Fast. Complicated. Eats megabytes for breakfast. January 9, 2012

Reviewer:  Robert Felice  (Silicon Valley Boy) -

I've checked out what other reviewers have had to say about this phone, and find myself in agreement with most of them.

The phone is amazing.

Here's what else you need to know:
a) data plan
b) apps
c) user manual

Data Plan: you will need a separate data plan for the phone. My wife has an iPhone 3G, with an unlimited data plan from AT&T. But that phone doesn't use the 4G LTE network. AT&T is slowing building out its 4G LTE network, and it may not be available in your area. You have to buy a plan whether or not you currently have 4G LTE coverage. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that 4G LTE was available in my area, even though the official AT&T coverage map didn't include it.

I bought a 200 megabyte per month plan. It seemed like a lot of bytes. Then I started using my phone. Trulia has a great app that lets you find the houses for sale in whatever neighborhood you find yourself in. You can see the entire listing, just like you can at home on your computer. You can even download pictures (bad idea!) Use an app like this, and the megabytes go down the drain. I went through 30 megabytes in the first 6 days of my billing cycle.

So, unless you sprang for an unlimited data plan, I wouldn't recommend streaming movies, or even your music, off the web. And keep an eye on your usage. You can become a data how a lot faster than you might imagine!

Apps: there's a ton of apps available from the Android store, and Amazon has done a pretty amazing job of providing apps for the phone on their site as well.

So far, so good. The problem is that AT&T had added a number of their own apps, each of which has a low-cost or entirely free alternative. But none of the AT&T apps can be removed. They are part of the read-only memory on the phone, and you can't delete them without "rooting" your phone. This isn't a deal breaker for people with some technical smarts (and who aren't afraid to risk turning a $600 phone into a brick), but for most of us, you are stuck with these things.

Very annoying. And, quite expensive. For example, AT&T offers Family Map (a "find my phone" service) $10 a month. You can find a 99¢ alternative on the Amazon app store.

Yes, the other Carriers do this, too. That doesn't make it right.

User Manual: This is a complicated device. It comes with a 20 page Quick Start Guide, and nothing more. I'd like to say the Quick Start Guide covers all the basics, but it doesn't tell you how to answer an incoming call. I hear you saying to yourself, "How hard can that be? When the phone sees an incoming call, it displays the standard green and red buttons. You press the green one to answer the call, or the red one to send the call to Voice Mail."

If only it were that easy. To answer a call, you have to "swipe" your finger from the green button across the screen towards the red one. You can push the green button repeatedly, but you will never answer your call.

If you dig around on the web long enough, you will find the missing manual for this phone (hint: it's on the Samsung web site). Answering a call is detailed on page 42 (Chapter 3, Call Functions). I think there is something fundamentally wrong with the industry when one of a product's two main functions is buried about one fifth of the way into the User Manual.

To be fair, the Quick Start Guide does provide a link to AT&T's excellent Tutorials web page. I recommend you go there as soon as you have set up your phone. The interactive tutorials are short and the list of topics is comprehensive. It will take you some time to work through all of them, but it will be worth it.

In conclusion, there are two types of cell phone users: those who upgrade regularly, and those who don't get a new phone until they either lose their old one or it breaks. I am in the second category. I only upgraded to this phone when my trusty Treo 680 finally bit the bullet. I don't know when "swipe to answer a call" became such a ubiquitous gesture that it didn't need to be explained, but as far as I am concerned, this topic really belongs in the Quick Start Guie.

I think you will enjoy this phone. It's thin, light, and packs a ton of features. Read up on managing your battery life (hint: turn off GPS and Bluetooth when you don't need those services, and invest in a car charger). Also, watch those megabytes (another hint: use your home or a public WiFi network whenever you can, because data transferred over a Wi-Fi connection doesn't count toward your wireless data plan).

