Samsung Galaxy S II

The Samsung Galaxy S II is a touchscreen-enabled, slate-format Android smartphone designed, developed, and marketed by Samsung Electronics. It has additional software features, expanded hardware, and a redesigned physique compared to its predecessor, the Samsung Galaxy S. The SII was launched with Android 2.3 "Gingerbread", with updates to Android 4.1.2 "Jelly Bean"

Samsung unveiled the S II on 13 February 2011 at the Mobile World Congress.^[6] It was one of the slimmest smartphones of the time, mostly 8.49 mm thick, except for two small bulges which take the maximum thickness of the phone to 9.91 mm.^[7] The Galaxy S II has a 1.2 GHz dual-core "Exynos" system on a chip (SoC) processor,^[8] 1 GB of RAM, a 10.8 cm (4.3 in) WVGA Super AMOLED Plus screen display and an 8-megapixel camera with flash and 1080pfull high definition video recording. It is one of the first devices to offer a Mobile High-definition Link (MHL),^[9] which allows up to 1080p uncompressed video output to an MHL enabled TV or to an MHL to HDMI adapter, while charging the device at the same time. USB On-The-Go is supported.^[10][11]

The user-replaceable battery gives up to ten hours of heavy usage, or two days of lighter usage.^[12] According to Samsung, the Galaxy S II is capable of providing 9 hours of talk time on 3G and 18.3 hours on 2G.^[12][13]

The Galaxy SII was succeeded by the Samsung Galaxy S III in May 2012

Hardware and design[edit]

Dismantled Samsung Galaxy S II, from left to right components include the handset, battery and back cover

The Galaxy S II has a 1.2 GHz dual core ARM Cortex-A9 processor that uses Samsung's own 'Exynos 4210' System on a chip (SoC) that was previously code-named "Orion". The Exynos branded SoC was the source of much speculation concerning another branded successor to the previous "Hummingbird" single-core SoC of the Samsung Galaxy S. The Exynos 4 Dual 45 nm (previously Exynos 4210) uses ARM's Mali-400 MP GPU.^[36][37] This graphics GPU, supplied by ARM, is a move away from the PowerVR GPU of the Samsung Galaxy S.^[38]

The Exynos 4210 supports ARM's SIMD engine (also known as Media Processing Engine, or 'NEON' instructions), and may give a significant performance advantage in critical performance situations such as accelerated decoding for many multimedia codecs and formats (e.g., On2's VP6/7/8 or Real formats).^[39][40][41]

The Mali 400 GPU in the Exynos 4210 SOC is one of the only, if not the only GPU powering Android devices, that does not support GL_RGB Framebuffer Objects (FBOs), only GL_RGBA. The newer Galaxy S II (9100G), based on the PowerVR SGX540, does not exhibit the issue.

At the 2011 Game Developers Conference ARM's representatives demonstrated 60 Hz framerate playback in stereoscopic 3D running on the same Mali-400 MP and Exynos SoC. They said that an increased framerate of 70 Hz would be possible through the use of an HDMI 1.4 port.^[37]

The Motorola Atrix advertised in June 2011 that it was "the world's most powerful smartphone"; in August 2011 the UKAdvertising Standards Authority ruled that the Atrix was not as powerful as Galaxy SII due to its faster processor.^[42]

A newer Samsung Galaxy S II (i9100G) uses a 1.2 GHz dual core TI OMAP 4430 processor with PowerVR SGX540 graphics.^[43]

The Galaxy S II has 1 GB of dedicated RAM and 16 GB of internal mass storage. Within the battery compartment there is an external microSD card slot capable of recognizing and utilizing a 64 GB microSDXC card.^{[44][verification needed]}

The Samsung Galaxy S II uses a 108.5-millimetre (4.27 in)^[11] WVGA (800 x 480) Super AMOLED Plus capacitive touchscreen that is covered by Gorilla Glass with an oleophobic fingerprint-resistant coating. The display is an upgrade of its predecessor, and the "Plus" signifies that the display panel has done away with Pentile matrix to regular RGBmatrix display which results in a 50% increase in sub-pixels. This translates to grain reduction and sharper images and text. In addition, Samsung has claimed that Super AMOLED Plus displays are 18% more power efficient than the older Super AMOLED displays.^[45] Some phones have display issues, with a few users reporting a "yellow tint" on the left bottom edge of the display when a neutral grey background is displayed.^[46]

The Galaxy S II uses Yamaha audio hardware.^[47] The Galaxy S II's predecessor, the original Galaxy S, used Wolfson's WM8994 DAC.^[48] User feedback on Internet forums as well as an in-depth review at Clove,^[47] have expressed the Yamaha chip's inferior sound quality compared to that of the Wolfson chip featured in the original Galaxy S.

On the back of the device is an 8-megapixel Back-illuminated sensor^[49] camera with single-LED flash that can record videos in full high-definition 1080p at 30 frames per second. There is also a fixed focus front-facing 2-megapixel camera for video calling, taking photos as well as general video recording, with a maximum resolution of 640x480 (VGA).

The Galaxy S II is one of the earliest Android devices to natively support NFC Near field communication.^[31] This follows on from the Google Nexus S which was the first de facto NFC smartphone device.^[50] Reportedly the UK version was supplied without an NFC chip at the beginning of its production run,^[51] with an NFC-equipped version released later in 2011.^[52]

Samsung has also included a new high-definition connection technology called Mobile High-definition Link (MHL). The main specialty of MHL is that it is optimized for mobile devices by allowing the device's battery to be charged while at the same time playing back multimedia content.^[53] For the Galaxy S II, the industry standard micro USB port found on the bottom of the device can be used with an MHL connector for a TV out connection to an external display, such as a high definition television.^[54]

The micro USB port on this device also supports USB OTG standard which means the Galaxy S II can act as a 'host' device in the same way as a desktop computer in allowing external USB devices to be plugged in and used.^[10] These external USB devices typically include USB flash drives and separately powered external hard drives. A video demonstration on YouTube^[55] has shown the OTG function to be readily available with an ordinary micro USB (B-type) OTG adaptor. The same YouTube video goes on to mention a successful test completed on a 2 TB USB external hard drive (requiring own power source) but however reports of failure when trying to connect USB keyboards, tested USB mice and tested USB game pads. Currently the only file-system supported for USB drives within OTG is FAT32.

A 3.5 mm TRRS headset jack is available and is located on the top side of the device. The micro USB connection port is located on the bottom side of the device.

Broadcom BCM4330 combo chip integrates 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0+HS and FM radio.^[56][57] Phones released to the US market lack the FM receiver. BCM4330 supports Wi-Fi Direct that enable devices to communicate directly with one another without having to interact with an access point. Even if the BCM4330 chip supports Bluetooth 4.0, the Galaxy S2 is limited to Bluetooth 3.0 using the last Android version released by Samsung (4.1.2). Bluetooth 4.0 support has been introduced in Android 4.3 versions, however the upgrade to an alternative firmware is required