Samsung Galaxy S II - Tips & Tricks

Pinch at the Calendar's month view to go into year view.

Pinch twice in the stock browser to see your other windows.

With the TouchWiz launcher, pinch at the homescreen or app drawer to go into thumbnail view.

With the TouchWiz launcher, navigate the homescreen or app drawer by tapping or swiping those little dots on the bottom.

In the call history (log) or contacts, swipe left to send SMS or swipe right to call the person.

Tap and hold the notification bar until the bottom shade disappears. This should take about 1 second. Then  swipe laterally to adjust screen brightness.

Press Home + Power button to take a  screenshot. Root not required!

Go to about:useragent in the stock browser to amend the user agent string. Note that the change only applies to the current window/session.

Go to [Settings > Accessibility] or [Settings > Call > Call answering/ending] to toggle on "The power key ends calls". You may also toggle on "Answering key" here to use the Home button for answering calls but that's a personal preference.

Go to [Settings > About phone] and spamming the "Android version" with taps will give you an Easter Egg.

In the Calculator app, slide down the number pad to reveal previous calculations.

Hold the Menu button to bring up contextual search (equivalent of pressing the Search button on other devices).

Press the Home button twice to bring up Voice Command.

Hold the Home button to bring up the 6 most recent apps as well as shortcut to the Task Manager.

In the Camera app, press the Menu button and tap Edit shortcuts to have quick access to up to 4 settings.

In the Camera app, use the volume rocker for digital zoom.

While watching a video with the default video player, press the Power button to lock the screen while keeping it on.

In the Camera app, you can tap the screen to focus on an area other than the center. Alternatively, you may frame the object you want to focus on in the center, tap and hold the on-screen shutter button and then move to reframe the shot to your liking. The focus will lock. Release the shutter button to take the shot. I find this to be faster than using tap-to-focus.

Pressing *#0*# in the phone dialer will bring up LCD test.

In the Email app, pinch to collapse all emails by date.

With the Samsung Keyboard, if you enable "Keypad sweeping", you can access punctuations by swiping laterally across the keyboard.

Personal app recommendations to improve usability.
Dolphin Mini. The stock browser supports hardware acceleration which helps with rendering speeds. But Dolphin Mini is no slouch in this area. I think the ability to permanently set the user agent string and to go full-screen greatly improves the browsing experience.
LauncherPro Plus. Fast and smooth animations. Useful and elegant looking widgets. Highly customize-able. I just find it better in every way than the Touchwiz launcher.
Widgetlocker Lockscreen. Allows you to place homescreen widgets on your lockscreen. Just like in HTC Sense 3.0, allows you to launch applications from the lockscreen.
SugarSync. Auto backup all your phone's photos taken with the cam to the cloud and have that auto sync with your PC.

Samsung Galaxy S II Review

3 words are used to describe the Galaxy S II on Samsung's product page: Vivid. Fast. Slim.

It's hard to disagree with Samsung. The screen is brilliant. Performance is blazing. And the device is so light and thin it is jaw dropping.

Check out the official site for specs and features.

The device has been reviewed by many tech sites and bloggers already. So I'll try to keep from repeating things that have been combed over already.

Aesthetics

How thin and light the device is can't be overstated. You would almost begin to wonder if this was really a functional smartphone.

It's large in hand. Using this device with one hand is difficult at best.

There's no notification light. This won't bother people coming from another device without a notification light. But for those that are used to having a notification light, this omission is glaring.

Back battery cover feels extremely flimsy. Exercise caution when removing and attaching it. But this becomes a none issue once it's actually on the device. Also, it's been shown that the battery cover can actually be bent pretty far and still retain it's shape.

A common criticism is that Samsung phones feel cheap due to the amount of plastic used. Aside from the screen, most of it is indeed plastic. However, it certainly doesn't feel cheap. The device doesn't creak or flex. It feels very solid and high quality in hand.

Super AMOLED Plus screen is brilliant. Blacks are true blacks. Colors are saturated (maybe over-saturated to some). However, whites look more like grays. But it's not too noticeable without a side by side comparison. Pixel density isn't as large an issue as I thought it might be. Text look plenty sharp. I struggle to make out individual pixels.

