I had the Samsung Galaxy S2 for three days but had to send it back because of unacceptable battery life, which only seems to affect some users. Below is a summary of my experience with the phone with its upsides and downsides.

Battery Life

Even with everything that makes the phone attractive turned off, the screen brightness kept down, 3G almost permanently off, WiFi only on when I was actively using it and all the battery saving options settings maxed out  (which are very extensive and helpful) I was still getting considerably less than a day on a full charge with normal light usage. I consciously did a full day with “normal” and not “excited new toy testing” usage and it was still unacceptably bad. I might have been just able to scrape by on this but I still can’t accept it — I want to be able to use the phone, and that means not constantly worrying about whether I can do something because of how much battery it might munch.

There seems to be a serious issue with battery life on the S2 for some users but not for others. Many are reporting outstanding battery performance, getting through nearly two days on a charge, others are having the same experience as I did. This may be related to the Android build. I had the KE2 Gingerbread build on mine, KE7 is supposed to be better. I couldn’t test that because O2 Germany had locked out updates on the handset and I didn’t want to root the phone within my narrow return window. I also didn’t want to risk waiting and no longer being able to return it. However, other users reporting the KE2-related problems were also reporting that Android System was accounting for over 40% of the battery drain and that definitely wasn’t the case for me, mine was just at around 14%, which sounds pretty normal.

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I’ve been using a Samsung Galaxy Tab for a few days, having received one as a Christmas bonus/incentive to develop website versions for tablets. This is my first experience with an Android device and my first tablet computer, although I’ve played with iPads quite a lot and I’ve had an iPhone 3GS for nearly two years. These are just my first thoughts and impressions.

The positive view:

Despite its rough edges, much due to Android 2.2, which is not really a tablet OS, the GTab is a wonderful portable device that has the potential to transform the way you access data on the go. It is radically more portable than the iPad in a critical mass way that makes it much more likely that you will have it with you and available when you want to use it. It has a clear, razor-sharp display that makes reading text a pleasure. Instant on and the ability to have it nearby all the time are already changing the way I access the Net and my data. The ability to read newspapers and magazines is amazingly convenient and eliminates the vague sense of guilt caused by all those dead trees piling up in the corner of the room every week.

The in-between screen size means that its success will depend on a lot of applications and web sites being optimized for it. At the moment, quite a few mobile apps are designed for smaller screens and most normal websites are designed for larger screens. That matters less than you might expect, however. Most of the time I find I get on fine with pretty much everything, and the optimization is happening quickly. An increasing number of online forums use Tapatalk, which makes them wonderfully accessible on devices like the GTab and modern smartphones.

The freedom compared to my iPhone is great. I listen to a lot of podcasts and I love being able to install free apps that automatically synch all my podcasts without having to link up to the desktop or laptop mothership. I also love being able to control everything, or install apps that can.

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