Summary: The Galaxy S II is a high end phone, and quite easily the best Android phone available on the market right now. It remains to be seen how well it will stack up with other android phones to be released later this year with qHD screens or with the next version of the iPhone. Though given the speed of the phone, the screen quality, the camera and the battery life the competition will have to fight hard.

Though, it won’t be to everybody’s liking. Some will find the phone to be too big, whilst others may dislike the cheap build quality of the back cover, or the poor keyboard or even the fact that it runs the Android operating system. However, I think much like the previous version of this handset, this phone will prove to be quite successful among the masses.

The original Galaxy S made quite a few waves when it was first released, and created high expectations both from Samsung and for other high end smartphones. Unsurprisingly, big things were to be expected from the next high end android iteration from Samsung. Enter the Galaxy S II, read on to find out if it delivers.

Hardware

With a 4.3 inch screen boasting super AMOLED plus technology, WVGA resolution of 800 x 480 and a dual-core processor the phone is certainly a beast – both on the outside and in. Thankfully it seems that Samsung thought about this during the design process, because as soon as you pick up the phone it’s hard to believe how impossible thing it is.

Boasting dimensions of 125.3 x 66.1 x 8.49mm (it’s the thinnest phone available in the market right now), weighing just 116g and the screen covered with the toughened gorilla glass it feels great in your hands. The only negatives here are how thin and low quality the plastic rear cover feels, which also makes the phone slightly slippery to hold in the hands.

Surprisingly the first thing you notice when you pick up the phone is not how big it is, or how thin is or even the flimsy back cover – instead the first thing you will notice and admire is the superbly vibrant and crisp screen.

The screen is so bright and colourful with images so realistic and the viewing angles so wide that you’ll be forgiven if you mistook it for a display model. Even though screen doesn’t pack the pixel density of some of the upcoming phones with qHD screens (with resolutions of 960 x 540), personally I prefer it to the LCD screens, as it proves to be quite readable even in bright sunlight.

Under the display lies the physical home button, with two touch-sensitive keys on either side (menu on the left and back on the right) and though the phone is lacking the search key most android users might be used to, holding the menu key will invoke the same function. On the leff edge rests a thin, slim volume rocker and on the right edge lives the power/lock button – this again may take some getting used to depending on your previous handset.

On the top edge lives the standard 3.5mm headphone jack, and on the base is a microUSB port which doubles up as a HDMI out assuming you have the correct cable.

On the front lives a 2 mega-pixel camera for video calling and vanity shots, and on the back lives the 8 mega-pixel camera with neighbouring single LED flash. Along with all this there are the usual accelerometer, digital compass, g-sensor and GPS / A-GPS; connectivity is provided by quad band GSM and HSPA, Bluetooth 3.0 and WiFi a/b/g/n. Keeping everything running is a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM and 2GB of ROM – there is also 16GB of internal memory (11GB available) and can be extended with with up to 32GB of microSDHC memory card.

Software

Samsung, thankfully, has loaded the latest version of Android 2.3.3 (Gingerbread) – this is dulled slightly with the presence of TouchWiz 4.0.

TouchWiz is OK, but if you’re used to the stock version of Android (as I am), it feeling a little bit lacking. Though with a little bit of practice and patience one can easily get used to it. Nevertheless, TouchWiz does have it’s advantages for example the selection of widgets.

There are other more useful features too, best of which are the shortcuts in the notification areas which allows you to quickly activate/deactivate WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, Sound and auto-rotation. In addition you get seven home-screens, the various hubs (social, music, reader’s & game) and some interesting redesigns some which you will love, and some you will hate.

I love the calendar redesign which is not only more useful, but also looks rather better. However I hate the keyboard Samsung has chosen over the stock keyboard. It tends to lend itself to a lot more mistakes than the stock, and also sucks at auto-correction, such as auto-capitalization and inserting apostrophes and other punctuation.

Quite honestly fast text entry is pretty much out of the question using the stock keyboard. Thoughtfully, it seems Samsung foresaw this problem and has included Swype keyboard. I would recommend that you change the default to Swype or another keyboard (I personally prefer Swift Key) as soon as you get the phone.

There is also a variety of other apps included, such as photo and video editors, Polaris office, an IM client and several diary and memo apps, none of which I have used even once since getting the phone, but others might find useful.