Standby/Power button is located off to the side rather than the top like it is for most devices. This makes sense given the size of the device. The location on the side makes it accessible with one hand. There's a setting that allows you to set that button to double as a call-end key which is nice.

As much as I like this button configuration, it does take time to get used to. It's easy early-on to accidentally hit the volume rocker as you squeeze the device to hit the standby key (and vice-versa).

The location of the light sensor seems awkward to me. It's located on the device's top left. Most people would rotate the device counter-clockwise to get into landscape mode. But if you do that (especially when typing), your left hand will likely cover the light sensor. If you have auto brightness on, your screen will suddenly dim.

On a related note, the light sensor is extremely sensitive. Slight changes in ambient luminosity will trigger drastic screen brightness changes. For this and the above reasons, it make sense to disable auto brightness. I personally just set it at around 30%.

Performance

The phone is fast, but then you  already know that. I had a quick hands-on with the HTC Sensation which is also a 1.2ghz dual core beast. The Galaxy S II definitely feels faster than the Sensation. Where the Sensation occasionally has the rare lag, the Galaxy S II simply does not.

In my HTC Desire review, I had mentioned that it was fast and smooth. The Galaxy S II, brings new meaning to fast and smooth.

Onscreen keyboard

Comes with Swype. I won't cover that since everyone knows how awesome Swype is. The following applies to the Samsung keyboard.

The predictive text is very good. It's on par or better than HTC's keyboard. The 4.3" screen allows you to type really fast even in portrait mode.

In IM apps like Google Talk, the Enter key is replaced by a dedicated key for emoticons. This is a minor annoyance since I'm so used to hitting the Enter key to send my message rather than hitting the "Send" button located on top.

If you turn on predictive text and start typing, a bar above the keyboard appears that shows you what the keyboard thinks you're typing. Rather than being an overlay, it shifts everything onscreen up to accommodate itself. When you hit the Spacebar, that bar disappears and everything onscreen shifts back down. This repeats when you begin typing your next word. So, what happens when you're typing full speed is everything onscreen just keeps shifting up and down. As such, you'll need to keep your eyes on the keyboard or else you'll just end up dizzy.

The predictive text sometimes kick in when you don't want it to. Eg, when entering email addresses occasionally.

Browser

Going into tabbed view by using the pinch gesture requires you to do it twice. It's nice but, personally, I'd rather just hit the Menu key and tap "Windows". Usually, I'm zoomed in on the web page when I want to switch to a different window. If I want to do the gesture to get to the tabbed view, I need to double tap to zoom out and then pinch twice. Seems more convenient to just do the 2 taps.

Speaking of browser tabs, you can have a maximum of 8. That's a huge improvement over HTC's 4.

In the Touchwiz homescreen and app tray, there are a couple of dots along the bottom that you can swipe to navigate quickly between the pages. These same dots appear in the browser's tabbed view. But you can't swipe along them like you can in the homescreen and app tray. Not a big deal, but it would have made sense to make this feature consistent across the UI.

The notification bar is always on top when using the browser. Would have been nice to be able to hide the bar, but it's not in the way most of the time. It's only in the way when you go full-screen on Flash content.

The toggle to disable mobile website view is missing. A workaround would be to change the browser's user agent via about:useragent. But this change doesn't stick. It only applies to the current session.

Text does not dynamically reflow according to the zoom level. It only reflows at one zoom level, which is the double-tap zoom. Workaround would be to adjust the "Default zoom" in the browser settings to suit your needs.

Browser is fast. Checkerboard patterns rarely appear and in the instances that they do, they last only for about a fraction of a second. On my HTC Desire, the browser starts to get choppy if I enable javascript and Flash. But even with those 2 items enabled, the performance is outstanding on the Galaxy S II.

Adobe Flash performance is great. With the HTC Desire, I was able to play the Flash-based game Plants vs Zombies but animations were choppy and screen presses were not always properly detected. On the Galaxy S II, the experience is much more playable and enjoyable.

Other Software

There's plenty of videos on TouchWiz and the various preinstalled applications, so I'll try to just briefly touch on a few items.

You can have up to 7 homescreens. Unless you root, the main one is always the one on the far left. The homescreens don't loop. That is, you won't be able to get to the far right homescreen from the far left by swiping once. You navigate between the homescreens by either swiping one by one, tapping the corresponding dots on the bottom, or sliding the dots. You can also do a pinch gesture to get to thumbnail view.