Great Phone November 11, 2011

Reviewer:  Eliseo Roman  (Hawthorne, Ca) -

This is a great phone, I have owned it for 3 days now and i really like it. The build quality is great, even though it is plastic. The phone itself looks beautiful and feels great, the weight is also good it doesn't feel to light or to heavy. The screen is one of the best ive seen on any phone. Everything cant be perfect though.

I am not in a lte market so i cant comment on that aspect. As far as the phone goes you do have to keep a couple of things in mind. The phone has a 4.5 inch screen, although this sounds great it has some obvious draw backs. With the screen being so big one of the draw backs is size. It is not a comfortable phone to carry around and putting it in you're pocket as well as pulling it out can be awkward. I wear slim jeans and this has become an annoyance. When you talk on it you notice the size, it feels like holding a scientific calculator to you're ear.

The second draw back is once again the screen size. This being 4.5 inches it takes up more juice than some of the more standard sizes. I am currently experimenting with ways to reduce battery drain but still end up with a dead phone by the time i go to bed (I am worried about the days i go out and stay up past 11). Another thing that I am concerned about when it comes to battery life is the lte antenna. I am pretty sure lte takes up more battery life than standard hspa or hspa+, and I am a little upset that this phone does not have a switch to turn of the lte antenna. Also unlike most android phones i have used before you do not have the option to switch to 2g networks only, there is probably a work-around for this via the android market but i haven't bothered.

I will not comment on the UI because i find that irrelevant on an android phone. Some people complain about Touch wiz but i find that android has workarounds for any annoyances. I use Launcher pro on all my android phones because of the heavy customization that i am able to do. Touch Wiz has not hindered me at all.

Regardless of these complaints witch i consider to be minor, i love this phone. I am looking into purchasing an extra battery, this is due to my forgetfulness though. I sometimes fall a sleep and forget to charge my phone and i have always owned extra batteries for all my phones.

Oh and one last note, I love the camera on this phone. I find that it is really quick and there is plenty of settings. Recording video is also excellent.

Review for Samsung Skyrocket November 11, 2011

Reviewer:  Tech Gadget geek "gadget testing geek"  (Chicago, IL USA) -

I will start with the bad things first:

Price: I initially bought it from Amazon wireless and they said it won't be delivered until December, so I canceled my order and went with ATT premier store and paid full price on the phone. It is like 70 dollars more.

Battery: I took it off the charger at 9am today, right now it is almost 2pm and I am at 63%, I did used Google Navigation (while charging in the car). And mostly light browsing, power saving mode seems to help a lot, with 60 percent it can last me till the end of the day with almost 5% left. (Tested that yesterday) So battery life is not great but given it is an LTE phone with 4.5 inch screen, I would say this is 50/50.

Accessories: Lack of accessories for now, you might want to get a good case for this considering it is a very delicate and expensive phone, you don't want to test the durability yourself.

And no HD screen. & ATT customer service, ATT wouldn't give me the unlock code even if I paid the full price (there's way around it online)

Good things:
4.5 inch screen: after you play with this for awhile and go back to 4.3 or 4 inch screens, don't even think about that. It is really not too big in my opinion, keeping it in my jean's front pocket is not a problem at all, I was using captivate before and this feels pretty much the same in the pocket.

Application speed: Not much FC, the phone is really smooth so far, hopefully it will stay this way through out the lifespan.

Browsing speed: The rendering is so fast (Compared to Captivate, probably other devices as well but this is fast)

LTE speed(Chicago) + GPS: Amazing, using google navigation is near instant lock on, no loosing signal so far.

TouchWiz 4: compared to the previous touch wiz, I think this is more refined and it's definitely a plus.

Overall: Good buy if you are in the LTE market, I was worried about all the benchmark about the processor, but seriously it doesn't matter at all to regular consumer. For T-mobile users, I believe their Samsung Galaxy S2 Hercules is pretty much the same phone lacking of LTE, but it is on the 42Mbps HSPA+ network instead of the LTE, pretty much the same phone, even same battery (As noted on samsung webpage when you are shopping for accessories)

Update: Forgot to mention that the headphone that came along was quite decent.

