battery suckers at 2%...

Android system on mine is at 5% which is OK but Android OS is at 48%. Display is only at 27%. I've seen on xda that this seems to be a problem with Android so hopefully they'll fix it asap.

EDIT: I'm trying out the possible solution at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1079136 to see if that helps.

tman

Ah right, that firmware update wasn't showing up on the phone for me and I couldn't be bothered loading crappy Kies to perform the update, so still running the stock firmware...

Asked this in another thread but don't think it got any views so I might as well ask here;
Has anybody managed to get the volume bumper buttons to switch music tracks when held? Had no joy with winamp or the stock player... Would be happy to switch to another player if this works on it...

mossie

tman wrote: »

Ah right, that firmware update wasn't showing up on the phone for me and I couldn't be bothered loading crappy Kies to perform the update, so still running the stock firmware...

Asked this in another thread but don't think it got any views so I might as well ask here;
Has anybody managed to get the volume bumper buttons to switch music tracks when held? Had no joy with winamp or the stock player... Would be happy to switch to another player if this works on it...

I Haven't tried this yet. Will give it a go later.

mossie

mossie wrote: »

Android system on mine is at 5% which is OK but Android OS is at 48%. Display is only at 27%. I've seen on xda that this seems to be a problem with Android so hopefully they'll fix it asap.

EDIT: I'm trying out the possible solution at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1079136 to see if that helps.

This does seem to have helped. After 11.5 hours I am still at 28% after quite heavy use today. Android OS is at 22% and System is at 12%. Display at 46% so definitely more realistic figures too.