Samsung Galaxy S 2 (II) - Some Posters

As part of one of my "Samsung Mob!ler" missions, I had to create an advert for the Samsung Galaxy S II. Here are some of my ideas...

Samsung Galaxy S 2 (II): Video/Filming

The Samsung Galaxy S 2 sports a delightful 8MP camera which is capable of shooting video in full 1080p. The mind really does boggle how they are able to fit so much technology into one of the world's slimmest mobile devices.

The camera quality on the S 2 is really strikingly good. Low/no light video footage shows only a small amount of "noise" and creates footage with a beautiful richness and depth of colour. Of course, this isn't going to be as good as professional equipment, but for my personal use it's perfect!

Below are a series of tests using the video-camera mode to give you an idea of the kind of footage it takes. I will update below as more content is added. All of them were shot in 1080p, though please bear in mind that YouTube re-encodes videos, so these aren't exactly true to the original output of the Galaxy S 2. If you would like a copy of the original footage get in touch!

Video Camera functionality (settings):

In (bright) sunlight:

In the shade:

In total darkness with the flash:

Samsung Galaxy S II in low light conditions:

A quick summary of "bad points" (though they're not really bad at all)...

• In the "low light" videos you can see that it takes a short while to focus on certain things and before it does there is a bit of "noise" - fuzziness - , but it gets there eventually. You can see this in the "Low Light" videos above
• If you wobble the camera a lot, there is a sort of "swimming" effect, as an anonymous commenter has pointed out, this is due to the "rolling shutter" (thanks to whoever told me that! :-) )

The "wobble" test:

• In 1080p mode the video "zooms in"

Galaxy S 2 (II): Battery Life - Heavy Useage with Wifi

In my previous post on battery life in the Galaxyy S 2 I wrote about how the device copes under what I would call "moderate usage". Here I will briefly summarise a charge of the phone under typical(?) "heavy usage". 

For me, this involved:

• WiFi on constantly
• Multiple games and keeping those games running in the background
• Various other applications (a total of 25 apps/games by the end of the charge)
• 30 minutes of high definition video content
• 3G/HSDPA on constantly with hour in total call time
• Screen on 100% brightness
• Lots of web browsing
• Sending emails
• Updating facebook status
• Checking Reddit.com (fellow reddit users will know this is almost a constant thing...)
• 45 minutes of GPS usage
• Not clearing the RAM
• Skype, Gmail, Facebook, Twitter all updating
• Microbes Live wallpaper
• Widgets for weather, stock market + gmail
• A series of alarms set to go off throughout the day

For those interested in "standby time" with and without WiFi, I decided to have a period of no-wifi standby and then "with-WiFi" standby at either end of the period of heavy usage

You can split the usage here into thirds: 

1. On standby - only 3G/HSDPA on and background socialnetwork/email sync. WiFi Off (12 Hours)
2. Phone on about 50% of the time, Heavy Usage, WiFi On (12 Hours)
3. On standby, WiFi On (12 Hours).

 With that in mind I would expect to get a good 14-15 hours if I had started with heavy usage from the start. I would imagine that most people need to sleep and have a break from their phone at *some* point during the day (to sleep, for example?) so it looks like the Battery life of the Galaxy S 2, even under heavy usage will be more than sufficient! Hurray! 

Samsung Galaxy S II (2): GPS with "MyTracks"

I already wrote a quick article on the accuracy of the GPS, which you can find here, but many people requested I take the Galaxy S II out for a "longer" trip, to see how accurate it is over a broader area. 

"MyTracks" is an application available from the Android Market which allows you to track your routes on your run, or cycle ride, using the GPS to map your route over Google Maps. It also provides really useful information such as speed and distance, which is great if you are setting yourself training targets. It is also a brilliant way to test to GPS accuracy of a phone, and I've done just that!

Here is a photograph of the map on my phone, and below that is the exported .gpx file displayed in google maps. I've put a couple of pointers in there, for example when I went round in a very tight circle, so you can zoom in and have a closer look. 

The section of the route I recorded was 3.65 Miles/5.87Km over the course of 20 minutes. You can zoom in on this map to see the track in more detail.

View Samsung Galaxy S II - MyTracks Test in a larger map

This is where I went round in a circle: quite a small space, really!

View Samsung Galaxy S II - MyTracks Test in a larger map

You really can't fault the GPS on this device!!

Feel free to get in touch if there's anything you would like to know