Update 11/22/2011: I am getting random shutdown issues, I am not sure if this is a problem with the phone or if this is GB 2.3.5 issue. Is anyone else getting this problem?

Fastest, best looking, 4G Android I've ever owned November 28, 2011

Reviewer:  Pixiegirl19 

I've had this phone one week, and am in love with it. The samsung galaxy SII skyrocket the best phone I've ever owned. While AT&T is still installing LTE in our area,(greater Philly suburbs in NJ) the HSPA+ backhaul speeds, are still up to 5 times faster I got 5326(down)&1455(up) with mobile on, and I got speeds close to my Comcast broadband in downtown DC @19K(down)& 4K(up), so I know what the phone is capable of when LTE is finally deployed here.

Okay here is what I really like about this phone. The 8 megapixel camera takes crystal clear pictures with autofocus, and the front facing camera takes very good pictures using the spot button on the touch screen. My only complaint with the camera part is that there is not an exterior button that allows you to shoot pictures , I'm not sure what samsung was thinking there. As far as running programs is concerned there is a whole lot of memory for apps to run (1GB) and this phone blazes through multitasking, with the dual-core 1.5GHz processor. I've had 34 apps running in the background, and could still play the need for speed shift that comes with. The built in 16GB USB memory is nice as the total amount with my 32GB micro SD put it at about 45gb's total.
I'm hopeful a firmware update by Samsung will allow 64GB cards to be compatible when they come out, but the USB out to storage mode is great if you already have a 64-128GB USB stick, like my 128GB corsair GTR , that uses hardly any battery when on the train to DC from Philly, and gives me plenty of storage for movies, music, apps, and games, that have fairly decent storage sizes...

I was able to update to Android 2.3.6 as soon as I got the phone setup. AT&T has this great app ready2go, that allows you to quickly setup all your social accounts from , then everything is transferred to the phone, and you are ready to go.

Games are quick and look great, while I would have appreciated, a slightly better resolution for the skyrocket, as the screen is larger everything looks deeply colorful, and words from webpages and e-books are easy on the eyes, and very enjoyable. The audio is second to none, with 5.1 surround coming out the 3.5mm speaker jack, and of course, 1080p with 5.1 surround out via the USB to HDMI adapters available.
I would have appreciated stereo speakers withim this, but the speaker does sound good on it's own.

Pros:
Fast
Light
Thin
Well made
Big screen
Multitasking
Great looking screen colors

Cons:
No camera button on exterior
No Bluetooth 5.1 audio (however I don't know of a phone yet with this ability)

P.M.
I only found one case which was considered "protective" in my opinion. The Argos SGP
leather case, folds open, and keeps the screen protected when not in use, and is the best looking for men or women, in my opinion. I had to cut a notch in the area that folds over the bottom to charge the phone when closed. I used a light yellow colored thread, made for sewing leather to reinforce the opening I'd created, then a paperclip held the notch open while the matte black oil-base paint dried on the exposed , to seal out up..

Good Phone bad Bluetooth March 18, 2012

Reviewer:  Owner  (SC, USA) -

I really like how powerful this phone is. Unlike some others, I haven't had any problems with battery life. One charge at night while I'm sleeping and it is good until bed time the next night. My biggest complaint is the Bluetooth. I have had a Plantronics Voyager Pro headset for about 3 years now and it is the best headset I have ever owned. Unfortunately, Samsung seems to not support any headsets besides theirs real well and it is a crap shoot whether or not you can get the voice dial function to work with your headset. I am not the only one having this problem, there are complaints on all of the message boards about this issue. Samsung's tech support is virtually useless. They told me my phone doesn't even support Bluetooth when it clearly does, they have told others that it only works with Samsung headsets, they have told others that voice dial was not included with the phone. The LTE network is blazing fast, like others it isn't officially in my area, but WOW.

