Galaxy S II review: The 2011 phone that made Samsung a serious flagship contender.
The 2011 phone that put Samsung on the flagship map.
The Galaxy S II was thin, fast and a massive seller — the device that made Samsung a credible Android flagship maker. A vintage device today.
01Display
36/10036/100 is one of the weaker display results among flagship phones of 2011 — 27 points under the average. Check the rows below before buying for this.
02Camera
28/10028/100 is one of the weaker camera results among flagship phones of 2011 — 28 points under the average. Check the rows below before buying for this.
03Performance
12/10012/100 is one of the weaker performance results among flagship phones of 2011 — 39 points under the average. Check the rows below before buying for this.
04Battery
30/10030/100 is one of the weaker battery results among flagship phones of 2011 — 26 points under the average. Check the rows below before buying for this.
05Build
38/10038/100 is one of the weaker build results among flagship phones of 2011 — 21 points under the average. Check the rows below before buying for this.
06Value
24/10024/100 is one of the weaker value results among flagship phones of 2011 — 22 points under the average. Check the rows below before buying for this.
- Remarkably thin and light for 2011.
- Fast dual-core Exynos and a vivid Super AMOLED Plus screen.
- Removable battery and microSD.
- A huge commercial success.
- Low 800 × 480 resolution by later standards.
- All-plastic build.
- Software ended at Android 4.1.
- Discontinued — a vintage device.
How this review is built: every section score, spec row and comparison on this page comes from SpecEagle's tracked catalogue — scores weight measured specs against the 70-phone cohort of flagship devices released around the same time. We don't publish invented lab anecdotes. Spot an error? .