Samsung I9105 Galaxy S II Plus preview: First look

Introduction

It's not the end of the road just yet for the Galaxy S III but it would do well to prepare to pass the torch on. Yet, while the current flagship is coming to terms with mortality, Samsung obviously believes there's still fight left in the old Galaxy S II. The company just unveiled a revamped version of its ex-Number One to take advantage of the software goodies introduced by the Galaxy S III.

Samsung I9105 Galaxy S II Plus official images

The Samsung I9105 Galaxy S II Plus has borrowed the finish of the Galaxy S III and is powered by a new chipset with a Broadcomm GPU. It's not a sea change by any means, but no wonders are expected of the Plus version really. All it tries to do is freshen up a proven formula and help Samsung tighten its grip on the midrange.

Samsung I9105 Galaxy S II Plus at a glance

• General: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS 850/900/1900/2100 MHz, HSDPA 21 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps
• Form factor: Touchscreen bar phone
• Dimensions: 125.3 x 66.1 x 8.5 mm, 121 g
• Display: 4.3" 16M-color WVGA (480 x 800 pixels) Super AMOLED Plus capacitive touchscreen, Gorilla Glass,
• CPU: Dual-core ARM Cortex A9 1.2 GHz processor
• GPU: Broadcomm VideoCore IV
• RAM: 1GB
• OS: Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean)
• Memory: 8GB storage, microSD card slot
• Camera: 8 megapixel auto-focus camera with face detection, touch focus and image stabilization; Full HD (1080p) video recording at 30fps, LED flash, front facing camera, video-calls
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth 3.0+HS, MHL-enabled standard microUSB port, GPS receiver with A-GPS, 3.5mm audio jack, FM radio, USB-on-the-go, NFC (I9105P)
• Misc: TouchWiz 5.0 Nature UX, DivX/XviD codec support, built-in accelerometer, multi-touch input, proximity sensor, gyroscope sensor

With FullHD screens popping left and right, and quad-core Cortex-A15's, a WVGA Super AMOLED Plus and the dual-core CPU are hardly a geek's wet dream. However, having run a leaked JB test ROM on the original Galaxy S II for a while now, we can confirm that it's a setup that works fine under Jelly Bean, delivering a pretty solid smartphone experience. Probably not one you will crave, but certainly one you wouldn't mind spending your money on.

What will be a bit harder for the Samsung Galaxy S II Plus is convince us that it's worth picking over the original. Perhaps the Koreans simply plan on finally retiring their 2011 flagship and replacing it with the new model, which is obviously in line with their new design language.

The Samsung I9105 Galaxy S II at ours

Or perhaps the new chipset and finish have helped Samsung lower the production cost and price the Galaxy S II Plus more competitively than the original version.

Anyway, while the price tag is of utmost importance to users, these are just speculations at this point. So, let's try and focus on how well the changes work, and what kind of performance the Galaxy S II Plus can provide.