Then there are a couple of additions under the Motion settings, which utilizes the accelerometer to zoom in-and-out of images and web pages and to navigate between [home and app] screens by tilting left and right. Neither of these features I found of my use. The turn over feature is quite useful, which allows you to mute incoming calls and sounds by turn your phone over.

One of the most useful app included is Kies air. Running Kies air on your phone will give you an IP address which you simply enter into your browser, this then allows you to browse multimedia files, contacts music and messages over the wireless connection. The obvious limitation is that your computer must be connected on the same WiFi network as the phone. If Samsung could bring 3G support for this it would be an even more awesome app.

Performance

The with the latest version of Android, a hearty 1.2GHz dual-core processor and an astonishing screen using the phone is a very pleasant experience. The phone just flies, and does not slow down a bit no matter what you throw at it.

I experience no lag whatsoever while fighting off an onslaught of zombies in Plants vs Zombies or while jumping up and down in the world of Corby. Similarly watching HD videos or browsing the web is a smooth experience.

However do note that since the device doesn’t carry a Tegra 2 chip, you wouldn’t be able to download and play the games specifically designed for this – which, to be completely honest, is not such a big deal.

Similarly performance is extremely speedy when browsing maps, with Google maps pinpointing my location extremely quickly with zooming in out of maps was lag free. The combination of the speedy rendering and the big screen makes the phone a very good substitute for a sat-nav.

Galaxy S II scored 3367 in Quadrant standard edition.

Camera and multimedia

The main camera holds it own at a very respectable 8 megapixels, and shooting full HD 1080p video making the phone a well rounded multimedia device. The photos that are captured are very natural looking with accurate portrayal of colours; unfortunately the same can’t be said for photos taken in the dark, however the single LED flash helps a little here.

Similarly the videos recorded give an accurate depiction of the subjects being shot, with the focus working well most of the time. The focusing seems to struggle when recording fast moving objects or when there are huge contrasts in lighting.

The 2 megapixels camera on the front is only really good for video chat, other than that I would only really use it for vanity shots you there is no other option.

Within the camera app, surprisingly, there is a bucket load of customisation options allowing you to change ISO, white balance, resolution, metering and a whole lot more. In the video mode, you can change the resolution from 1920 x 1080 to the MMS friendly of 176 x 144.

Multimedia playback is well supported with a long list of codes included. Video can be in MPEG4, H.264, H.263, WMV, DivX, Xvid and VC-1. Audio can be in MP3, OGG, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR-NB

AMR-WB, WMA, WAV, MID, AC3, IMY, FLAC and XMF; in addition there is support for 5.1 channel pseudo-surround sound when you plug in your headphones.

Calling and messaging

Call quality is well handled thanks to noise reduction feature, similarly the sound quality is excellent over the earpiece and loud speaker.

Video calling is also quite well integrated into the system, however I was only able to use it once due to the lack of my contacts that possess the ability.

One of the best features when it comes to the phone application is when you finish a call, you are given a brief option to re-dial the same person (audio or video call) or send a text message – especially useful if you forgot something.

Messaging is standard business. There is a plethora of messaging options, how many of these you use will depend on the number of networks your subscribe to – there is options for POP/IMAP emails, exchange support, Gmail, Google Talk and support for various other IM client. Samsung’s social hub does well to collate messages from all these sources to one location.

Battery

With so much included in the phone, including the big bright screen, a screaming fast dual-core processor and so much wireless connectivity you’d be forgiven to think that the Galaxy S II battery life would be equivalent to a sprinter than a endurance runner.

In this case you’d be wrong. I was pleasantly surprised to see how well the standard 1,650 mAh battery coped during day-to-day use.

The battery lasted through a full day of constant use which included some gaming, internet browsing, shooting some pictures and videos and navigating using Google maps – all of this with wireless and push email switched on resulted in the battery lasting for a miraculous 28 hours!

Pricing

Since the release the price of the phone has gone down slightly from the original £509 ($899) for the SIM-free and unlocked 16GB version to a little more reasonable £498.84 ($799) (amazon.co.uk and amazon.com link). Or you could get it for free on 24 months contract from as little as £29 per month. The pricing may seem high but in reality it is priced quite competitively other among other high-end smart phones including the iPhone 4.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you would have heard of the recently and much hyped Nexus One.

