14 DAY TRIAL // Samsung's Galaxy S II is one of the most appealing mobile phones that arrived on shelves with Google's Android operating system on board, with over 3 million units sold in less than two months after its official release.
The handset comes with powerful and fast 1.2GHz application processor inside, complemented by 1GB of RAM, and can deliver increased performance levels, but there is always room for more, that's for sure.
Whether it involves typing on this device, or killing applications to improve battery life, various tricks can easily make the high-end device an even more appealing smartphone.
For example, when the battery is drained faster than it should, users can easily fire up the task manager by holding the homescreen button, where they are able to kill apps that they no longer need to be running.
Also very important on a powerful smartphone like Galaxy S II is the fast access to applications, simplified in a way through the option of selecting the four apps that will have shortcuts displayed at the bottom of the homescreen.
These shortcuts can be easily reassigned to different applications, by tapping on applications at the bottom-right corner, then hitting the physical menu button. Thus, all apps on the handset can be reorganized.
Also for fast access, users can set up a number of seven homescreens on Galaxy S II, each with its own set of applications, organized as users would consider them best fitted.
Moreover, some of the widgets that Samsung loaded on the device enable users to enlarge them a bit, so as to display more info than a regular-size icon would do.
To resize a widget, one would simply have to tap and hold without moving it. Of course, not all widgets would allow resizing.
To easily move between the said seven screens, users can either swipe to the left or right, or pitch the screen to an overview of all of them.
Typing speed on Galaxy S II can also be speed up, through using the Swype keyboard that was loaded on the handset right from the start. When the keyboard appears, users can tap on the settings ‘cog’ in the corner, and then select Swype as the input method.