Short Hands-On: Samsung Galaxy S2 – The Samsung Galaxy S2 is currently one of the best Google Android smartphones developed by Samsung and it is said to be the rival of the Apple iPhone. I am pretty curious about the phone and what it can do. I was lucky to have a short hands-on with the phone for a while.

Currently, it’s not available in the North America yet, but it’s available almost everywhere. The reviews out there for the phone are pretty good. The best features of the phone are:

• 1.2GHz Dual-Core Processor
• 4.3″ Super AMOLED Display
• 8megapixel camera featuring 1080p video
• 2megapixel front-facing camera

The dual-core CPU making it surprisingly very fast and smooth and no lagness on the touch screen, and it’s capable of producing the full HD video recording and playing. 4.3″ Super AMOLED screen produces a sharp and vivid display but unfortunately only have a resolution of 800×480 which is still behind iPhone 4′s 960×640 Retina display.

Though, the screen colour is really very sharp and vivid. The first impression of the phone is really sleek and sexy, except with the Samsung logo on top of the screen. If it’s a clean screen like the iPhone then it’s perfect.

Once getting hands on it, it feels very light and not that solid as the iPhone, but it fits the hand nicely with a huge 4.3″ display. The power button is located on the side and the design is almost like an iPhone with a bigger screen and a homescreen button at the bottom of the screen. It feels good afterall even the lightness. The lightness gives a plus point to the phone as you don’t want to carry a heavy phone in your pocket.

In term of software, it runs Android 2.3.3 on Samsung’s TouchWiz platform. The TouchWiz UI is sleek but there’s a big opportunity for customizing it. What’s matter most is still Android which currently has less apps when compare to the iOS. Android is believe to have more users than the iOS but (some) applications are still not as good as iOS. I’m sure there will be more applications, but it’s all about when.

As for the camera. I am impress with the camera speed and the quality. 8megapixel camera capture a sharp and clear image and the best is the 2mp front face camera which normal phone has a VGA camera. the 2mp front camera is good for self-portrait and video calling. This impressed me quite a lot. With such a powerful camera hardware, I just hope that there’s powerful app for that. I personally like Instagram but it’s not available on Android.

I read about the keyboard was a drawback for the phone, but after trying, I found it’s quite responsive and doing well with the heptic feedback and not much complain about it.

Afte rall, this is an awesome phone, only that I hope there’s more app on Android which can release the true power of this beast. Samsung Galaxy S2 is so far the best Android phone at this moment.

As you know, Nokia dumped Symbian for Windows Phone 7 (WP7) and they in fact still working on another operating system which is the MeeGo. Somehow, the Nokia N9, known as the swipe phone might be the first and last phone from Nokia running the MeeGo platform.

Recent 21 June event in Singapore, Nokia stunned the world of tech with the Nokia N9 smartphones, can be said as the successor to the Symbian Nokia N8 and Maemo N900.

The N9 features a new interface experience that doesn’t require any navigation buttons or even a home butter. The only physical buttons are the power button and volume control.

The sleek design of Nokia N9 handset features a 3.9″ AMOLED screen with WVGA resolution of 854×480 which has a cruved Gorilla glass, upgraded from 3.5″ of Nokia N8.

It’s Nokia phone with the highest hardware specs and wun with a 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 OMAP3630 processor and a 1GB RAM. It has a 8MP camera with Carl Zeiss lens and Nokia claims that it has the fastest image capturing phone in the market, that a shot can be taken in just 2.6 seconds.

It also included NFC which lets you share files and media by tapping onto another device, and Dolby audio support.

The design is real awesome and what’s special is the MeeGo platform which features the Swipe function. Navigating through apps and homescreen just requires different swipe gesture. According to its Harmattan implementation, Nokia centralized the device into 3 main functions and they are notifications, apps and multitasking.

There’s no news about release date, but it’s one of Nokia’s best phone up to date and MeeGo is obviously better than Symbian but the support for it lies in Nokia hand.

