AT&T's Samsung Galaxy S II goes on sale Oct. 2 for $199.99. eWEEK compared it to Sprint's Galaxy S II, Epic 4G Touch. Read on to learn some of the differences.
AT&T's
(NYSE:T) Samsung Galaxy S II smartphone, which I've had the pleasure of using
as my primary phone for the last several days, will launch Oct. 2 for $199.99.
Normally, I
would do a full-review, but the device is certainly the baby brother to
Sprint's Samsung Galaxy S II, Epic 4G Touch
smartphone, which launched Sept. 16 for $199.99 and
which I reviewed earlier this month.
I also created this gallery of AT&T and Sprint's S II
models.
Both phones
run Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android 2.3.4 "Gingerbread" operating
system and both share a lot of the same attributes under the hood.
AT&T's S II is a touch lighter and leaner, at
0.35 inches thin, compared with the 0.38 inches of Sprint's S II, and 4.3
ounces compared with 4.6 ounces for the Epic 4G Touch. Both phones are black and
feature the same textured plastic back.
With a
4.3-inch Super AMOLED (active-matrix organic LED) Plus display, AT&T's unit
felt more comfortable in my hand than Sprint's gadget, whose 4.52-inch Super
AMOLED Plus screen I found difficult to grip. The 4.3-inch screen is as high as
I would go in a smartphone.
Like Sprint's
S II, AT&T's model is powered by a 1.2GHz, dual-core processor, whose speed
improvement over existing 1GHz dual-core chips was noticeable. Both phones are
4G-capable, though only Sprint's 4G WiMAX network was available to me; combined
with the souped-up chip, the phone deftly processed YouTube content and
rendered Web pages much faster.
Both handsets
use Samsung's TouchWiz user interface technology, which renders widgets and
other tools completely customizable across the 7 home screens.
Both devices
are motion-activation-capable. Users may hold two fingers on either phone and
tilt to enlarge or shrink browser screen size, or press and hold on a screen to
access Vlingo's Voice Talk speech-recognition software, which will let users
text, email and do searches by speaking into the phone.
Updated: Both phones share nice screen-capture feature that lets users grab and share images
of screens by pressing the home and power buttons at the same time. Unlike the Epic 4G Touch, AT&T
includes Facebook for Android and Qik Lite for users who want to easily access
their social network, or trigger video chats from the phone's 2MP, front-facing
camera.
Each phone has
pretty much the same 8MP rear-facing camera, which takes great pictures with
little latency and captures video in 1080p high definition. Plug in a High-Definition
Multimedia Interface- (HDMI-) out cable, and you can watch your video clips on
an HDTV at home.
Calls were
equally crisp on both S II smartphones, though I would note I always seem to
have better reception on AT&T than Sprint in my neck of Connecticut.
Sprint easily
wins the battery power contest, boasting an 1,800mAh power source, compared
with 1,650mAh for AT&T's model. AT&T isn't running on 4G LTE yet, so
the battery didn't get sucked down too much compared to the Epic 4G Touch,
which slurped battery power while running on Sprint's 4G WiMAX mobile
broadband.
In conclusion,
I'd recommend either AT&T or Sprint's S II for people who want speedy Web
and application processing. If comfort in the hand is key, go with AT&T. If
you don't want to sacrifice the 4G power Sprint's phone offers in most regions
around the world, go with that model.
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