Samsung Galaxy S II Plus Review

Introduction:

We still remember how excited we were when Samsung announced the Galaxy S II back in 2011. It stood out in many ways ahead of its Android-powered competitors – with hardware performance to put many of its rivals to shame and a body so slim that it was considered the world's thinnest handset for a short while.

Now it's 2013 and the company's former flagship is back in the form of a refreshed model – a reincarnation, if you will, known as the Samsung Galaxy S II Plus. On a hardware level, it comes with specs that make it very similar to the older variant, meaning that it isn't quite suitable for the high-end category anymore, but it is shaping up as a decent mid-range device.

There's a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display gracing its front, an 8-megapixel camera on its back, while a dual-core processor runs the whole show. Seems promising on paper, but our in-depth review will truly show whether Samsung's new offering is worth your time or not. Let's fire it up!

In the box:

• Wall charger
• Micro USB cable
• Wired stereo headset with additional silicon tips
• Quick start guide

Samsung Galaxy S II Plus Unboxing:



Design:

Instead of the curvy lines and rounded corners that Samsung's recent Androids are associated with, the Galaxy S II Plus exhibits a rectangular design, which it has adopted from the highly-acclaimed-yet-aging Galaxy S II. In fact, if it wasn't for the glossy paint job that the new model has been treated to, one would have a really hard time telling the two devices apart since their shape is practically identical.

But despite the obvious contradiction with the maker's current design principles, we don't really have anything against the appearance of the Samsung Galaxy S II Plus. The smartphone is both as slim and light as the mid-rangers it will be competing against, and a single thumb is enough to operate it efficiently once you get accustomed to its proportions. Besides, the Hyperglaze-inspired finish looks quite appealing, regardless of whether you pick its blue or white variant. There's one downside to it, however, namely that fingerprints tend to stick to the handset's shiny surface rather easily, but at least they are relatively easy to get rid of.


There's an excellent set of physical buttons present on the Samsung Galaxy S II Plus – all of them are well exposed and click nicely when pressed. The volume rocker is on the left side of the device while the lock key is on the right side so that both can be easily reached by lefties and right-handed folks alike.



Display:

No matter how we look at it, the 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus panel on the Samsung Galaxy S II Plus can't impress us with its 480 by 800 pixels of resolution. Not that it's too big of an issue, but at 216ppi, letters and graphics are slightly pixelized around the edges while the paragraphs of text in web pages are unreadable unless you zoom in.

What we do like about the smartphone's display, on the other hand, is that it has deep blacks and very wide viewing angles – all traits that make AMOLED panels so outstanding. Its colors are lush and saturated slightly above neutral levels, but not to the exaggerated extent that was typical for AMOLEDs of 2 years ago. SAs a result, photos and videos that are displayed can be very pleasing to the eye. We do wish, however, that the screen had a higher brightness output as using it outdoors can be a challenge in some cases.



Interface:

You get Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean out of the box with the Samsung Galaxy S II Plus, and the maker's nature-inspired user interface is layered on top of it. No, that isn't the newest TouchWiz version gracing the Galaxy S4 flagship, rather the UI found on the Galaxy S III and many other of Samsung's recent Androids.

Having Samsung's custom user interface on the Galaxy S II Plus is a great thing for a number of reasons. First of all, it simply looks nice without putting a strain on the smartphone's performance. Also, the UI brings along plenty of handy features that stock Android lacks, such as Smart Stay, which prevents the smartphone's display from turning off as long as you're looking at it, Direct Call, which dials the number of a contact you're viewing as soon as you bring the handset next to your ear, and a built-in task manager for those times when an app starts misbehaving. Of course, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean solidifies the positive user experience even further with the inclusion of Google Now and with its increased responsiveness over older Android versions. However, we do miss the lock screen shortcuts, which for some reason now can't be set on this Nature UX variant.


After using the Samsung Galaxy S II Plus for a short while, we got pretty comfortable with its on-screen keyboard, so chances are your thumbs will also get quickly used to its arrangement. It offers the traditional QWERTY layout, enhanced with word autocompletion, as well as the Swype method for those who are fans of it.



Processor and Memory:

While the old-school Samsung Galaxy S II was equipped with a dual-core, 1.2GHz Exynos chip, the Samsung Galaxy S II Plus makes do with a SoC made by Broadcom. Should we call it a downgrade? Well, not really – both chips are powered by two Cortex-A9 cores running at 1.2GHz, so their performance should be identical in most cases. And based on our extensive experience with the Galaxy S II, we can safely say that the S II Plus is at least as fast as the older model in real life. The latter is very responsive and multitasks well with its 1GB of RAM. Even complex 3D games can be played at good framerates, which isn't that surprising considering the low resolution that the GPU has to drive.

	Quadrant Standard	AnTuTu
Samsung Galaxy S II Plus	3833	8228
Samsung Galaxy S III	5335	15152
Sony Xperia S	3206
HTC One S	4867

If you're planning on having a Samsung Galaxy S II Plus, better be ready to provide a microSD card to go along with it. The smartphone comes with only 8GB of on-board storage, out of which only half is available to the user – enough to store some apps, photos, and maybe a few music albums, but still not enough for the needs of most users. At least you get 50GB of free Dropbox storage for 2 years, courtesy of Samsung.

