A view of the Galaxy

After fiddling with the Samsung Galaxy S II for quite some time, here are some pictures of the phone itself, along with some information regarding the phone.

Basically, the phone has the latest Super AMOLED Plus capacitive touch screen (4.3 inch diagonal, 400x800 pixels) which is more vivid and more crisp in terms of image presentation as compared to the previous AMOLED screens. By the way, the screen is made out of Gorilla glass which is known to be the world's toughest glass specifically made for mobile devices, which means getting more protection from scratches on the display.

On top of the phone, you can see the 2.0 megapixel front-facing camera for video-calling and video-chatting. The images and videos taken from the camera are obviously clearer than those ones taken from a VGA camera which is the usual for front-facing cameras. Unfortunately, there are no mirror app installed on the phone so you can use it only after launching the camera app and selecting the front camera from the side menu. Here you can also find the proximity and light sensors.

The bottom has only one clickable button (which is common to the Samsung Galaxy line-up) which serves as the home button, which when held could also bring up the task manager. Unfortunately though, even if this phone already has the 2.3 Gingerbread platform, you can only see at most six (6) of your most recently used apps (as compared to the regular 8 apps). I hope this would be fixed when an update to the platform becomes available. Anyway, you also have two touch-sensitive buttons on the side of the physical home button, which serves as the menu (left side) and back (right side) buttons. The search function had been removed, instead can be activated by pressing and holding the menu button.

As you can see, the phone is very slim, only 8.5mm thick, and the plasticky exterior of the phone makes the whole package very light, only 116g. Although most people would probably raise an eyebrow on the plastic makeup of the phone, I don't find it any less cheap than those phones with metallic/aluminum build (i.e. HTC Sensation and iPhone 4). Although of course, that depends on the individual's preference. Anyway. the right side of the phone has the volume rocker button along with the eyelet for lanyards, etc.

On the right, you have the power/lock button and nothing else. From this video, you can see a small chin on the bottom back portion of the phone where the speaker could be found.

On the top, you have the usual 3.5mm earphone jack which is the standard for most earphones and headphones in the market. What's also unique about this phone is that it has a dual-mic feature which enhances call performance of the phone. Here on top is the first mic, which is the noise-cancelling  one, and as the name implies, it mutes environmental noise making your voice clearer and louder when taking a call. The regular mic can be found at the bottom of the phone (as usual), and that is the only thing you can find there.

At the back, you have the 8 megapixel auto-focus camera with LED flash that can also capture Full HD 1080p videos in .mp4 format (which is currently the better video format envelope for videos taken from a mobile phone, as compared to the regular 3gp). Unfortunately though, the phone's package doesn't include the HDTV adapter unlike the one found in the LG Optimus 2X. And given that, obviously, the phone doesn't have a direct port for an HD cable since you still need to buy a separate adapter for that. But still, video capture of the phone is very satisfying and videos taken from the phone are less jumpy than those captured from other regular phones. This is thanks to the Dual-core 1.2 Ghz ARM Cortex-A9 processor with the Exynos chipset. This makes the phone blazing fast and so far, I haven't experienced any major lags from the phone; even the transitions are quick and smooth.

So far, these are just some of the things you would want to know first hand regarding the dual-core flagship phone of Samsung, the Galaxy S II. A more detailed video walkthrough of the phone will be uploaded soon so I hope you can check it out.