Iphone 4S or Galaxy S2

Dugganator · 12 Oct 2011 at 21:17

I have been really happy with the old trusty 3gs and was considering upgrading to the 4s as I’m out of contract but now I feel stuck and really temped to jump ship to android.

Now I don’t want this to be a fan boy lover and haters thread where people go on pointlessly. What I would like is the facts and reasons why they think said phone is better.

I have done some research myself but haven’t been able to draw a real conclusion.

Things I currently hate about my iPhone
*Just tried updating to IOS 5 its failed all 4 times at different stages first day bug maybe.
*My phone has randomly required restoring a number of times always seemed to crash when I wasnt using it which made it worse.
*ITunes (hate it)
*No flash support (sometimes a pain)
*Phone is locked down to a degree without jail breaking it.

I have never had a android phone but the things that worry me there is:
not so many apps
build quality of the phones (Samsung S2)

Or should I just wait until maybe the next s3, nexus, or windows phone arrives lol

Hopefully someone will help me make a decision and thanks in advance

Brumboy · 12 Oct 2011 at 21:24

Samsung Galaxy S2. The 4S isn't really much faster or has many more features than the SG2. The SG2 is also cheaper! There are plenty of apps..I don't understand the big deal about Apple and their apps..you can find an app for anything on android. I've never had a problem finding one. The build quality isn't as good as the iphone but they're still pretty decent.

The screen is absolutely beautiful, the phone is fast enough for anything and it has many cool features (look on the Samsung website) but it has DLNA, HSPA+ 21Mbps, 8MP Camera with LED Flash, full 1080P HD recording, 4.3" WVGA SUPER AMOLED Plus screen, 16GB storage and a micro SD slot (you can buy 32GB micro sd cards for £30 now).

Also the battery life is actually really really good, update your firmware and get juicedefender. My phone has been unplugged for almost 14 hours and it's at 78%, that's with some music, internet, calls and texts!

Read reviews about both phones, there's a reason the SG2 is the most popular smartphone and has won many awards/5 star reviews. You won't regret it!

nikeair94 · 12 Oct 2011 at 21:25

Personally I would go for the iPhone 4s. I tried out the galaxy s2 but nothing can compare to the iPhones touch-screen. Damn, I wish a device came out with android and a good touch screen.

DIABLO · 12 Oct 2011 at 21:26

Personally i would have a play with a android phone in a shop and see if you like the feel of android, and also i'd wait until the Nexus Prime is announced next week as it may well be better hardware wise then a sgs2.

DIABLO · 12 Oct 2011 at 21:28

nikeair94 said:
Personally I would go for the iPhone 4s. I tried out the galaxy s2 but nothing can compare to the iPhones touch-screen. Damn, I wish a device came out with android and a good touch screen.

Like what? the sgs2 screen is considered the one of the best on any phone like ever.

kona786 · 12 Oct 2011 at 21:29

From the points you made above it seems Android and the SGSII will suite you. Build quality is perfectly fine. Just not as premium feeling as the ip4/s.

Go to the online/web version of the Android market to see if any of the app you want are missing.

Dugganator · 12 Oct 2011 at 21:33

Rossuk89 said:
You won't regret it!

Thanks for that Ross. I have been going towards the S2 but it might be worth waiting I guess a week for the nexus to be announced I guess.

Dugganator · 12 Oct 2011 at 21:33

kona786 said:
From the points you made above it seems Android and the SGSII will suite you. Build quality is perfectly fine. Just not as premium feeling as the ip4/s.

Go to the online/web version of the Android market to see if any of the app you want are missing.

Cheers Ill do that now.

xGBHxPegasus · 12 Oct 2011 at 22:05

kona786 said:
Build quality is perfectly fine. Just not as premium feeling as the ip4/s.

I dont really get why people think the SGS2 feels cheap... To me the IP4 feels like a brick compared too it.