The application tray is side-scrolling. The applications are not in alphabetical order and there's no way to quickly sort them other than manually moving them around (unless you root). The layout is eerily similar to iOS. Navigation is done in the same way as the homescreens.

If you integrate your contacts with Facebook, the contacts' Facebook profile picture will be used. However, the photos appears heavily pixelated. Also, the photos sometimes default back to the Google Contacts photo. I can't seem to figure this out.

A few observations on the included widgets:

-There are several widgets which can be resized to show more or less information depending on your needs.

-With all the various clock widgets, tapping them does nothing. It would make sense to have it direct you to the clock application.

-There are 2 widgets named "Agenda". The first one on the list only shows calendar items on the local calendar, not your Google Calendar which is just silly.

-There are widgets for AccuWeather.com, AP Mobile, and Yahoo! Finance. When you tap each of these widgets, you are taken to their respective applications. Yet, these applications are not available in the app tray.

Music Hub appears to only work in limited regions. Unfortunately, it's not supported where I am.

Social Hub attempts to consolidate all your social networking feeds in one area like HTC's Friendstream. While it supports more sites than Friendstream, it's not very practical to use. Most would simply prefer to use the dedicated apps for Facebook, Twitter, etc. It does include a native IM app that supports Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk, and Yahoo Messenger. It gets a bit confusing if you sign in for Google Talk since there's already a dedicated app for that.

Readers Hub is just a portal to access PressDisplay, Kobo, and Zinio. Not much to get excited over.

Game Hub allows you to download game demos which tries to get you to pay full price after it gets you addicted.

Polaris Office is included which allows you to edit Microsoft Office documents. Most people would be more than satisfied with it. It integrates with Box.net which does offer Google Docs integration if you pay a subscription fee. Because of this, I personally prefer Docs-to-go which integrates with Google Docs after just a one-time fee.

Samsung Apps is just another app store. I see no reason to use this over the Android Market.

Misc

A problem with AMOLED screens is that it's impossible for the user to know if the screen is off or it's just displaying black. When you power off the device, the screen goes black for a moment and then it vibrates just a bit to let you know that it's done powering off. Nice touch.

Boot up time is impressive. It took about 15 secs for a cold boot.

Upon charge completion, the screen turns on and the device emits 2 beeps to let you know. I wish it didn't do this.

Conclusion

+ Huge 4.3" Super AMOLED plus screen is gorgeous; Pixel density is surprisingly not an issue.

+ Fast performance throughout.

+ Solid build quality while still being amazingly thin and light.

+ Excellent camera and video capture

+ Substantial amount of internal storage with either 16GB or 32 GB

- Battery life is below average.

- No notification light
- No dedicated hardware camera key

At this moment, it's hard to argue that there's a better handset other than the Samsung Galaxy S II. It's just that simple.
If you want something that's fashionable, get the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc.
If you absolutely can't live without HTC Sense, get the HTC Sensation or EVO 3D.
If you're on a budget but want to get in on the high-end Android scene, get the LG Optimus 2X.
If you're impressed with the docking capabilities of the Motorola Atrix, then get that.
If you're into the Apple craze, then get the iPhone4.
But if you want the absolute best smartphone, there's only one choice and it's the Samsung Galaxy S II.

I could use a new phone...

I've been the proud owner of an HTC Desire for about a year. It's been a great run, but I think it's time I could use a new phone. A few aspects of the HTC Desire that has grown a bit long in the tooth:

AMOLED screen
The screen displays perfect black. That's about the only good thing about AMOLED. Initially, I figured that AMOLED would mean better battery performance, but the difference is negligible. Colors appear to be overly saturated. I think I would prefer a Super LCD screen on my next device.

1Ghz CPU & 576MB RAM
The 1Ghz Snapdragon is plenty fast. But there's a couple of instances where I longed for better performance.
1. Adobe Flash: Displaying Flash content just makes the browser lag. Flash works which I appreciate, but I'd appreciate it more if the experience remains smooth.
2. HTC Sense: There's no problems with the versions of HTC Sense designed for the HTC Desire. But I'm currently running the newer version of Sense that was made for the HTC Desire HD. There's occasional lags here and there. Nothing that breaks the bank but of course, it would be good to do away with the lags. Understandably, the Desire HD has 768MB of RAM. For my next device, I probably won't settle for anything less than dual-core 1Ghz CPU & 1GB RAM.

