poor build quality, buggy software and lack of sparkle
23rd April 2012, By chrisjordan2008
- decent screen
- micro sd slot
- good camera
- thin
- lightweight
- fiddly menu system
- poor battery life
- inconsistent network upgrades to ICS
- poor call quality
- dull interface
- buggy software
- flimsy build quality
Bought one of these on the Orange network two months ago and i'm already looking to trade it in, which probably indicates just how much i dislike this phone. Probably the worst phone i've ever had the misfortune to own in fact!
I'll be fair to Samsung, the screen is good. Not in the same class as an iPhone 4 or a HTC One X, but it is a good, big, bright screen. Just be careful to keep the brightness down or it'll whack the battery, which is poor even when you have power saving mode turned on to full, I very seldom manage to get through a full day with the phone not asking me to plug it in. This can be awkward if travelling or away from a plug socket.
The phone is also exceedingly thin and light, hardly know its there when in a pocket and for a phone of this size that is amazing really. However this lightness has a downside as if you whip it out of your pocket a little too quickly it is very easy to send it flying to the ground and then you see just how plasticky the body is and how flimsy the back panel is. I've regularly managed to get the back to fly off and the battery to fall out, thats not a good asset! Adding a case to the phone solves this but adds weight and bulk to the phone, which seems illogical to me
Call quality is reasonably abysmal in my opinion, hardly any signal when indoors and wi-fi drops out often too. My iPhone 4 never had any problems with this and that phone was only a lot well-known for its reception issues! When talking to people out and about you can hardly hear them unless volume is on full blast and even then its frequently hard to make out what they're saying.
Orange have yet to fully roll out ICS for this phone, this is due to them a) dragging their heels and b) to the fact that they have no due date for the NFC enabled version of this phone that they so kindly sold everyone for months without mentioning it was the black sheep of the samsung galaxy family and ICS was proving tricky to develop for. The S2 DESPERATELY needs ICS, as mentioned battery life sucks and there are so many bugs with the current software! Voice control regularly triggers itself for no apparent reason, apps regularly crash unexpectedly and a quick search on the internet shows there are many issues with contact storage and with Macs.
Another issue of some note is the utter lack of sparkle and generally fiddly menu system. The lock screen requires an aimless and seemly indeterminate drag to unlock the phone, swiping between home screens has an obvious judder, widgets while good are ugly and don't appear to update often enough and there are sooooooo many menu's! Everything requires hunting for and some options like ringtones and notifications have multiple locations, which again seems dumb to me, why not one master location for sounds and be done with it?
Some reviews have talked of how 'fast' this phone is. I'm not so sure it's "amazing" or "unbelievable"... Yeah, sure, its quick. Faster than the iPhone 4? Not noticeably and it's poor battery life means that when it does open itself up for games (graphics are no better than anything else i've seen) it runs out of juice very quickly.
All in All: The phone lacks the sparkle of an HTC or an iPhone or the build quality of a Nokia and lets face it, this phone is still not cheap.
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poor build quality, buggy software and lack of sparkle
23rd April 2012, By chrisjordan2008
Bought one of these on the Orange network two months ago and i'm already looking to trade it in, which probably indicates just how much i dislike this phone. Probably the worst phone i've ever had the misfortune to own in fact!
I'll be fair to Samsung, the screen is good. Not in the same class as an iPhone 4 or a HTC One X, but it is a good, big, bright screen. Just be careful to keep the brightness down or it'll whack the battery, which is poor even when you have power saving mode turned on to full, I very seldom manage to get through a full day with the phone not asking me to plug it in. This can be awkward if travelling or away from a plug socket.
The phone is also exceedingly thin and light, hardly know its there when in a pocket and for a phone of this size that is amazing really. However this lightness has a downside as if you whip it out of your pocket a little too quickly it is very easy to send it flying to the ground and then you see just how plasticky the body is and how flimsy the back panel is. I've regularly managed to get the back to fly off and the battery to fall out, thats not a good asset! Adding a case to the phone solves this but adds weight and bulk to the phone, which seems illogical to me
Call quality is reasonably abysmal in my opinion, hardly any signal when indoors and wi-fi drops out often too. My iPhone 4 never had any problems with this and that phone was only a lot well-known for its reception issues! When talking to people out and about you can hardly hear them unless volume is on full blast and even then its frequently hard to make out what they're saying.
Orange have yet to fully roll out ICS for this phone, this is due to them a) dragging their heels and b) to the fact that they have no due date for the NFC enabled version of this phone that they so kindly sold everyone for months without mentioning it was the black sheep of the samsung galaxy family and ICS was proving tricky to develop for. The S2 DESPERATELY needs ICS, as mentioned battery life sucks and there are so many bugs with the current software! Voice control regularly triggers itself for no apparent reason, apps regularly crash unexpectedly and a quick search on the internet shows there are many issues with contact storage and with Macs.
Another issue of some note is the utter lack of sparkle and generally fiddly menu system. The lock screen requires an aimless and seemly indeterminate drag to unlock the phone, swiping between home screens has an obvious judder, widgets while good are ugly and don't appear to update often enough and there are sooooooo many menu's! Everything requires hunting for and some options like ringtones and notifications have multiple locations, which again seems dumb to me, why not one master location for sounds and be done with it?
Some reviews have talked of how 'fast' this phone is. I'm not so sure it's "amazing" or "unbelievable"... Yeah, sure, its quick. Faster than the iPhone 4? Not noticeably and it's poor battery life means that when it does open itself up for games (graphics are no better than anything else i've seen) it runs out of juice very quickly.
All in All: The phone lacks the sparkle of an HTC or an iPhone or the build quality of a Nokia and lets face it, this phone is still not cheap.
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