I do have trouble reading the screen in direct sunlight. Also the AT&T bloatware was horrible, and with no way to uninstall it, it just gets ridiculous.

So in conclusion:

PROS:

Processing Power
Large Screen
Network Speeds
High Def Media and Cameras

Cons:
Poor sunlight visibility
Poor Bluetooth compatibility

Skyrocket- 24 hours later November 22, 2011

Reviewer:  Amateur Geek "AmateurGeek"  (USA- OK) -

I have had my Skyrocket for 24 hours, but I must say this phone rocks. I am a platform agnostic since I have a sprint galaxy tab 7 off contract, Ipad 2, mac air, and I just drowned my blackberry. I really like the screen larger so I can read stuff better. My purchased android stuff synced with my phone. I adjusted the email polling to 1 hour during work hours and 4 hours off peak, used powersaver, stopped apps with an easy to use ATT widget and right this second have 83% of battery with 4 hours of fairly significant use including several phone calls, sms, and manual email syncs. I charged it overnight and it came up 100%. Great picture taking. Somehow, it started talking to me, and when i get an sms from somebody in my contacts it does a little whistle and then says "you have a message from Blanche" or whoever. if its a number not in your contacts it states the number. I find this more useful for me than Siri. I am in OKC and we were supposed to have LTE this week, but I havent seen it yet, just HSPA+, but I am getting 5 mbs down, about 2 up inside a dense building, so I am ok with that. It took my old blackberry microSD and can read it fine without reformatting.

Pros- screen size, clarity of calls, easy to set up, great apps for me (Amazon had Docs to go for free yesterday!!) and fast, plus that cool sms notification. Great camera.

Cons- battery needs love and attention, no LTE yet, but that might not be the phone. Be careful of malware.

Overall I am pretty sure I will like this better than the Iphone 4s for now due to speed.

WOW WOW WOW!!!! January 7, 2012

Reviewer:  Cody 

Wow this phone is such a beast!!! I came from the iPhone 3g which I had for three and half years and all I can say is i've been missing out big time!!! This phone is so blazing fast it handles any task with ease. From browsing the market and playing games to viewing flash heavy websites, this phone does it all without a skip or stutter. I have yet to experience any lag ( if there was it wasn't enough for me to notice). I also really love the customization. You can have live wallpapers, widgets, different web browsers, messaging apps, and keyboards, and much more. The camera on this phone is stunning. It takes very good pictures and the 1080p video recording is awesome. There are lots of different camera optiona allowing you to tweak your pictures and videos to your liking. The front facing camera takes good pictures, nothing amazing obviously, but still good for being a front facing camera. Now for the battery life. I heard alot of bad things about battery life on Android phones, and this phone having a 4.5" screen and a 1.5GHz dual core processor, I was a little worried, but I'm happy to say I get great battery life. I'm on my phone alot and still manage to get 6-7 hours( and that's with extremely heavy use). With moderate use I coils make it through the day pretty easily. I don't have LTE where I live but I still average speeds between 5 and 8 mbps (my iPhone 3G would get around 1.5 mbps tops) so these speeds are awesome. Call quality is excellent and I great great reception pretty much wherever I go.

PROS: Everything runs as smooth as butter with miniscule lag thanks to dual core processor
Basically unlimited customization options
High quality camera
Very good battery life
Great data speeds and alot better if you're in an LTE area
Excellent call quality and coverage
GPS is outstanding and can pinpoint location in seconds
Very good wifi radio (can pick up wifi from pretty far away)
4.5" screen makes watching video, playing games, and surfing the web so much better
The super amoled plus display makes everything crisp and clear (the resolution is only 800x480 but it's not that big of a deal it's still an amazing display