512MB ROM
512MB just didn't cut it even a year ago. The paltry internal storage was a compromise I was willing to make a year ago. Today, not anymore. I will no longer settle for anything less than 16GB internal storage along with microSD expansion slot.

WVGA resolution (800x480)
To this day, WVGA is still a good resolution for smartphones. That being said, I wouldn't mind qHD (960x540) for my next device.

2-point multitouch capacitive screen
This is a very well-documented and serious flaw of the HTC Desire (along with the Nexus One). The screen just doesn't recognize more than 2 touches on the screen. If one touch point ever crosses the axis of the 2nd touch point, the accuracy of the touch points become erroneous. This doesn't really affect things like pinch-to-zoom. But it does make gaming very frustrating. My next device must have a "true" multitouch screen.

Mechanical hardware buttons
I initially considered the mechanical buttons on the HTC Desire as something advantageous it has over capacitive buttons, like those found on the Nexus One. They were, until they started to break down. Currently, my Search button requires substantial pressure to activate and the paint around my Back button has peeled of so bad that the icon is unrecognizable. Capacitive buttons for my next device please.

What's the deal with WhatsApp?

So many people give high praise to this app as if it's the greatest thing since sliced-bread. Here's how WhatsApp is advertised on their website (www.whatsapp.com)

WhatsApp Messenger is a smartphone messaging app which allows you to exchange messages with your friends and contacts without having to pay for SMS. WhatsApp Messenger is cross platform and available for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android and Nokia (beta) and yes, those phones can all message each other! To send and receive messages, WhatsApp utilizes your existing smartphone internet data plan: 3G/EDGE (or Wi-Fi when available)

So, I don't understand what's the appeal?

1. It advertises itself as a cross-platform smartphone messaging app that utilizes your data connection so you don't have to pay for SMS. Every smartphone platform already comes built-in with such an app. It's called email.

2. Let's be honest with ourselves. WhatsApp is an instant messaging application. Every smartphone platform has apps for the main instant messaging applications already (ie, Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger, AIM, Yahoo, etc)

3. WhatsApp uses your mobile phone number as your user-ID. An instant messaging service provider has no business knowing your mobile number. So, there's actually a privacy/security concern here.

4. WhatsApp is in trial mode for Android. So it's currently free. But it costs US$1 for the iOS and this will certainly be the same for Android soon. Why pay for an app when you already have the functionality native on your device? Who would ever pay just for an instant messaging app? There's not even a desktop client!

In response to the comments:

Using your phone number is the reall clever bit. It means you can instantly see all your friends who also use it instead of having to find out their usernames. It is only an IM app but it's useful because so many people do use it across all platforms.

Like I said, using your phone number is a privacy risk. How do we, as users, know what the guys at WhatsApp are doing with all this information? They can be selling it to telemarketers for all we know.
If WhatsApp is useful only because so many people use it across all platforms, then it will never be as useful as email. Email is used by everyone and it's supported on more platforms.

Alot, if not most of the Mobile IM clients are not always on (i.e., working in the background), you need to sign in to WLM or Yahoo! Messenger. WhatsApp is always working in the background therefore you get the message exactly when it is written. Thats a huge selling feature!!

Yes, for all IM clients, the user has to sign in. Having to sign in is not a flaw. It's an option the application allows the user. You also have the option to sign out. Also, most IM clients include the option to automatically sign in. (Strange enough, you don't have the option to sign out of WhatsApp.)
With Windows Mobile or Android, once you sign in with your IM client, you just leave it in the background. As long as you don't reboot your phone, you are always signed in. I can't say the same for iOS though. So perhaps, this application is really for iOS users because they can't multitask properly?

I still fail to see how WhatsApp is better than email, which:
- is also instant.
- has no limitation on the type of attachments.
- is a native feature to every smartphone. You don't have to pay for and use a separate application.
- doesn't even require you to "add" a person. Just begin typing the recipients name and every smartphone will autocomplete the field for you if you have that person's email in your contact list. If you don't have the person's email in your contact list, just type the address.
- is not only cross-smartphone platform; it is truly cross-platform. Email can be accessed on smartphones, dumbphones, and computers.

