[Galaxy S II General] CrisR82:
Hope you don't mind me re-posting something I wrote on Sammobile's forums...thought I'd give my 2 cents here aswell.

This post is a mixture of review, discussion and reasoning response to the news that came out a couple of days ago about the Samsung Galaxy S2 GT-i9100 probably not getting an upgrade to the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS (found here: http://www.sammobile.com/2012/06/28/android-4-1-or-a-value-pack/).

I've decided to split the content into several parts and highlight in red color the main points of my view on this for those of you that are in a hurry, but I recommend reading it all to see how and why my view is what it is.

PART 1: What are titans made of

Let's start by pointing out the basic facts: Samsung Galaxy S2 GT-i9100 and Samsung Galaxy S3 GT-i9300 are not that different in terms of hardware (obviously S3 is more powerful but the core components are the same).

The hardware differences are:

Screen and resolution (Galaxy S3 has a bigger screen and 720p resolution while the S2 has a 480p)

Galaxy S3 has Bluetooth 4.0 as opposed to 3.0 in the S2

Galaxy S3 comes with a quad-core Cortex-A9 CPU as opposed to dual-core Cortex-A9 CPU on the Galaxy S2

Wolfson sound chip in Galaxy S3 as opposed to Yamaha cound chip in the Galaxy S2

Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=3621&idPhone2=4238

As you can see, excluding the CPU, the other hardware differences are not really what one might call "decisive" when it comes to operating systems.

PART 2: The important facts

To prove my point with all this, the following information must be made clear:

The Samsung Galaxy S2 GT-i9100 was released in February 2011 as Samsung's flagship phone, remaining the most powerful and popular smartphone of 2011 and Q1 and Q2 of 2012, along with winning the best smartphone award for 2011.

The Samsung Galaxy S3 GT-i9300 was released in May 2012 as Samsung's flagship phone achieving incredible sales even before it was released.

Samsung Galaxy S2 GT-i9100 is more powerful in hardware (GPU specifically) than the Samsung Galaxy Nexus (comparative: http://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=3621&idPhone2=4219)

The Nexus family (starting from Nexus S, a Galaxy GT-i9100 class device) phones will all receive the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update, proving that even old phones can handle the new OS (Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/27/google-android-4-1-jelly-bean-coming-to-samsung-galaxy-nexus-m/).

Android 4.1 Jelly Bean is proven to be far more efficient in resources than Android 4.0.X Ice Cream Sandwich.

PART 3: Live or die, when and why

If we take under consideration all the information above, you will find out that the Samsung Galaxy S2 GT-i9100 has more than capable hardware to handle the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS without any negative results.

Then why is Samsung not giving the older brother of it's current flagship the green light for an upgrade at this point? The reasons appear to be solely time and money.

Porting an OS is a time consuming job which often means your employes will be busy doing one thing and not something else. While there are a million Android phones on the market, it's obvious that you cant simply push all of them forward and more often than not,the low and mid-range devices have to be left out to secure the "future" of the high end and flagship devices. This is common not just with phones but pretty much any product in existence.

But while all that is understandable and acceptable in nearly all cases, the Samsung Galaxy S2 GT-i9100 was the previous flag ship for the company and still remains one of the most popular phones on the market, for both it's price and nearly complete dominance over the Dual-Core phone range, so the excuse that the company needs to move forward cannot apply in this case.

At this point you should be asking why was it acceptable with the Samsung Galaxy S GT-i9000 but not with the Galaxy S2 GT-i9100. The answer is fairly simple: the Galaxy S GT-i9000's was Samsung's flagship. It's Hardware was indeed getting too old. It comes with a powerful GPU to handle Android 4.0.X but it packed a 1gHz single core CPU and just 512MB RAM, which was a pretty huge difference when compared to the next best thing, that being the Galaxy S2 GT-i9100. But when you compare the the Galaxy S3 and Galaxy S2, the difference is far, far smaller.

Was the reason why Galaxy S GT-i9000 really a hardware thing, simple smooth-performance thing or a basic commercial push-forward for the new phones will never be 100% clear, but with the Galaxy S2 GT-i9100, the answer is as clear as the high-quality screens the devices come with.

I would like to take a moment here to make something clear: a "flagship" device is the device that will represent the company, usually being the most powerful and high quality piece of work they can offer. One interesting characteristic for hardware flagships is longer life span when compared to other things due to the hardware itself being powerful enough to last longer than the r.

PART 4: True Value?

A Value Pack update still seems nice, why not take it, the features in Android 4.1 Jelly Bean are not that good anyway?

Well, as a regular consumer I personally don't mind being left out of the better voice-search and other similar new or improved features. Afterall, what do the majority of people do with their phones, business work? I'd say not. Gaming, internet, music, video, camera...those are the things most people want and more often than not are the only things that determine for us what phones are good and what phones are bad.

But the true reason why the Galaxy S2 needs the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update is a lot more simple than "features" - pure performance.

There have been several public statements and benchmarks that show a considerable general performance improvement in Android 4.1 as opposed to Android 4.0.X. To me as a user that matters a lot, personally more than any other feature and change in Google's new OS.

PART 5: Conclusion

Why is Samsung in such a rush to bury the Galaxy S2?

Usually there are doubts left. Incapable hardware, device that was on the market too long, and other similar limitations.

In this case however, there is no doubt, if the upgrade is denied to the Samsung Galaxy S2 GT-i9100, it's purely a product-pushing decision.

To me as a consumer, the company's loyalty to me matters a lot for my choice for hardware. If a company turns it's back on me, I'll most likely turn my back on it aswell. I believe most consumers tend to share that point of view. Before I purchased my Samsung Galaxy S2 GT-i9100, I used Android phones from two different companies, one was a mid-low range phone that lasted but a couple of months before it became obsolete, the other one lasted a little over half a year. While the first one didn't disappoint me, afterall it was a cheap and outdated phone, the second one made me leave the company for good, and that was only because the phone was denied support, despite being a fairly popular and new phone.

But here, we are not talking about just a popular phone or a new phone, we're talking about a device that was just two months ago your pride and glory, the ultimate Android flagship on the market. If you're so quick to dismiss a flagship after just one year on the market, I pity the Galaxy S3 already.

So I would like to ask you - don't abandon it, at least not like this.