Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket
Average Ratings
31 Hours
31 Hours, that's how long I owned this phone before I took it back.
Pros: Android
Camera
Samsung
Nice ring tones
Cons: Slower than slow (Versus my Atrix that I have had for 6 months)
Battery life is less than half of my Atrix
Too big for me (I am 6'4"), just not a comfortable feel and I needed to use two hands at times.
I like extended battery life & a phone that is easy to carry in any pocket or in a holster. This phone has the whistles and bells that no other Android phone has but it's just not for me.
A for effort, F for execution
I only had this phone for a day and a half before I returned it. Actually I had 2 of them in that time frame...while the Samsung Galaxy SII series are generally excellent phones that have deservedly won many accolades, this model is seemingly not ready for prime time. I live just outside of DC and can access the new LTE towers. The problem is, the Skyrocket had major difficulties accessing the towers and was not even defaulting to HSPA+
I realized my phone was not accessing data (although it had full signal) an hour after purchase. I returned to the store and they acknowledged it was not working. Over the course of an hour they tried 3 SIMs and exchanged the phone out and still only sporadically found the network. As a side note, a guy came in the store to purchase a Skyrocket for himself and also had problems. They asked me to keep it a day or 2 to "see if the LTE settles down" and the entire next day I was without data at work.
To clarify: the LTE network works and is fast- when Speedtest worked I got tests like 22s/14u and 15d/15u- however the phone itself could not "see" that data connection to do anything. Google maps couldn't triangulate off the network, browser did not work, etc.
I spent an hour with business data support and they acknowledged that everything was provisioned properly and no towers were down and could only offer the suggestion that the handset itself was bad. Since that was already handset #2 and I had seen a guy at the store with issues with his, I decided the Skyrocket must poorly designed or rushed to market. The HTC Vivid does not impress me much, so I will have to wait for LTE on at&t.
Pros: nice design, loud ring tones, great screen
Cons: weak vibrate (Samsung cannot get this right on any phone), so-so battery life
Major Cons: was a text message-only machine away from a wi-fi network
I hope they can work out any kinks or my store just got a shipment of duds, but I decided to return it and wait.
Nice device- inconvenient phone
I got one for me and one for my wife. We were spoiled by our Windows phones with their Voice Command and high level of app integration, but didn't know it.
The Galaxy S II Skyrocket feels great in the hand and the screen is bright. The 1.5 GHz dual core CPU and 1GB or RAM make performance very snappy, lag-free. It finds our Wi-Fi network right away and switches to it as soon as it does, so there's no need to fool with any settings once the network is setup. AT&T's LTE is blazing fast.
The call quality is very good, and the included wired hands-free stereo headset is excellent.
But there's a problem: No way to voice dial without installing a separate app. No way to use bluetooth to voice dial ever. That's a deal breaker for us. It also amazed us that AT&T's best phone (as of December 20th, 2011) can transcribe email beautifully (if you have a network connection), but can't find a single contact in your list by voice. If you have never seen Voice Command formerly a separate app, now standard on Windows phones since WM6- check it out, and you'll understand our frustration. With it you can not only dial and contact and number, but launch apps, show a specific contact, have your days agenda read to you, get the device status read, and much more- all without touching the device.
There's no way to sync the contact list, calendar with Outlook. I used CompanionLink which did a synch of sorts, but wound up with to contact lists both containing all my Outlook contacts. The one from Deja Office had the categories, but not the main list.
Pros:
Big, bright screen (but low res)
Lots of memory and processing power
Fast LTE connection
Transition from 3G/4G to Wi-Fi automatically
Good voice quality
Great camera and video
Large memory plus Micro SDHC slot
Decent battery life
Cons:
No built-invoice dialing capability
No bluetooth dialing available
No voice integration with basic device functions
Android is just a collection of apps with almost no interaction between them