Update
I'm getting multiple comments with various insults over this. They're not published because they're simply not constructive. The main purpose of this article is not to say that WhatsApp is terrible. I'm just trying to say WhatsApp is redundant and I find it odd that people are paying for what's essentially an application that provides you with a functionality they already have. So if anyone has an opposing view, then please, let's discuss because I would be interested to know why exactly is this app so popular.
From the comments so far, I respect the following reasons for using WhatsApp:
- Your contacts list is not populated with email addresses.
- You like the IM-style of WhatsApp but don't like to sign in to other IM apps.

Update #2
Wow. I just realized that WhatsApp on Android is free for the first year and then $1.99 per year thereafter. There's a subscription fee and there are still people who use this? It's just appalling to me that people will pay an annual fee for instant messaging.

Update #3
Lots of comments flooding in about how Whatsapp is better than email because of the IM nature of the app. Ok, I get that. Look through the comments and I've conceded that IM is better than email when it comes to chatting.
The reason I initially use email as a point of reference is because email is native to every single smartphone. There's not a single smartphone that doesn't support push email. If you have to open up your inbox to refresh it to see if you have any new emails, then you've set up your account the wrong way. So if you want to send and receive messages or files instantly, you don't need a third party app for it.
But if IM is your cup of tea, why not stick with Google Talk or Windows Live Messenger? There are numerous reputable IM cients available for free. Why support these guys over at Whatsapp?
Also, the previous argument against using other IM apps is that they drain battery. Not anymore. Both Android and iOS support push messaging background services. In fact, Whatsapp uses the same service.

Update #4
Commentors, please stop comparing Whatsapp with SMS. Whatsapp is not SMS, is not emulating SMS, and has nothing to do with SMS.
Can it replace SMS? Sure, but so can every other IM client out there. And they're free, more secure, and more fully featured.
Is a $1.00 one-time fee or a $1.99 annual-subscription a lot of money? No, not at all. But it's all relative. Consider what you're getting before paying for it. If everyone else is offering the same (and better) product without charging for it, what's the logic in paying for an inferior alternative?
It's like if your neighbor bought an ambulance and decided to announce to everyone that he's going to offer ambulatory services. He'll charge you a few bucks and bring you to the nearest hospital. Sure, it's not a lot of money. But why not just call 911?

MiLi Power Miracle HB-B20 Review

Mili advertises this as an "External Power Bank for Digital Products". This is essentially just an external battery. You charge it and it will charge your other devices. If you tend to wander away from a power source for long periods of time, this will come in handy for charging your mobile devices.

Here are the official specs:
Capacity:2000mAh Input: 5V-0.5A(Max.)
Output: 5V-1A(Max.) Charging time:5.4 hours
Self power consumption Time: Up to 5000 hours
Product Dimension:86(L)×48(D)×17(T)mm
Package Dimension:198×110×24mm
Inner Box Dimension:400×208×120mm,15pcs
Carton Dimension:431×415×255mm,60pcs
Gross Weight:10kgs/22.05lb

Here are the Product Features as advertised by Mili:

1. External battery for iPhone*, iPod*,Mobile Phones and other digital products.
2. Small, convenient, easy to use, high capacity.
3. Use USB cable to charge MiLi Power Miracle.
4. 4 LED power indicators.

Other than the device itself, it comes packaged with the following:

• USB cable that allows you to plug different types of tips to support multiple devices.
• It includes tips to support proprietary ports from Apple, LG, Samsung, and Nokia. It also has tips to support the universal standards of MiniUSB and MicroUSB.
• Microfiber pouch.

The device itself. It's just a battery brick. It's small and light. It's about 3/4 of the size of my HTC Desire. There's a single button on the face of the device flanked by 4 LED indicators. Pressing the button will light up the LEDs to indicate how much charge is left. Each LED indicates 25% charge. On the bottom of the device, there are 2 ports. One is an output port which will accept a normal USB. The other port is for input which will accept MiniUSB. There's nothing else on the device. The rest of the device has a shiny plastic finish.