I was eager to get my hands on the phone and to find out where the phone lives up to the hype, or is it just another over-hyped empty shell. I’ve now had a little time to play around with the phone, and I can tell you that it completely dominates the field.

Read on to find out more.

[All the images for the post are at the bottom of the post in the image gallery]

Initial impressions

Before you get even lay your eyes on the phone the box instantly grabs your attention (at least it did for me). Google have opted to go for an extremely minimalistic approach (see image below). There are no specifications, no product images or anything.

Personally, I welcome this approach – I’ve already bought the phone why does it need to resold to me to again?

In the box: Once inside you will the handset, battery, sync cable, a soft case, and charger.

On the surface

The first time you hold the phone in your hands, you realise just how sleek and light the device is. It really is a pleasure to just hold it in your hands.

It’s got a beautiful and bright 3.7-inch AMOLED screen, running at a resolution of 800×480 pixels. It has the only four buttons on the front (back, menu, home and search (of course!)), plus a trackball, which by the way is able to display multiple colours.

Other than that there is the usual volume buttons on the side, the power and 3.5mm headphone jack on the top and usb port and dock connectors at the bottom.

All of this is house in a gorgeous and thin chassis (it’s thinner than a #2 pencil!), and with the battery attached weighs only 130g.

I should mention that setting up the phone is extremely easy to do. When you first turn the phone-on you simply sign-in or sign-up to a Google account and within minutes your phone is populated with your emails, contacts and calendars.

N.b. You can also get the phone custom engraved, I chose not to, but from the examples I’ve seen it looks pretty cool.

Under the hood

Under the hood the phone is running a 1GHz ‘Snapdragon’ Qualcomm QSD 8250 processor – which basically means a really fast processor – and it is exactly that.

The processor handles the the visual enhancement that come included with Android 2.1 (live wallpapers, 3D effects on menu, and other animations) extremely well. During general use I’ve not noticed any lag.

Although there was occasional lag if I had Twidroid (twiter app), music player and browser running at the same time but this only seem to be apparent if I chose to go to the home screen – and even then only occasionally.

Elsewhere the phone has the usual GPS, stereo Bluetooth, digital compass, light and proximity sensors and accelerometer onboard. It also features two mics for active noise cancelling, which I’ve found to work like a charm.

Wi-Fi is provided in B and G variety also I have read at several instances that the phone is capable of wireless N, though whether this is true or not remains to be seen.

Camera

The camera’s 5 megapixel with an LED flash, and the quality compared with my previous phones (HTC Touch Pro 2 & HTC Hero) is great. There is 2x digital zoom, with autofocus from 6cm to infinity.

Of course, the camera is also able to capture video at 720×480 pixels at 20fps (or higher), and you are able to upload the videos directly to YouTube (this works very well, though due to the size of the video files you are only able to upload videos via Wi-Fi).

The single LED flash seems to work well enough, but perhaps it may have been better to have two. The only real complain I have with the camera is that sometimes it can take a little too long!

Have a look at the sample images and video below to gauge the quality for yourself.

Battery

Of course being a cell phone, the battery life is quite an important factor, Google promises:

• Up to 7 hours talk time on 3G (up to 10 on 2G)
• Up to 250 hours standby time on 3G (up to 290 on 2G)
• Up to 5 hours of Internet use on 3G (up to 6.5 on Wi-Fi)
• Up to 7 hours of video playback, and
• Up to 20 hours of audio playback

These seem to be more or less on par with what I found during my time with the phone. However, I would emphasise that if you use the phone on a regular basis, then likely you will need to charge the phone on a daily basis.

The good news is that the battery is removable which means that you can purchase and keep a spare with you for emergency use.

Software

The nexus one boasts the latest build of Google’s mobile OS, Android 2.1 (Eclair).

If you’ve used an android device before (one that isn’t running a custom skin like HTC Sense), is that it packs a lot of eye candy – from the home screen, to the menus, to certain applications and widgets.

There are certain features that there purely for cosmetic value, such as the live wallpapers (theses are wallpapers that you can interact with), and others that make the device much more fun to interact with.