CONS: The 800x480 display might not be good for some people
It is a big phone so people who wear skinny jeans or people with smaller hands might not like it as much
No SD card but it does come with 16GB of internal storage and you can get a 32GB SD card for $30 or less and most people already have one so it's not that big of a deal
If you're coming from an iPhone you might have trouble adjusting because Android isn't you as user friendly as ios is but there are lots of videos on YouTube and alot of websites that can help you out and once you know what you're doing you will love Android

CONCLUSION: It was hard for me to even list cons for a phone this great. I don't consider any of the cons I listed to be cons at least to me, but I know some people might so I figured I'd put the ones that might be cons to some people. Overall I would say this is an extremely good phone and I highly recommend it to everyone who is looking for a new smartphone that wants comfort in mind knowing they're spending their hard earned money on a something they'll enjoy using each and every day, a high quality device that handles pretty much everything extremely well without skipping a beat. If you live in an LTE area or not this phone is well worth the money and won't be outdated right away. It's supposed to get the ice cream sandwich update early this year so there's no need to worry. I am enjoying this phone so much I don't regret getting this phone one bit and I know you won't either. If you get this phone I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!!!

This is my first time writing a review for anything so I'm sorry it's so long but I like this phone so much I felt I had to leave a review!! I hope this review was at least a little bit helpful in helping you choose your next smartphone! Have a great day everybody!

Great!! November 12, 2011

Reviewer:  Kevin Corter  (GA) -

I got this phone the day it came out.... all I can say is awesome!! Phone is super fast both internally and with its 4G LTE network. My wife has a Iphone 4 and we did a speed test and this phone hands down runs twice as fast on regular 4G (not LTE). I am not in a LTE zone so i dont get it yet, but its nice to have the option. Battery life, no complaints... i use it alot so i expect it to go down. i charge it when i go to bed, works fine the whole day. Screen is amazing. The sound is clear too and the speaker phone actually allows me to hear things. Its a bit pricey (but what isnt these days?). This phone is everything i need in a phone and more. IMO it blows the Iphone out of the water. I recommend it!

Great phone, takes Excellent Galaxy S2 to the next level November 14, 2011

Reviewer:  tek-nique  (CA) -

Samsung's Galaxy S2 has been well reviewed in it's previous version this one just extends ds the usefull life as it includes LTE as well as HSPA+ . I'm not in current AT&T LTE market but will own this for next 18 to 24 months.

I'm pretty bored by the various banter of the carriers on different 4G claims but this is already faster than I know what to do with average data speeds in the 3-5 Mbps range and 2700 to 3100 on quadrant benchmarks. However I'll no doubt soon find a need for the speed.

Nothing dramatically different on the layout compared to other Galaxy s2 but that's a good thing.

I checked out the Droid Razr and while it's very thin and very clever engineering , had worse screen than S2, was shockingly slow ( I don't think Verizon LTE is in my market or isn't fully rolled out) Also I travel so liked the S2 Skyrocket handles international roaming.

If you want a high end android phone with great screen, at good price with international ability the Skyrocket could be for you, the LTE is a sensible "future" enhancement as where ever you live LTE will be there before upgrade time comes again.

It is however a large phone, not heavy but that huge screen means large format. The incredibly thin Droid Razr has a similarly large foot print.

Recent iPhone Convert January 3, 2012

Reviewer:  Turkleton 

Like many others I jumped ship from the iPhone when the 4S was released. I loved my iPhone but was disappointed with the lack of a larger screen and same old form-factor. I also grew tired of living in Apple's ecosystem; being tied down to 'their' way of doing things. They make really great products but for me it was time to branch out. I picked up the Skyrocket in early November. Here are my thoughts after using it for nearly two months.

Pros:
Beautiful and bright screen. One of the best I've seen. Colors are rich and vibrant compared to most other phones I've seen. The large 4.5" screen makes one handed typing difficult but the tradeoff is completely worth it. Games, movies, and web browsing is amazing. It makes it painful to go back to the iPhone.