Charging the battery. In order to use the battery, it must first be charged. To do this, you need to plug a MiniUSB cable into the battery with the other end connected to a power source. If you're going to do this as intended by the manufacturer, you'll plug the MiniUSB tip into the provided USB cable. Then plug the MiniUSB end into the battery's input port while the other end goes into a PC's USB port. As noted in the specs, this can take over 5 hours to charge.
I personally use a Blackberry charger which ends in a MiniUSB tip. The other end goes directly into a wall socket. This shortens the charging time to under an hour. It would have made sense for Mili to include a wall charger.

Charging your device with the battery. Plug the USB end of the provided cable into the output port. Use the appropriate tip for your device and just plug it in. The charging process begins automatically. Simple and easy.

I've tested the battery with an iPod Touch and an HTC Desire. Works wonderfully. It seems to provide enough juice to charge each device up to 2 times. I like how the provided USB cable is coiled to keep everything neat and compact. The rate at which the battery charges my devices was quite impressive. It's on par with directly charging my devices via AC/DC. You can continue to use your mobile device while charging via the battery with no ill-effects. It will charge faster than you can discharge it through your usage.

The Good

• Easy to use.
• Support for multiple types of devices.
• Compact and light.
• The provided pouch is quite nice. Handy for preventing you from losing all those connectors.
• Inexpensive. I purchased it for HK$280 (roughly US$35)

The Bad

• Mili should have provided a wall charger. Charging through a PC's USB port is simply too slow.

More camera gear: Nikkor 35mm f/1.8

I told myself I was not going to get more camera gear. But gosh darn it, I couldn't resist.

I got myself the Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 lens.

Reason? It's relatively inexpensive; and I wanted to shoot without flash with indoor-lighting. The use my SB-400 speedlight to bounce the flash was great. But there are times when I just don't want flash. I figured my babies would appreciate being shot without flash as well.

While it's certainly significantly better in low-light conditions compared to my 18-55mm, it's still a thousand times better when used with flash.

The sharpness with the 35mm is remarkable. I also appreciate that it's much more compact than the 18-55mm. This is definitely a lens that I should have bought a long time ago. Unless I want to shoot at a wider angle, the 18-55mm lens is going to be on the back-burner gathering dust.

Here's a test shot with the 35mm (resized 25%).

Here's the same shot with my 18-55mm set at the same focal length.

HTC Desire experience - Custom ROM

A day after rooting, I've taken another step forward in modding my Android device. I went ahead and installed a custom ROM (ie, LeeDrOiD).

I went through all this trouble with rooting and flashing my device; and for what? Just these 3 tiny reasons:

1. Battery indicator showing 1% increments - This feature should be standard on all devices. Without rooting, I would have to install a separate app to achieve similar functionality. I use to use Battery Indicator which shows the battery reading in the taskbar. But it's in addition to the default indicator; it doesn't replace it.

2. Access to paid apps in the Android Market - When I decided that I wanted access to paid apps, I didn't actually have something in mind I want to purchase. I just wanted the option to do so. The HTC Desire already has most of the apps I ever need preinstalled. For most of everything else, there are free selections readily available on the Android Market. To date, I've purchased just 3 Android apps.

Beautiful Widgets: I bought this several months ago when I was in NY and I had access to paid apps (legitimately). I use this only sometimes. I switch to this when I use alternative launchers which doesn't include HTC Sense widgets.

Documents-To-Go: Sure, it's expensive at US$9.99. But this is definitely worth it if you want to do any office document editing on-the-go. I bought this a day after I bought my phone. Thankfully, you don't need access to paid Android apps to buy it. You just download the free version off the Android Market and then pay at DataViz's site to get a registration code.

Fruit Ninja: First app I purchased after rooting and using Market Enabler. Just a silly casual game. It's cheap and fun! 

3. Ability to install all apps to microSD - I find this to be a bit overrated. I find the internal memory capacity just fine for my use. After installing all the apps I need, I find myself still with about 20-30MB free. But I see how this can become a problem for some who needs a ton of apps. Now with all my apps moved over to the microSD, I have about 90-100MB free. But I now have to seriously consider getting a larger capacity card because my 8GB card is about 70% full with all my media and apps.

Can't say anything else about the custom ROM. It's suppose to perform better but I can't really tell from day-to-day use. But performance was never really an issue on stock ROM. Apart from the above 3 items, I just need stability. As long is it doesn't crash on me, it's fine.