Hey all, I wanted to start a thread to have a discussion about these two things that are my only disappointments in this phone.
Let me start by saying I think this phone is awesome, and yes I feel there are a few other faults on the phone (lockscreen delay when running off the battery due to the CPU taking a second to kick in, weak GPS/wifi signal sometimes, heavy banding on gradients etc) But those are software issues and I know in the near future Samsung/Devs will sort this out.
But I had some big complaints that aren't (still I hope not) software issues. Firstly;
- Response Time.
By this I mean when you buy a new monitor and the response time is listed as 4ms or whatever. This is the time the pixel takes to make a full change. A slow response time will cause ghosting. And that's exactly a issue that the Samsung Galaxy SII faces. Ghosting.
I've gone through 4 replacement SII's for various reasons, and on all of them they ghosted. So it's not just my phone. Samsung bizarrely states the response time is 0.001ms which would be there would be no ghosting at all. However there is, quite a bit actually, by my testing the screen is actually around 6-8ms.
I want to see if anyone else notices it. I know there's been a couple of threads on this but I want to see if the majority of people notice this. Here's how to test, go onto white page with black text on, and then scroll down the page at a moderate pace, not to fast not too slow, try it at different speeds as well just in case you don't get it right.
The easiest way I find to do this is use the inbuilt stock news app, load up any story and it'll give you a long white page with black text you can scroll through. As you may notice if you got a decent set of eyes on you, the text will leave a trail. Also known as ghosting. To me, I find this absolutely unacceptable on such high end device.
- Colour
Also, as it's been widely reported and has been noticeable on all my GSII's, the colour temperature is very 'cool', nowhere near the perfect 6500k. As a result, white's look very blue. This is fine and you hardly notice it on it's own, however when I'm using the device at my PC, which I use on a 32" IPS panel TV I professionally calibrated, the whites on the GSII look more blue than the ocean! Technically this is a software problem and can easily be sorted when custom roms come along but jeez, this is some bad stock colour calibration.
Also when you tilt the display, the viewing angles are generally very good, however tilting the display by pretty much any angle adds an extra blue tint to the screen on an already blueish screen.
I'm an absolutely screen quality perfectionist so these points really get to me. Especially considering this is such a high end device.
Overall I'd give the display a 6.5/10.
After the colour temperature has been sorted, I'll give it a 7.5/10.
If the ghosting can get minimized somehow even slightly through software on top of that, I'd give it an 8.5/10.
Secondly;
- Touch Screen
Now we all know about the movement deadzone/threshold on the touch screen which is massively annoying, but hopefully that'll get fixed in the near future. But What I'm going to complain about is the low sensitivity of the touch screen is the best way I can describe it.
On my HTC Desire, I can tap the screen ridiculously lightly and quick, and the device will register the input, absolutely no questions asked. Absolutely brilliant.
However on the GSII the sensitivity seems to be a lot lower, I can tap the screen lightly and quickly and the screen won't register the touch at all. This is pretty damn annoying as sometimes I just tap the screen lightly normally and I have to retap things. Not very often but still. I wish the device was as sensitive as the HTC Desire.
In it's current state I'd give the touch screen an 8/10.
If the movement deadzone and sensitivity got fixed, it'd be a 10/10.
Now I'm sure I had more to write about but I've forgotten now. I'll edit it into the post if I can think of the other things.
Now as I said, I think the GSII is a smashing phone, sure there are a lot of niggles at the minute, but I know they'll get sorted soon. Just the points I've outlined in this thread are things I'm scared won't get sorted. But you never know, I'm really hoping they can get sorted/do get sorted.
As I said I've had 4 Galaxy S2's all had the above issues, and I've used 2 other S2's from friends who also have these issues, so it's widespread, I'm just curious if people actually notice it.
I've added a poll to the thread regarding these issues. Please don't lie to yourself about this stuff, if you notice it, please answer honestly
Let me start by saying I think this phone is awesome, and yes I feel there are a few other faults on the phone (lockscreen delay when running off the battery due to the CPU taking a second to kick in, weak GPS/wifi signal sometimes, heavy banding on gradients etc) But those are software issues and I know in the near future Samsung/Devs will sort this out.
But I had some big complaints that aren't (still I hope not) software issues. Firstly;
- Response Time.
By this I mean when you buy a new monitor and the response time is listed as 4ms or whatever. This is the time the pixel takes to make a full change. A slow response time will cause ghosting. And that's exactly a issue that the Samsung Galaxy SII faces. Ghosting.
I've gone through 4 replacement SII's for various reasons, and on all of them they ghosted. So it's not just my phone. Samsung bizarrely states the response time is 0.001ms which would be there would be no ghosting at all. However there is, quite a bit actually, by my testing the screen is actually around 6-8ms.
I want to see if anyone else notices it. I know there's been a couple of threads on this but I want to see if the majority of people notice this. Here's how to test, go onto white page with black text on, and then scroll down the page at a moderate pace, not to fast not too slow, try it at different speeds as well just in case you don't get it right.
The easiest way I find to do this is use the inbuilt stock news app, load up any story and it'll give you a long white page with black text you can scroll through. As you may notice if you got a decent set of eyes on you, the text will leave a trail. Also known as ghosting. To me, I find this absolutely unacceptable on such high end device.
- Colour
Also, as it's been widely reported and has been noticeable on all my GSII's, the colour temperature is very 'cool', nowhere near the perfect 6500k. As a result, white's look very blue. This is fine and you hardly notice it on it's own, however when I'm using the device at my PC, which I use on a 32" IPS panel TV I professionally calibrated, the whites on the GSII look more blue than the ocean! Technically this is a software problem and can easily be sorted when custom roms come along but jeez, this is some bad stock colour calibration.
Also when you tilt the display, the viewing angles are generally very good, however tilting the display by pretty much any angle adds an extra blue tint to the screen on an already blueish screen.
I'm an absolutely screen quality perfectionist so these points really get to me. Especially considering this is such a high end device.
Overall I'd give the display a 6.5/10.
After the colour temperature has been sorted, I'll give it a 7.5/10.
If the ghosting can get minimized somehow even slightly through software on top of that, I'd give it an 8.5/10.
Secondly;
- Touch Screen
Now we all know about the movement deadzone/threshold on the touch screen which is massively annoying, but hopefully that'll get fixed in the near future. But What I'm going to complain about is the low sensitivity of the touch screen is the best way I can describe it.
On my HTC Desire, I can tap the screen ridiculously lightly and quick, and the device will register the input, absolutely no questions asked. Absolutely brilliant.
However on the GSII the sensitivity seems to be a lot lower, I can tap the screen lightly and quickly and the screen won't register the touch at all. This is pretty damn annoying as sometimes I just tap the screen lightly normally and I have to retap things. Not very often but still. I wish the device was as sensitive as the HTC Desire.
In it's current state I'd give the touch screen an 8/10.
If the movement deadzone and sensitivity got fixed, it'd be a 10/10.
Now I'm sure I had more to write about but I've forgotten now. I'll edit it into the post if I can think of the other things.
Now as I said, I think the GSII is a smashing phone, sure there are a lot of niggles at the minute, but I know they'll get sorted soon. Just the points I've outlined in this thread are things I'm scared won't get sorted. But you never know, I'm really hoping they can get sorted/do get sorted.
As I said I've had 4 Galaxy S2's all had the above issues, and I've used 2 other S2's from friends who also have these issues, so it's widespread, I'm just curious if people actually notice it.
I've added a poll to the thread regarding these issues. Please don't lie to yourself about this stuff, if you notice it, please answer honestly