4G LTE. The difference is night and day compared to 3G. If you have an unlimited data plan this phone is worth getting just for LTE.

Extremely fast dual-core processor. Apps load insanely fast. I've heard some people complain of lag due to the snapdragon CPU but I have not seen any issues myself.

Great camera. Not the best ever (iPhone 4S is better) but it doesn't disappoint. It's one of the best cameras you will find on an Android phone. I've heard people say it's better than the Galaxy Nexus, too.

Google apps. Maps, Gmail, Talk, Voice search, etc. They work well and are better than what you get on iPhone. Maps has more features than what is available on iPhone like Labs, turn-by-turn voice navigation, and walking paths, for example. Voice search is as great as Siri on iPhone 4S, minus the gimmicks

Battery life is decent. I can easily get a full day on one charge. Granted I used to get two full days on an iPhone but for an Android phone one day is great. Keep in mind android phones are generally more powerful, are able to run background apps, and have faster cellular antennas (4G LTE) which drains battery quickly.

Upgradable to ICS (Ice Cream Sandwich). Samsung has confirmed this phone will get ICS. Some say Q1 2012, I wouldn't expect it earlier than late spring/early summer. But honestly this phone is great even without ICS.

Light weight. Some say light weight phones feel cheap, and they may be right, but ultimately I want my phone to be light and easy to hold for long periods of time (for reading, watching movies, games, etc)

Customization and power of Android. Coming from iPhone this is simply refreshing. You can totally change the look and feel of everything so it suites your needs perfectly. All stock apps can be replaced with better downloadable apps (Email, Gallery, Camera, File Browser, etc) which you could never do on an iPhone. For example I replaced the stock Email app with the Touchdown which has superb Exchange support. Don't like the default keyboard? You can choose from dozens of other keyboards to download and use. (the default keyboard is actually pretty good though).

Cons:
Samsung/Touchwiz interface. Admittedly I actually like Touchwiz (at least better than any other manufacturer skin) but this added layer is largely unnecessary, especially with Ice Cream Sandwich coming soon. Some parts also look too much like iPhone/iOS, like the text message app, for example.

Screen is not HD. The pixel density of the screen is not on par with the Galaxy Nexus, HTC Vivid, or iPhone 4. While it's difficult to make out the pixels, I would have hoped Samsung would have used a higher density screen for a top-of-the-line phone.

Plastic body. This is completely a matter of taste but I don't prefer the plastic body of this phone. I was used to the glass and aluminum of the iPhone 4. It's not a deal breaker though, especially if you use a case. And the upside is that the phone is really light weight.

Web Browser could be better. The iPhone web browser is generally faster and displays content more consistently. It also has a weird quirk where all your tabs will close a few minutes after you stop using it. I would prefer the browser maintain my open tabs all the time, even between reboots. If someone finds a way around this let me know! Anyway, I use Dolphin browser which is a fantastic alternative.

Summary:
If you are like me and have used an iPhone for years I don't think you'd be disappointed. The large screen, 4G LTE, camera, and performance you get from this phone make it a great all-around package. Alongside the Galaxy Nexus I believe this is one of the best Android phones you can buy right now.

My iPhone 4 is now an iPod. April 5, 2012

Reviewer:  Fla21 

I purchased this phone after researching for a month. I've been an iPhone user since the very beginning and never thought an Android phone would be for me, boy was I wrong. This phone is like having a mini computer in your hand. Its fast, the screen is huge and best of all, I CAN PLAY FLASH VIDEOS on websites. I must admit that the iPhone is much easier to operate. I can see how a person who is not very technical will have issues with the Android operating system because it can be confusing at times. If you take the time you will learn the system and you will like it. This phone does more things out of the box (not rooted) than my iPhone did after it was jailbroken. I was truly amazed at how customizable this phone is. The only con for this phone is the battery life while using the standard battery. To fix this I recommend buying an extended life battery and getting an app called Advanced Task Killer Pro. The combination of these two items has extended my battery life from about 12hrs, to 36 - 40 hrs with moderate use. If you have an iPhone and are on the fence about the Galaxy S2 Skyrocket, don't hesitate as you will not have regrets.