As somone has suggested try out the SGS2 in a store to see how it feels, I know people at work use the "oh its all complicated unlike an iphone" :rolleyes:

Paracelsus · 12 Oct 2011 at 22:26

Got an SGS2 last week and it's perfect. Fast as hell, screen is beyond compare, already found more apps on the market than I possibly have spare time to use, USB Tethering is as easy as tapping one box on the screen, battery life great...

if you hate itunes it's an absolute no brainer to pick even an SGS 1 over it. why you should have to install some awful media player bloatware to use your phone is utterly beyond me

Fallen god · 12 Oct 2011 at 23:33

The 4s and S2 are more or less even in my eyes, the cpu and gpu is abit faster on the 4s but thast to be expected S2 is 6 months old. The screens 4s has better res, s2 looks better and has better colours and so on. s2 wins on prices.

Personally I recommend u see what the new nexus has to offer and how good ICS is vs ios5 before u make any choices. And just try out both phones. Doubt you would be disappointed either way.

kona786 · 13 Oct 2011 at 00:17

Fallen god - The cpu is slower on the 4s when compared to SGS2. Both are Cortex A9's (~800MHz vs 1.2 Ghz)

Emjeadea · 13 Oct 2011 at 00:19

Just finished updating my trusty 3gs to ios5 had to have a couple of attempts, guessing servers were over worked was nearly 700mb for millions of ipad and iphone users

kona786 · 13 Oct 2011 at 00:21

Emjeadea said:
Just finished updating my trusty 3gs to ios5 had to have a couple of attempts, guessing servers were over worked was nearly 700mb for millions of ipad and iphone users

I'll wait a bit then before updating dad's ip4 to ios5.

Pottsey · 13 Oct 2011 at 08:54

kona786 said:
Fallen god - The cpu is slower on the 4s when compared to SGS2. Both are Cortex A9's (~800MHz vs 1.2 Ghz)

But doesn’t the 4s use the GPU more than the CPU like browser acceleration via the GPU? With UI and browser acceleration the CPU is not needed as much.

sunny007 · 13 Oct 2011 at 08:56

Nexus Prime

Pottsey · 13 Oct 2011 at 09:04

Fallen god said:
The 4s and S2 are more or less even in my eyes, the cpu and gpu is abit faster on the 4s but thast to be expected S2 is 6 months old.

Its not a little bit faster, The 4s is around twice as fast. http://www.anandtech.com/show/4951/...rks-800mhz-a5-slightly-slower-gpu-than-ipad-2

Wicksta · 13 Oct 2011 at 09:23

Pottsey said:
Its not a little bit faster, The 4s is around twice as fast. http://www.anandtech.com/show/4951/...rks-800mhz-a5-slightly-slower-gpu-than-ipad-2

The SGS2 is only using one core in those tests.

Dugganator · 13 Oct 2011 at 10:06

Wicksta said:
The SGS2 is only using one core in those tests.

Were those tests done on one core to make it look bad or were all the tests for all the different processors only run on a single core?

Wicksta · 13 Oct 2011 at 10:22

Duggan said:
Were those tests done on one core to make it look bad or were all the tests for all the different processors only run on a single core?

Who knows if they did it on purpose but it's pretty misleading. It's a test of an area that is optimised on iOS5 but not on Gingerbread. Have a look at the Samsung Galaxy 8.9 score on Honeycomb which like iOS fully utilises both cores for browsing. Then compare the Galaxy score to a phone with the same processor (Tegra 2) like the LG Optimus 2x - this should give you an idea how little the test has to do with actual CPU speed. Based on that it looks like the 6 month old SGS2 will trounce the iPhone 4S in this pointless test once Ice Cream Sandwich is released for it in the next month or two.

For a better comparism of actual browser performance there are quite a few side by side videos online and you'll see the 4S and Galaxy S2 are close in the real world, even though the SGS2 has Flash stuff loading.