Review: Samsung Galaxy S-II

It amazes me that Christopher Columbus managed to navigate his way West across the oceans using an astrolabe. 

Pre-dating the sextant and the modern compass, an astrolabe is a pocket sized (and very ancient) astronomical computer that uses the position of the Sun and stars in the sky to determine your location. That’s ALL it did. It didn’t allow you to text anyone, it wouldn’t update your Facebook status, and it certainly didn’t talk to any satellites to determine your exact speed and location. 

Smart phones are insanely smart these days. Most of them all have Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi, and cellular radios in them (how do you pack four radio transmitters into something so small?).  I recently upgraded to a new Android phone, a shiny new Samsung Galaxy S-II, and so far I love it!



For the technical geeks among you, the new Galaxy-S has chops. It’s 4G capable (with ATT's HSPA network), it has a 1.2 GHZ dual-core Processor, a 4.25" Super AMOLED Display, 1 GB RAM (yes, a gig of RAM in your handheld phone), and up to 50 GB of storage. 

I can transfer every single song from my 20 GB iPod to this phone -- and have 30 GB of space left over for movies, pictures, homebrew recipes, apps, and more.

For the less technical folks, the new Samsung Galaxy-S has the features that made you jealous of iPhone owners -- and more.

There is now an 8 megapixel camera with (finally!) a flash, and there’s an impressive camera on the front of the phone for video conferencing and self portraits. The "Swype" keyboard input software has improved dramatically, allowing one-touch additions to your personal dictionary. The voice to speech technology has made a huge leap forward!  Rather than blocky sentences, I find myself dictating email paragraphs at a time with very few auto-correct errors. 

The addition of a Task Manager is also helpful, but with a GB of RAM, I’m having trouble running enough apps to load it up.

The new "Smart Motion" feature is super handy -- simply flip the phone over (face down) to mute phone calls and other notification noises. Other Motion options allow you to zoom in and out of pictures and to do other intuitive things in a variety of different apps. 

Speaking of apps, Facebook and Twitter are both built in, along with a Social Media app that consolidates all of your feeds, email, and updates from all of your email accounts, Linked In, and other social media apps. The Quickoffice app finally allows me to easily handle my Word, Excel, and PPT files from work. Onboard photo and video editors are new, too.

Perhaps the best improvement is the All-Share app that allows you to sync or to transfer files with any computer in your Wi-Fi network. When you set it up, it uses the IP address from the computer in your Wi-Fi network to link to the Galaxy-S, and then you can use your browser on the computer to set up syncing folders, file transfer, etc. with the device.  Now, whenever I get within range of my Wi-Fi network, my calendar and picture folders automatically sync up.

On the down side, battery life has improved somewhat, but that brilliant display still eats over 90 percent of the battery life.  Watch a movie or play Angry Birds for awhile, and the battery is dead.  Also, I still struggle to "hot swap" between applications easily (while the Task Manager helps, it’s still not bullet proof).

If Columbus had used a Galaxy-S smartphone, he’d never have made land in Cuba.  I think he’d have aimed for Myrtle Beach instead, then used his phone to find the nearest Margarita bar.

EXTRA:  Please feel free to leave comments on this article! If you have questions for Ken regarding business travel, hotels, airplanes, etc, please send him a "Tweet" on his twitter account.  You can also follow Ken on Twitter @foodbreeze!