[Galaxy S I9000 General] alsheron:
Ok -I just got my Galaxy S II here in the uk from phones4u (wouldn't really recommend them but they had it early. My previous Galaxy S which I had massive GPS problems with over almost every ROM and radio combination is eventually going on eBay.

I thought others here might be interested in the SII

Initial impressions are:

Wow - this thing is blazingly and surprisingly fast. I've seen reviews that say it's fast but when you use it - it simply refuses to slow down anywhere in the UI or apps. The Market for example is crazy fast and installing apps is a breeze.

TouchWiz 4 is really a huge improvement and the small changes here and there along with the speed mentioned abive make it a real pleasure to use. Can't as of yet replace the Messaging app link to GoSMS (my personal choice) - but maybe will be able to when root becomes available.

Now - a little background information: I'm very sensitive to colour and brightness uniformity variations and I have to say that over the past few years have had some issues with monitors, a Samsung TV and an iPhone 4 I sent back for problems I know others simply cannot see or simply don't consider "problems". I do - and for that reason I was astonished and delighted by the Super Amoled screen in my GPS defying Galaxy S. I literally love(d) that screen and it was crisp, sharp, large and beautiful with absolutely no colour shift or backlight issues (there isn't one!).

So when I found out that the Galaxy SII had a Super Amoled+ screen I was dribbling with anticipation.

When I turned on my brand-shiny-new Galaxy SII this afternoon however I noticed something I'd seen while toying with the first few SII's I'd handled in the phones4u shops but thought nothing of - the screen is slightly "muddy" although vibrant and there is a definite variation in either brightness or colour shift across the screen from top to bottom - especially visible (almost only visible) on solid colour backgrounds in apps and also Gmail. In know and will state in anticipation that most others wouldn't notice this. Having had my Galaxy S though which had a screen I consider virtually perfect - I was a bit surprised to find that this new SuperAmoled+ screen had a completely different colour temperature and exhibited what looked like colour shift from top to bottom. I was also very surprised that the screen did NOT look as sharp as the screen on my original Galaxy S because these Samoled+ screens are meant to be "sharper". I wonder what the pixel density is compared to the Samoled screens?

Also, when you tilt the phone, the colour of the screen shifts a lot more than the original Galaxy S. Hmmmm......

Anyway - after having just paid around (I am crazy I know) £500 for this phone I feel a little sick.

I LOVE the speed. I love the interface. I know and love Android. I'm surprised by the screen however.

Just thought I'd give everyone a heads-up and HIGHLY recommend you go and have a look at one first before, say, buying online if you are also sensitive to screen uniformity or if you prefer the more "blue" white balance of the original Samoled screens as opposed to a more "yellow" tint - which this SGSII has.

I'm hoping that maybe it will "warm up" and/or "settle in" but I'm not too sure about that. I've tried turning off "auto brightness" and that definitely makes the screen brighter - as you'd imagine - but doesn't seem to help with my issues described above.

Now - onto something else entirely - GPS:

I've only tested this VERY quickly and indoors but the GPS seems to work better than the oroginal SGS. Will do further testing because I use Google Navigation quite a lot but so far I'm hopeful this is now fully resolved. GPS crappyness was one of the main reasons I upgraded and the main lure of this phone was the Samoled+ screen, so I really don't know what I'm gonna do.

The screen issues are so subjective I'm guessing the shop wouldn't consider it a "fault" and so I'd have a fight on my hands with that one.

I think I'll wait a little to see what happens - I think my eyes would get used to the colour balance being slightly warmer but the slight blurriness of the icons/screen and the slightly lighter bottom half (very slight) will probably stay as they are and are very noticeable to me.

Anyway - hope that was of some interest to someone. Any questions - just ask and I'll do my best to answer.