Wonderful phone, but battery is poor December 2, 2011

Reviewer:  Mirella Meyer-ficca 

I have had the phone for one week now. It is great, and I REALLY like almost everything about it.
The only drawback (but a major one) is the battery: I have charged the phone all night, took it off this morning at 6:30am (and I have not used it at all today, no phone calls, no browsing, really only stand by), and battery power os down to ~50% @11:45am.
I cannot imagine where the battery would be if I had had to use it.

Locks Up! January 20, 2012

Reviewer:  Tom C 

As a construction company owner, my phone is my most valuable tool. I spent several weeks researching phones preparing to upgrede my trusty Blackberry. I really wanted to stay away from Apple even though my wife and kids have them and they seem to work perfectly. I decided on the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket anticiapting that I would later purchase and Android tablet. The phone, when it works is terrific. It is extremely fast, the screen is vibrant, and it is intuitive and easy to learn. The problem is that it often locks up forcing me to remove the battery and re-boot. I've had the phone for 3 days and have had to re-boot at least a dozen times performing basic tasks like texting, e-mailing, or making phone calls.

Another issue that is not as problematic is that the phone physically too large. I need to wear my phone on my belt as I am outside a lot and this phone in a holster is very uncomfortable. I will take it back today and reluctantly get an I-phone 4-S with and I-Pad2 to follow. Apple has another convert - damn!

Samsung Galaxy S2 Likes and not so likes April 5, 2012

Reviewer:  Tim J. Weaver 

I have had this device for 2 months. It is fast, the screen is bright and it is very light. However, I would not purchase this now as the S3 will emerge soon. This was cutting edge but isn't any longer. The MOST annoying thing for me is the onscreen keyboard. It is basically terrible. The keys are very very small and this makes for lots of difficulty typing correctly. The spacebar is too narrow as well. Prepare yourself for many mistakes and backspaces.

Also, this device will NOT play flash over 4g. I downloaded a movie from Amazon but when trying to play it I received the error about flash must be installed to play this...etc. I've tried about a dozen times to do this. Samsung, should it be so difficult to play a simple movie or video over 4g?

Also, the power button is directly opposite the volume control. What this means is that when you want to turn down the volume, you tend to hold the opposite side of the phone (where the power button is) so you can press the volume, and 5 times out of 10 I end up turning off the phone accidentally. Bad design.

Now, about the phone itself. Noise suppression is on by default or the cell phone. This always is worse quality than when it is off. So, I have to press the menu button and deselect noise supression for EVERY call. Very annoying and unnecessary.

The screen rotation function is very slow. Usually you have to wait about 2 seconds for the phone to rotate. I don't know much about ICS since I don't have it yet. Maybe things will improve.

Power Pig! Great phone, but needs battery help May 30, 2012

Reviewer:  JRH "j5094"  (Maryland United States) -

The Samsung Skyrocket (SS)is a really full featured phone including a very useable GPS function. I can recommend this phone as one of the best smart phones out there - including the Apple iPhone 4S. The main feature is good sensitivity for reaching the network and very high speeds. That said, I was about to return this phone because of its really poor battery life. The standard battery that comes with the Samsung Rocket is not adequate for even normal useage of the phone for a day without recharging. I suggest that you download Battery Defender. With Battery Defender (BD) I've used the phone (a few calls, some web searcing, and downloading some apps) for about 14 hours off and on and have over 70% of the battery left. For similar activities yesterday, the phone needed to be recharged halfway through the day, and then again overnight. I have not used the white-list feature, and see no real need for it. I've now used the Samsung Rocket with BD for a while. The battery easily goes 2 days. Samsung should bundle this app with the phone. Excellent!