Here are some of features that I thought were particularly neat:

• The home screen: the home screen now boasts five tabs or pages to place your apps, up from the previous three. The screen you’re on is shown by dots on button corners of the screen, and if you long press on these you get a card like overview of all your pages.
• The menu as well as the icons have also been given an overhaul. The icons look great and the menu has a 3D rolodex thing going on.
• One of the best features is voice search (though this was also available in Android 2.0), and the brand new speech-to-text ability. The most impressive thing is that this works for almost all text field (except fields for things like username and passwords for obvious reasons!). This is an extremely useful feature, for things like texting whilst driving etc. It is accurate (as long as you speak as if to a little child), but the only problem is that it seems to require the use of an active data connection so it doesn’t work a 100% of times.
• There are also a couple of very useful widgets – first is a “Power control” widget which allows for one-click toggle of your wireless, Bluetooth and other settings. Secondly, there is the “news and weather” widget which gives you minute-by-minute history of the weather at your location as well as the top headlines.

Being an Google phone obliviously it works wonderfully well with Google Apps. Gmail is quite simply amazing, providing push-email as well as other features such as labels and a handy “undo” feature.

On the software side my only gripe with Google is that there is still no dedicated Google Docs app. You can view your documents and edit spreadsheets via your browser but that simply isn’t enough.

All-in-all the OS is excellent, which looks beautiful and runs smoothly. It’s easy to learn and navigate your way around as the OS is quite intuitive, though perhaps not as much as on the iPhone.

What’s missing

The phone is not perfect, there are a few features that are certainly missing here.

First, and perhaps the most important omission is multi-touch support. If you’re switching from an iPhone to this, this will become apparent and annoying very quickly.

Being able to pinch and zoom in an out of pictures, web pages, etc., as trivial as it may seem, is quite an important one. However, this feature is enabled in the hardware just not implement in the OS itself.

For example if you install the free Dolphin browser you are able to use multi-touch there. I’m guessing Google didn’t enable multi-touch as to not infringe on any patents that Apple may hold – or else there would simply be no reason to do it.

Secondly, the virtual keyboard is crappy. I think I might be a little harsh here as I’m used to an actual qwerty keyboard. Though the keyboard is certainly better than on the HTC hero (the only other Android device I’ve used), it’s not as good as on the iPhone. Again, this may be due to the lack of multi-touch, as you can only press one key at at time!

The only other major complain I have is the connectivity with my computer. Currently there are too many steps involved, this process needs to be more streamlines and efficient.

More specifically for non-US users the  Google Maps Navigation is not available (you can learn more here), and the same goes for Google Voice (learn more here). Both of these services seem absolutely amazing and have been received very well in the US – so why not make them available in the UK?

The good news is that, these all seem to be software problems – so hopefully Google will take some of the feedback onboard and improve these features in the next update for Android.

The competition

Obviously a lot of people will be asking the ,supposedly, all important question – “is this an iPhone killer?”. Whilst at the same time it’s not unreasonable to draw a comparison between the nexus one and the Palm Pre and Motorola Droid (aka Milestone).

Thankfully BillShrink [via] have come up with a very handy chart to help us out here:

How much and where can I get one

The phone can be bought directly from google.com/phone; unlocked it will cost you $529 unlocked, or £374 or us UK folks (this includes a UK adapter and delivery).

If were thinking of getting the phone on contract then unfortunately you’ll have to wait until spring, when it should be available through Vodafone. [US customers can get it on contract now for $80 p/m on T-mobile, and from spring also from Verizon and Vodafone).

[Aside: I have to take my hat off to DHL (the carrier Google ships the phone through, at least to the UK). I ordered my phone on the early morning of 6th and I had the phone in my hands on the morning of the 8th – considering the handset is coming from the states, this is great service.]

Conclusion

At the present, I would say this is one of the best phones around, even more so if your life revolves around Google apps like Gmail and Google calendar. The phone is not perfect, though it does very close, and certainly a lot closer than any other model out there.

The bottom line: The nexus one is sleek, sexy, functional and fun to use and have. If you are looking for a new phone (especially an Android variety), this is the one to get.

Besides, who knows maybe with the next update of Android we might be able to access features like multi-touch, better music app and better synchronisation. Here’s hoping…

Do you own or plan on getting a nexus one? Or do you feel repulsed by the idea of owning one? Share in the comments

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This is a review of the eBook, The Unlimited Freelancer, by Mason Hipp and James Chartrand.

