I needed to turn my HTC Desire into a development machine, as I’ve come far too close to bricking it several times since I’ve been developing apps in HK. This meant that I needed another phone, and luckily the SGS2 was just being released.
First impressions: it’s not a particularly lovely thing, lacking the great industrial design of the iPhone or the OK industrial design of the Desire.
However, it weighs next to nothing, it has a really nice big screen with wide viewing angles and is fast, fast, fast. I very much enjoy that the device memory shows: 400MB used, 1.6GB free with all of the apps I had on my Desire and more loaded. The fact that you still have 11GB or so of internal USB storage and whatever you chose to put in as SD card means it is getting close to being an iPod replacement.
Root is simple: I followed the instructions here, with a diversion to download the most up-to-date drivers to get the phone recognised over ADB (KIES install didn’t do this, even after a reboot) and therefore for SuperOneClick.
Job done. I haven’t flashed a secure kernel back over to get rid of the yellow warning triangle on boot: it didn’t seem necessary.
Let’s see how it holds up to proper usage, but day two seems much better than day one, when it was syncing like crazy. I’ve turned off the Samsung hubs in favour of my preferred apps, and reduced the screen brightness: still easy to see at 15%.
I really do think it is the nearest competitor to an iPhone that I’ve come across.