Check out the full specification at Nokia’s site.

I have been following the news about Samsung Galaxy S II (S2) lately as it’s one of the most powerful Android phone at the moment, which is a straight rival to the Apple iPhone. The dual-core processor, 8mp camera back and 2mp front face camera, Super AMOLED screen and the sleek design make it the best Android phone now.

Recent news from Samsung reported that they have successfully sold 3 millions units in just 55 days, which is a great milestone when compare to their successor, the original Galaxy S which took 85 days to reach that number.

In Malaysia, there’s hundred over people queues for the phone on launch date by Maxis lately and there have been a high demand for the phone, some retail shop even increases the price from RM2,099 (RRP) to as many as RM2,399.

What do you think about the phone?

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When it’s Google, it’s Android and it’s the latest Android 2.1, only on Nexus One at this short moment. I believe there will be a 2.1 update very very soon for other Android hardware.

I am quite interested in this phone because it’s running on the 1GHz Snapdragon processor (same as the HD2) and sounds like faster than the iPhone and the Motorola Droid, the real speed need to be determine after some times of usage first.

photo by engadget.

After seeing many photos of the phone, it looks good, sounds good, seems good, but the one problem is how do I get it? Google is selling it online, they don’t have any concept stall and soon will be going into some major company like Best Buys and via telco’s shop.

The latest source is that the nearest country that will getting the Nexus One is Singapore, then Hong Kong. Phone demand in Malaysia is low especially an Android device. Hopefully someone here will bring in the Nexus One or else I’ll ask my brother to get me one in Singapore.

I want to wait for it, gonna put iPhone, Motorola Droid or the N900 back, guess I’ll switch from Symbian to Android now. =)

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The only thing I can try with the dummy set is feel the size and compare it. The HD2 will probably not be my wanted phone because it’s too huge. Although it’s thin, light, and the screen is extremely big, yet it still feel big, wide on hand and in the pocket. 4.3″ is a little bit too big IMO.

I haven’t tried a Android device before. It’s all looking on Youtube and reading about user experience in before, HTC Hero is the only Android device in Malaysia currently and, still I don’t get to try on it. Boring.

If you are looking for a phone, I recommend you to wait for Motorola’s MILESTONE or the new HTC Hero replacement in early 2010.

I thought of Lifeblog was cool. When I try to download Lifeblog software from Nokia’s site, it had turned into Nokia Photos. It only sync your phone’s photo and video and then organize it in a timeline view. The problem is it doesn’t sync well, I always get an error on the computer and also on the phone. It just don’t work.

As for the original Nokia Lifeblog (I downloaded it on some archive site) which I believe Nokia has discontinued developing it, it will sync your messages, text, notes, photos and videos and arrange it in a timeline. It’s more like a a backup and a phone log. However it also can’t sync and it makes my phone slow.

Perhaps I got too many things on my phone? I don’t think so. I have been trying for so many solution, reinstall program, refresh Lifeblog on the phone, restart my PC, restart my connection, restart my phone but none of them helps. So in the end, I uninstalled Nokia Lifeblog and also Nokia Photos, forget about Lifeblog.

I want to use Lifeblog to backup my text message into my computer so I can view it when I need to. I can choose export all text messages into my computer via PC Suite in *.csv file but then little problem is it can’t read my Chinese messages. That’s the problem of my log being not complete.

Just forget about this program and wait until Nokia announce support for it. It sucks at the moment. It could be a good software but then not many Nokia users use it.

Fellows in the United States have already get their hands on the T-Mobile G1 or also known as HTC Dream. Somehow, I can’t find HTC Dream on HTC’s website instead G1 is what I got. Selling for $199 (with subscribtion plan) which I’ll say not expensive and the data plan from T-mobile is seems to be more worthful than the iPhone 3G plan from AT&T.

What’s so great about this phone is it runs on Android, the open-source OS by Google. Focusing on apps on the mobile, especially web apps. I am a person that adore the Internet a lot and G1 is a must for me. Unfortunately, it’s not available in Asia.

