The Mobile World Congress 2011 in Barcelona will result in new devices being announced, but before the event has even begun we have the announcement of the Samsung Galaxy S 2.
Building on last year’s Galaxy S, the Galaxy S2 ups the screen size from 4 inch to 4.3 inch, and puts a boost on performance with dual-core 1GHz processor, and the Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) operating system.
Hubs a go-go
Content-wise Samsung have created four separate hubs, for the four main things – apart from phone calls – we like to do with our smartphones:
- Social Hub Premium: Taking a leaf out of HTC’s book, Samsung are putting all of your channels together for easier communication. Contacts list, IM status, Twitter and Facebook updates and posts, email, text, VM and SMS) – all in the one spot.
- Readers Hub: Provides access to over 2.2 million books and novels, 2,000 global and local newspapers in 49 languages and 2,300 popular magazines in 22 languages.
- Game Hub: The easiest way to download and play mobile games. Try for free and download titles from Samsung partners.
- Music Hub: manage your music and access over 12 million tracks from 7digital.
Samsung Galaxy S II price and release date
At the time of writing there are no specific details on the release date of the Samsung Galaxy S II. By the look of it the phone will go on sale in June. No one phone carrier has exclusivity, so who can do the deal will get the phone. Price? Is there ever really much surprise with smartphone pricing at launch? I expect it will pitch at the usual smartphone p-spot.
I now declare the Great Smartphone War of ’11… open!
UPDATE 26 MAY, 2011: Samsung tonight launched the Galxy S II… or Galaxy S 2, call it what you will. The phone will sell for $899 RRP, and will be in Optus stores in the first few days of June. Telstra and Vodafone will have the phone in late July.
Samsung Galaxy S II specifications
- Network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900; HSPA+ 21 850/900/1900/2100
- Screen: 4.27-inch Super AMOLED screen
- Processor: Dual-core 1GHz
- Operating system: Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)
- Battery: 1650mAh
- Back camera: 8 megapixel resolution and LED flash
- Front camera: 2 megapixel
- Codec: MPEG4/ H.264/ H.263/ DivX VC-1; Playback: Full HD(1080p)@30fps
Recording: Full HD (1080p) @ 30fps - Storage: 16 GB. Up to an additional 32GB can be added via microSD card.
- Sensors: Accelerometer, light, digital compass, proximity, gyroscope
- Connectivity: Bluetooth® technology v 3.0 + HS, USB 2.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 (a/b/g/n), WiFi Direct, NFC connectivity (optional), MHL, DLNA (AllShare)
- Dimensions: 125 x 66 x 8 mm (H x W x D)
- Weight: 116 grams