Web Browser and Connectivity:

We have to commend Samsung for launching the Galaxy S II Plus with a browser as snappy as this. It loads pages quickly and renders even heavy web pages with little to no effort whatsoever. As expected, it offers the standard set of handy features, such as tabbed browsing and saving web pages for offline reading. Embedded YouTube videos are playable as well thanks to the browser's HTML5 support. The only thing spoiling the experience a bit is the screen's low resolution.


Connectivity-wise, the Galaxy S II Plus offers all of the features that have now become standard for a smartphone: 21Mbps HSPA+, a/b/g/n Wi-Fi (2.4 and 5GHz), Bluetooth 3.0 and FM radio. The GPS radio is complemented with support for GLONASS, which should result in improved accuracy. There is an NFC-capable variant of the smartphone as well.

Camera:

The camera interface on the Samsung Galaxy S II Plus provides the user with a lot of control over the image being taken, which is great news for experienced photographers, although novice users might find the extra functionality useful as well. There are many scene modes to pick from, depending on the lighting conditions, while the panorama shot feature enables one to take impressive, digitally stitched photographs of landscapes. The two slots for shortcuts are very handy for enabling quick access to modes and settings that are used most often.

When the Samsung Galaxy S II came out, it offered one of the best smartphone cameras that existed. That same photographic potential has been transfused into the veins of the Samsung Galaxy S II Plus, which also comes with a very capable 8-megapixel camera, paired with an LED light to assist in those low-light situations. Our daytime photo shootout yielded great results – photos with excellent detail even at 100% zoom and very low presence of digital noise. Indoor shots look fine as well, as long as there's enough light provided.

The only thing we aren't quite happy with is the slight shutter lag, which we've come to not expect seeing on contemporary Android handsets. And then after the photo is captured, it does take about a second until the camera is ready to shoot again.


As for its video capturing skills, the Samsung Galaxy S II Plus can capture 1080p video at 30 frames per second. And it looks excellent – fluid and as detailed as the photos we described above. The tricky thing about it, however, is that when shooting at Full HD resolution, the camera's field of view is very narrow, meaning that you may have to move away from your subject in case you're shooting from up close.



Multimedia:

At first, the default music player on the Galaxy S II Plus seems rather stock-ish, but it does come with a few very neat additional features. One of them is the 7-band equalizer and all of its presets, complemented by several audio enhancements that add extra bass and reverb effects to your music. The other cool thing that the player can do is to build playlists of songs based on a mood you specify, ranging from exciting and joyful to calm and passionate. That is done via Music square, which scans your library and picks the tracks that suits your preferences best.


While the low resolution display won't let you enjoy high-definition videos to their fullest, it is nice to know that all kind of video file formats are playable on the Samsung Galaxy S II Plus. All our video samples played fluidly at up to 1080p resolution with the exception of QuickTime videos (*.MOV files). The stock video player comes with Samsung's Pop-Up Play feature, which allows video to run in a window hovering above the phone's interface – perfect for watching that LOST season finale while tweeting about it at the same time.

Call quality:

Phone calls sound great through the earpiece – loud, clear, and easy to understand. For those who need a boost of volume, there's even a toggle button that increases the incoming call's loudness even further. The microphone's performance, on the other hand, could have been a bit better. While our voice sounds okay on the other side of the line, we were told that background noise noticeably affects the call's quality, which is something we didn't expect considering the presence of a secondary mike for noise reduction.

Battery life:

While we do know that the Galaxy S II Plus has a 1650mAh battery under the hood, Samsung has yet to announce any specific figures as to how long that should last on a single charge. But based on our experience with the handset, heavy users will very likely have to charge it on a daily basis. Regular users might be able to get about 2 days of usage on a single charge.

Conclusion:

First and foremost, there's no denying that the Samsung Galaxy S II Plus is a capable and well-made mid-range smartphone. It has preserved many of the traits that made the 2-year-old Galaxy S II land in the pockets of over 40 million people worldwide, such as the slim profile, the great performance, and the high-grade camera gracing its back.

But at the same time, we can't hide our disappointment from the fact that there's nothing to justify the “Plus” in the smartphone's title. In other words, the Samsung Galaxy S II Plus isn't a true upgrade to the Galaxy S II, rather just a refreshed version meant to replace the older model, and even a downgrade in some aspects, such as on-board storage availability.

Nevertheless, the Samsung Galaxy S II Plus is still a smartphone that can offer plenty of bang for the buck, so give it a try if you're out looking for mid-range Android device. Alternatively, there are several similarly priced devices that you might also find worth buying. The HTC One S, for example, should cost about the same, but looks even more appealing with its ultra slim metal body. Or you can also try the Sony Xperia SL, which has a display of much higher resolution. And if you're a fan of large-screen smartphones, there's the Samsung Galaxy Grand for you with its 5-inch display. The LG Nexus 4 is also a worthy pick, as long as it is available at a reasonable price in your country, for it comes with a better screen and a much faster processor.

Software version of the reviewed unit:
Android 4.1.2; Build number: JZO54K.I9105PXXAMB9

Samsung Galaxy S II Plus Video Review: