Thursday, April 25, 2013

Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket Offers Several Features That an iPhone 4S Cannot Match

I got an AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket LTE with Ice Cream Sandwich a few months back and I recently updated it with the official Jelly Bean release from Samsung last week. After a few months of usage, I discovered several cool features of the Galaxy SII that my iPhone 4S just cannot offer:
  • The Galaxy SII can function as a heater. When I feel cold, I simply turn on the phone, play a couple of apps or make a couple of phone calls. In about 5 minutes, the phone will heat itself to a temperature warm enough to make my hands comfortable. 
  • The Galaxy SII takes a solid >6 hours to charge from 0% to 100% battery life, with very light usage during this period (NO phone call or Internet surfing – only standby mode with wifi and network connected). This means if I hates someone, I can retaliate the person by charging my phone at their house. Surely they would really hate me after staying their house for 6 hours, and their electricity bill will drive them crazy. 
  • Occasionally, with the phone fully charged, the Galaxy S II likes to reset its battery by completely draining to 0% and shutting itself during a night of standby. This happened a few times on the nights right before my business trips. That made my morning departs more adventures than the boring, 99% charged iPhone 4S. 
  • After fully charged, the Galaxy S II can lose over 10% of its battery power in 1 hour, just in standby mode. In heavy usage, the phone can drain out its battery in about 2.5 hours. When the Galaxy S II is plugged in, with Google Map turned on, it can draw more power than the power supplied from my car’s cigarette lighter or a laptops USB port (500mA). When I commute outside the office, I can excuse myself to attend only one conference call in the morning, or I can refuse to attend any conference call scheduled in the afternoon because the phone will only last about half a day with light usage. 


  • Thanks to all the Android apps with “back door” data access, I started receiving more and more Spam emails, SMS text messages, robot phone calls, pop up App and subscription recommendations and other weird stuff through the phone. That just makes my life more interesting when periodically a stranger calls and says hello. 
  • Surely Google has made Jelly Bean a lot more stable, compared to the phone’s original Ice Cream Sandwich when I just had it. Ice Cream Sandwich was actually more fun because sometimes it likes to focus in a particular thought for a moment and refuses to answer me. A kick-in-the-ass (i.e. reboot) once in a while is necessary. 
  • When I travel to Asia offices, the Galaxy S II cannot see some of our offices' Wifi networks in range. It’s a perfect opportunity for me to show off that my phone supports 4G and has international roaming plans. 
  • Compared to the iPhone 4S, which is considered by many as “boring” and “no innovation”, I like to think that the Galaxy SII is a Beta operating system (after the Jelly Bean update) running on an Alpha hardware build, that fully satisfies my ego as a gadget enthusiast. 

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