[Galaxy S II General] tameracingdriver:
I've just received my Galaxy S2 today, a bit of an act of faith after the first one, which was IMO at first a very flawed device (a little digging and you can find my previous postings about this).

I've just come from an iPhone 4 myself, via an HTC Incredible S, so I think I can comment on here. To me, the Samsung clearly takes design cues from the iphone, in the design of the icons, the central home button and even the design and some of the features (like the screen shot - home + power)... to me, the SGS2 is like a bastard child of the best android phone and the iphone mixed into one....

IMO this is a good thing. I was bored silly with the iphone, and was sick of how restricted it was, even when Jailbreaked. The iphone 4 is a very nice phone for sure, but really boring to use in the long term (although some like it, and I can see why).

With the SGS2 you get a similar UI, but you also get androids superior functions as well (widgets, live wallpaper, notifications, google integration etc).

As for the SGS2 versus Sense, well TBH I was going to wait for the Sensation, and in the meantime, I made a profit from selling my ip4 and swapping for an Incredible S, and I did so so that I could get a taste of Sense UI. Now, I will say that Sense UI is quite nice, but if I'm being totally honest here, the only things I feel I will miss all that much are the weather and clock widget on Sense and the facebook integration. I do quite like the design of the interface on Sense... and obviously the Sensation is going to have a lot more eye candy again...

Having said all that, there are some things I am not so keen on with Sense. For example, it can at times feel a little "clunky" in places, I am not a fan of the keyboard (I know this can be changed) what with the arrow buttons underneath (not needed IMO), and I just got a feeling that it was slowing the phone down slightly.

Now, when I got the SGS2 I did feel as though I'd probably just dump TWLauncher straight away, but you know what, I think Samsung have really done quite a good job with TW4 to the point where I'm honestly not sure that I can say I prefer Sense any longer. It feels lighter and less bloated, it has some nice touches (task manager, power toggles in the notification, resizing widgets, deleting screens (which you STILL can't do in Sense), folders in the App drawer and so on). Now I'm still not a huge fan of some of the included widgets (but the new calendar widget is superb IMO), and I don't think I'll use the hubs much.

I'm not actually sure whether the Sensation will be able to compete in pure speed and performance terms with the SGS2 which frankly seems to go like a rocket. In fact, the SGS2 seems to fix much of what was wrong with the first phone. I really like it.... BUT... I haven't tested the GPS, yet! :eek:

As for the iphone 4 versus the SGS2, once you get over the fact the apps quality isn't quite up there (especially games), you won't look back. Although the iphone 4 feels and looks a more premium product, the Samsung is actually a nicer thing to handle, feels more comfortable in the hand... but other than that, seriously, there seems to be no competition here really, the SGS2 is MUCH better than the iphone 4 really... better camera, MUCH faster, far bigger screen (trust me the iphone 4 looks REALLY tiny compared) and far less restricted.

If this phone lives up to its early promise then I can tell you now that this is one fine phone, and Samsung may have finally delivered the kind of phone everyone knew they could if they put their mind to it... but time will tell ;)