Samsung Galaxy S II Makes its Official Indian Debut

Samsung’s biggest, baddest smartphone i.e. the Galaxy S II has officially been introduced to India today. The GT-I9100 is set to be a serious powerhouse and major competition to LG’s Optimus 2X P990. It’s designed to be lightweight (116g) and slim enough (8.5mm, thinnest Android phone so far) for ease of use and with a 1.2GHz Dual Core processor, the fastest phone on the market. Of course we’ll have to see how it really performs after a thorough review.

Here’s another quick look at the S II’s specs -

• 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus Gorilla Glass display sporting a 480 x 800 pixel resolution with 16 million colors
• 4G (HSPA+ 21MBPs), EDGE/GPRS, Wi-Fi with DLNA compliance(AllShare), Wi-Fi hotspot support, Wi-Fi Direct
• GPS with a-GPS
• Bluetooth 3.0+HS, USB 2.0 with MHL for media out and USB-on-the-go
• 8MP AF camera with LED flash supporting 1080p video capture @30fps
• 16GB and 32GB capacities with 32Gb microSD card support
• NFC support
• DivX, XviD video codec support with 1080p video playback support

The Dual-core 1.2GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor with a MAli-400MP GPU and Orion chipset running Android 2.3 aka Gingerbread with an all new TouchWiz UI, should ensure speedy functionality on the Galaxy S II. The processor should also be able to deliver a high-end 3D performance for both gaming and video. 

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Complete with full HD video support and so much more

The Galaxy S II’s Super AMOLED Plus display is designed to introduce the best in quality in colour gamut, contrast ratio and edge sharpness. Using Real Stripe screen technology and a greatly increased sub-pixel count, Super AMOLED Plus should complement the mechanics of the human eye to recognize images, look clearer and more detailed than ever before. It’ll also provide a wider viewing angle and increased visibility in outdoor environments. The AMOLED display will also help reduce battery consumption to an extent.

The Samsung GALAXY S II will also feature the Samsung Voice Solution that’ll allow users to open the app to control messaging, social media, email and calling through voice recognition. It supports voice to text and vice versa with language support. For swift and simple device management, Samsung has introduced Kies Air. With Kies Air, consumers can manage their smartphone contents from their PC, via local Wi-Fi connections, download photos taken on the built-in camera, listen to music, check missed calls and send messages in the web browser on their PC. For added connectivity, Wi-Fi Direct allows consumers to connect to wireless-enabled PCs and printers without the need for wireless access points. According to market requirement, the GALAXY S II is able to incorporate Near Field Communication (NFC) technology to support emerging mobile payment service and other services with mobile operators.

The Samsung Galaxy S II will be priced at Rs. 32,890 which seems like a pretty good price to pay considering the feature set. Consumers can pre-book a Galaxy SII online for Rs 1,000 and avail exclusive online offers with the Galaxy S II. The company will be making the Galaxy S II exclusively available across the Vodafone channel from June 3rd and across the Samsung Smartphone channel from 9th June on a pan India basis. All consumers buying a Galaxy S II will get 1GB of 3G data download free per month for a period of 6 months from Vodafone.

You can read our hands on preview here while we work on our review.