It’s an iPhone rival. People do actually queue up long for the G1 and there’s a launch party for the G1 too.

The nice part of the phone is it’s side sliding QWERTY keypad and the touchscreen. I like QWERTY and I like touchscreen too. QWERTY is very good for texting and sending emails and touchscreen is for navigating web page and perhaps almost everything.

There’s a iPhone Apps Store like software in G1 and that is the Android Marketplace where you can find a lot of software and application to be installed on the phone. Mobile applications are the popular one right now, the fame of iPhone is because of Apps (besides it’s design and Steve Jobs). In Marketplace, there’s paid and free application.

Camera (3.2Megapixels) is available on the back but the front facing camera is lacking which made the G1 not perfect. I believe not much people uses 3G video call and that’s why no camera for video calls.

“The wait is over.” is what T-mobile is trying to tell everyone. It’s up in store in the States, you can get one now. Europes will get theirs by next week.

Will G1 hits Asia or perhaps other continent like Australia or Africa where there’s no T-Mobile?

My first phone was Nokia 3120, got stolen and after that I bought no cell phones. Brother gave it to me, as if it’s a second hand phone to me. Currently using a Samsung D500C and the Nokia 1680 Classic.

At current moment, a new cellphone is in the top of my shopping/wish list. =)

Let’s talk about the Nokia 1680 Classic which I just got it recently. Maxis, one of the telco in Malaysia gave it for free for subscribing to their postpaid plans. In fact, T-Mobile offers it for free too in the United States. Since it’s free, I’ll just use it, nothing lose on me. I need a second phone for texting, I text a lot, my previous Nokia 3100 went dead with no signal bar.

Nokia 1680 Classic is quite a new phone though the specification and function is definitely not interesting. Though one cool thing is, it’s the cheapest Nokia camera phone (VGA/0.3Megapixels). Design is sleek but hands on is very plastic, due to cheap built quality.

Nothing much I can do with the phone, I just use it for texting and some Twitter updates and Gmail checking. It lacks Bluetooth or Infrared for data transfer, so you can hardly transfer music, ringtone or photos to and out of the phone except using GPRS.

It might not be fast, lag sometimes while loading the message inbox. I’m using 1.6MB on Messaging as I have about 1.6k messages in my inbox. I am not gonna delete it. Haha. It’s about 7.6MB of on board memory, no memory card expansion, it’s for your pictures, contact and message.

Don’t expect much, this is a cheap, very low price, in fact free (by subscribtion) candybar camera phone by Nokia for those who want a temporarily phone.

Check out the package, it’s has a relatively small box with a small phone, a charger and a small manual. That’s all.

If you do read the newspaper, I believe you guys have already knew about the new BlackBerry Bold smartphone is here in Malaysia. First it was Celcom’s advertisement and then it’s Maxis.

It’s not a phone for everyone. A lot of my friends doesn’t like a full QWERTY keyboard smartphone, they said it’s only for the businessman who check email very often. They are quite wrong actually, I would love to own a QWERTY keyboard phone if I am given a chance. Mainly, I do check my email on the go, and second is I text message a lot. With Digi’s Friends and Family, each text message or SMS is only 1cent. This kind of phone can do a lot of thing but not only email, you can surf the net if you have an unlimited data plan or you are near to an open free wifi spot. So, I want to say that, it’s not a phone just for email.

Blackberry Bold is a very powerful phone with nice design, high resolution screen, 2megapixel camera with 3G connection. Unfortunately, there’s not a front face camera for video call, so the 3G is only for data.

Maxis and Celcom are both selling at around RM2000 (600USD). I can’t recommend which telco to go for, but as far as I know, Celcom provides a more stable data connection than Maxis 3G.

Nokia E71 – image by Pål Berge

I will not go for this phone as for the high price tag, alternatively, I might go for the Nokia E71 which is below RM2000 and has more feature but not so gorgeous screen and design.