Samsung Galaxy S II Smartphone Review

Since this is a phone, after all, we ran it through a solid week of phone calls. While on EDGE, we'd occasionally hear from those we were calling that we sounded a bit muffled, though people always sounded clear on our end. While on 3G, we never had any complaints at all. We also had no real issues with dropped calls. The only issues we had were as such: the earpiece could stand to be a bit louder.  Also, the Wi-Fi range is seemed subpar compared to other Android and iOS phones in our testing stable. While connecting to a router downstairs, we had no issues maintaining three solid bars of signal on three sample phones, while the Galaxy S II dropped that connection routinely. The Wi-Fi to Cell handoff was smooth, but still, it's annoying.

In addition to using the Samsung Galaxy S II in a variety of everyday usage scenarios, we also conducted some formal performance testing to see how well it compares to other smartphones.

CPU testing Android CPU testing

Update on Linpack: Our original testing found scores on the multi-thread benchmark to hover between 50 and 60. A fresh reboot saw scores between 20 and 88, but the majority were in the 80-86 range. Needless to say, the scores here were erratic, but based on our research on similarly-spec'ed phones, the figures above best showcase the capabilities. It's also quite possible that the CPU was intelligently underclocked during some of the tests for power saving measures.

Graphics testing Android graphics testing

 

JavaScript testing JavaScript Android and iPhone testing

 

In the Linpack test, the Galaxy S II bested pretty much everything else in this category, save for the EVO 3D. Of course, there's a 1.2GHz CPU in that as well, so it's no surprise that these two are knuckling each other for the speed crown.

The phone once again showed its strength in the An3DBench test, outperforming other smartphones we've looked at recently, save for one. Well, sort of. The Galaxy S II outpaced the EVO 3D in one test, but fell slightly behind in another. It's pretty obvious to us from these scores that each of these high-end devices are awfully similar in terms of real-world performance.

The Galaxy S II earned a top-ranking score in the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark, handily outpacing the competition. Mobile browser-junkies, take note.