Samsung I9105 Galaxy S II Plus preview: First look

GSMArena team, 11 January 2013.

It's not the end of the road just yet for the Galaxy S III but it would do well to prepare to pass the torch on. Yet, while the current flagship is coming to terms with mortality, Samsung obviously believes there's still fight left in the old Galaxy S II. The company just unveiled a revamped version of its ex-Number One to take advantage of the software goodies introduced by the Galaxy S III.

Samsung I9105 Galaxy S II Plus official images

The Samsung I9105 Galaxy S II Plus has borrowed the finish of the Galaxy S III and is powered by a new chipset with a Broadcomm GPU. It's not a sea change by any means, but no wonders are expected of the Plus version really. All it tries to do is freshen up a proven formula and help Samsung tighten its grip on the midrange.

General: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS 850/900/1900/2100 MHz, HSDPA 21 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps Form factor: Touchscreen bar phone Dimensions: 125.3 x 66.1 x 8.5 mm, 121 g Display: 4.3" 16M-color WVGA (480 x 800 pixels) Super AMOLED Plus capacitive touchscreen, Gorilla Glass, CPU: Dual-core ARM Cortex A9 1.2 GHz processor GPU: Broadcomm VideoCore IV RAM: 1GB OS: Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean) Memory: 8GB storage, microSD card slot Camera: 8 megapixel auto-focus camera with face detection, touch focus and image stabilization; Full HD (1080p) video recording at 30fps, LED flash, front facing camera, video-calls Connectivity: Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth 3.0+HS, MHL-enabled standard microUSB port, GPS receiver with A-GPS, 3.5mm audio jack, FM radio, USB-on-the-go, NFC (I9105P) Misc: TouchWiz 5.0 Nature UX, DivX/XviD codec support, built-in accelerometer, multi-touch input, proximity sensor, gyroscope sensor

With FullHD screens popping left and right, and quad-core Cortex-A15's, a WVGA Super AMOLED Plus and the dual-core CPU are hardly a geek's wet dream. However, having run a leaked JB test ROM on the original Galaxy S II for a while now, we can confirm that it's a setup that works fine under Jelly Bean, delivering a pretty solid smartphone experience. Probably not one you will crave, but certainly one you wouldn't mind spending your money on.

What will be a bit harder for the Samsung Galaxy S II Plus is convince us that it's worth picking over the original. Perhaps the Koreans simply plan on finally retiring their 2011 flagship and replacing it with the new model, which is obviously in line with their new design language.

  
The Samsung I9105 Galaxy S II at ours

Or perhaps the new chipset and finish have helped Samsung lower the production cost and price the Galaxy S II Plus more competitively than the original version.

Anyway, while the price tag is of utmost importance to users, these are just speculations at this point. So, let's try and focus on how well the changes work, and what kind of performance the Galaxy S II Plus can provide.

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Samsung Galaxy S III mini preview: First look

GSMArena team, 11 October 2012.

The Samsung I8190 Galaxy S III mini is like a nostalgic return to the roots for the highly successful Galaxy S franchise. Quite similar to the original Galaxy S specs-wise, the new SIII mini aims to get as much of the Galaxy S III's personality into a smaller package that's easy on the thumb - and pocket.

The original Samsung Galaxy S III is currently the smartphone to beat, but to many it's too large of a slab to handle. A strong point can be made that a large screen is a must for a great browsing experience or video watching on the go, but not everyone is willing to put up a with the body size such a screen implies.

    
Samsung Galaxy S III mini official photos

The Galaxy SIII mini is ready to deal a serious blow to the competition in the midrange, by offering a more compact (and cheaper!) way to get the premium smartphone experience. An ambitious goal it is, but Samsung isn't afraid of a challenge.

General: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS 900/2100 MHz, HSDPA 14.4 MbpsForm factor: Touchscreen bar Dimensions: 121.55 x 63 x 9.85 mm, 111.5 gDisplay: 4" 16M-color WVGA (480 x 800 pixels) Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreenChipset: 1GHz dual-core processor, Mali-400MP GPU, 1GB RAMOS: Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean); TouchWiz UXMemory: 16 GB of inbuilt storage, microSD card slot (up to 32 GB)Camera: 5 megapixel auto-focus, face and smile detection; 720p (1280 x 720) video recording at 30fps Connectivity: Wi-Fi b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, stereo Bluetooth 4.0, standard microUSB port, GPS receiver with A-GPS and GLONASS, 3.5mm audio jack, stereo FM radio with RDS, NFCMisc: built-in accelerometer, multi-touch input, proximity sensor, Swype text input

Actually, the spec sheet is not even half as exciting as the SIII's. The mini version has the unmistakable styling of the flagship but that's about where it stops. At first glance, it's much closer to the original Galaxy S. In fact, it looks like Samsung is merely publishing a remastered version of their 2010 hit single.

Well, we hate to jump to conclusions. Perhaps, there's more than meets the eye.

  
The Samsung Galaxy S III mini studio shots

We'll only know whether Samsung managed to get enough bang out of the middling specs when we are done with this preview, so let's waste no more time and get going. The hardware inspection starts right after the break.

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Apple iOS 6 preview: First Look

As expected, Apple used the keynote of its annual WWDC event in San Francisco to announce the latest version of their iOS mobile platform. The sixth major build of the OS aims to bring the user experience to the next level with no less than 200 new features, services and UI tweaks.

The number is certainly huge, but then again so were the expectations of the millions of Apple fans around the globe. The fact that iOS 6 will only go official in three months' time heaps even more pressure on the latest release of the platform. By that point Android will probably have Jelly Bean to chew on, while Windows Phone will have released the multi-core friendly Apollo.

The iOS 6 key features include a Siri upgrade, system-wide Facebook integration and brand new Maps with turn-by-turn voice navigation. There're plenty of lesser new goodies such as achievements in the Game Center, new App store UI and the Music app, improved Safari with full-screen mode, better Mail, etc.

The complete changelog is coming up, but first we'll get the issue of compatibility out of the way. iOS 6 is compatible with the three latest iPhone generations (3GS, 4 and 4S), iPad 2 and 3 and the fourth-gen iPod Touch. The first iPad is not on the list, so if you are still holding on to the original Apple slate, you might finally want to consider an upgrade.

A few other restrictions apply, too: the iPhone 4S has finally lost its Siri exclusivity, but it's only going to share it with the iPad 3. The turn-by-turn navigation and the Flyover mode in Maps can be used only on dual-core iDevices - iPhone 4S, iPad 2 and iPad 3.

Now let's not waste any more time and get down to testing. We installed the beta release on an iPhone 4S, so all impressions of the OS are based on its performance. If you have an older-gen Apple smartphone your mileage may vary.

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