Overview

Most freelancer start freelancing because they are usually tired of working for someone else and  want to do what they love and be paid for it. The problem, however, is that soon the freelancing dream turns into a nightmare – it just becomes another job.

The solution Hipp and Chartrand offer is to build a business, and not a job.

This is not something unheard of, in fact this solution has been preached many times before, most noticeably in the classic The E-myth by Michael Gerber. The approach taken by Hipp and Chartrand is where the book’s strength lies.

The book is broken up in to four concise sections that cover all aspects of the above strategy. The sections are Systems, software and automation, building a freelance team, revenue-generating assets and combine strategies for unlimited potential.

Using these section the authors walk you through, step-by-step, on how to build a successful freelance business. The book actually teaches you more about building, growing and maintaining your business than just being another essay on what freelancing should be about.

The one thing the book lacks is in-depth coverage on sales and marketing. Though, these are briefly touched upon, they are not really explored in any real detail.

Having said that the book is still full of practical advise and a plethora of resources. I believe that it will serve as an invaluable resource that you will refer to time and time again . Plus at 200 pages the book is the perfect length.

It is easy and enjoyable to read and with a $29 price tag (with 100% money back guarantee) it is well worth a investment.

The bottom line

This is an excellent book that acts as a reference, for the seasoned professional, or an introduction, for the beginner, to essential business topics. In my opinion this is an excellent investment and resource that will not take a big bite out of your time or your pocket.

The eBook is available for immediate download, for $29 (with a 100% money back guarantee). You can grab your copy from Freelance Folder website.

The authors

When I first heard of the book I was quite excited as I have been following both Mason and James’ work for a little while now. James is the foremost voice of the internet on the subject of sales copywriting, and his two blogs – Copyblogger and Men with Pens – are read by thousand each day. If you have read this blog, chances are you have already read some of Mason’s work. He is one of editors of the blog Freelance Folder, which I’ve linked to several times.

Both the authors are have built successful business on the backend of their expertise and so can be trusted to know what they are talking about.

N.b. I am a member of The Unlimited Freelancer affiliate program, and as a result I earn a commission on copies sold through this site. Other than that, I am not affiliated with either James or Mason.

Do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day? This That’s the question asked by Rath, and for recents graduates, job movers and those constantly bored at work this can be a useful question.

The concept of the book is simple: people spend too much time fixing their weakness then working on their talents and thats the wrong way around it – the path to most resistance. The book offers up the idea that we should build on our natural talents instead, this is nothing new and certainly that alone is not worth buying the book for. However the access code that comes with the book, is another story.

This code provides access to the strengths finder quiz, this takes around 30 minutes and you end up with a list of your top five strengths. To me this alone was worth the money, however there is more on offer. For each of your strengths you get a action plan as well as how to work best with a person with that strength.

The action plan was tremendous useful for me, as it gave me an insights in to my own personality that I had not realised before. I’ve recommended this to a number of friends and family, and its something that has help me to work better with them.

For the price it’s an absolute steal, and will reflect on both on your personal and professional lifestyle.

Go to Amazon to Learn More.

How fast can you read? Are you an efficient reader? Do you want to improve your reading speed and comprehension? [Ed. If you want to find out your reading speed then you can do so here]

This is an excellent book if you wish to become a more efficient reader, one that is able to read at a above average speed whilst maining a good level of comprehension. Supported throughout by reasearch, it packs a good level of detail in an easy to read manner. Additionally if offers performance check tests at the end of each day (chapter) so you can see just how well you are progressing.

I’ve read a number of books on the subject as well as tried out a number of softwares, but this one book offers almost everything I had previously read all-in-one package and for a very reasonable price. However if you are a well practiced speed-reader then there will be little value to be had from this book. For me (I am a speed reader), this only served as a quite reminder of some of the techniques I had learned a long time ago.

If you find that you have a large “to read” pile which only seems to grow then I cannot recommend this book enough.

For more information you can check out Amazon.

Update: I was contacted by the author and he suggested that I have a look at www.spreeder.com. I’ve had a play around and found it to be quite useful, especially when reading large chunks of material online. Have a look. Did you find it useful? Let us know in the comments.