For this Android phone and many others, there are a few free app downloads (other than games) to make your experience a good one. 1) Battery Defender 2)DropBox 3)Evernote 4)QuickOffice, 5)Skype, 6) Weather Channel 7) SafeNotes 8) SecureNotes, and 9) Skyvie. There are plenty of other apps that you might want, but this basic set will make your phone much easier to live with. Of course, 7 and 8 duplicate each other somewhat. Perhaps, you can figure out why both together are better than either alone.

No more IPhone March 31, 2012

Reviewer:  Brian  (nyc) -

After using the IPhone for the last 2 years, I upgraded to the Samsung Skyrocket. I have had it for 2 days and love this phone. Granted my Iphone was 1st generation, but I hated it. The Skyrocket has great features including a large screen, navigation, voice search, blazing fast internet connectivity, and 4GLTE which is up and running in my area. I almost don't even need my laptop anymore, and highly reccomend this phone.

Almost perfect February 22, 2012

Reviewer:  alex  (Seattle, WA United States) -

Coming from an iPhone it didn't take long to get used to the interface. I still prefer the iPhone interface but Android is OK too.

Good:
- very fast
- large screen
- open (can site load apps and can install the Amazon appstore)
- slim
- lightweight
- can use an sd card

Bad:
- hard to hold in your hand because it is too slim (a case can fix that)
- hard to operate with one hand
- battery life (won't last a full day even with minimal use; you need some battery saver app like Juice Defender)
- the colors are indeed a bit blueish (it doesn't bother me much)
- there is an annoying bug with network connection being cut while screen is off. This makes streaming music very annoying, after 1-2 songs it just stops, if I unlock the phone it will resume playing.

Best phone I've had to this day, hands down! February 8, 2012

Reviewer:  Justin D. 

To preface this review, I've had the following phone most recently in this order:

iphone 3gs
iphone 4
HTC inspire
Samsung Galaxy s2 skyrocket

I also play with most phones when they arrive at the AT&T store.

This phone is amazing. Simply put. I was hesistant to jump to the HTC inspire (my first Android device) from my iphone. I'll never look back. There were a few issues with my HTC inspire, but they were primarily software bugs, all of which the SG2 skyrocket resolves.

PROS:

- screen size. 4.5 inch beast.
- Screen clarity is amazing. I can clearly read the screen in broad daylight with no strain.
- Processor is blazing fast. Dual core prevents lag with multiple apps open and switching between them.
- size, shape weight. All perfect for me.
- speaker phone is loud and clear
- cell phone reception and speed are great
- GPS works MUCH better than the HTC inspire
- battery life is better than the HTC inspire
- built in task manager works very well.
- bottom app bar is customizable.
- camera takes excellent pictures.
- music player sounds great and is very responsive.

CONS:
- battery life still isn't as good as the iphone4, but its definitely reasonable.
- touchwiz doesn't seem to have as many pretty widgets as htc sense, but i'm sure I can find some 3rd party ones.
- home and menu buttons are reversed from the htc inspire... I wish it was the same...
- phone is massive, so one-handed use is somewhat difficult depending on what case you use.

Honestly, this is the best phone I've ever used, and unless the size or daily charging is an issue for you, I'd say it's a no-brainer.

Great (as expected), with a few minor flaws December 1, 2011

Reviewer:  S. Dam "gadgetfan"  (NJ) -

Received the SGSII Skyrocket a couple of days ago and have been playing with it.

First Impressions:
The first thing that stands out is the simply amazing screen: colors look absolutely vibrant and saturated (compared to the LCD screen on my older DroidX).

Another item of note: for some reason, my number porting didn't go smoothly. Outgoing calls started working almost immediately from the new phone, but inbound calls still landed up on my old one. I had to place a call via AmazonWireless to AT&T to push the activation through. Small inconvenience, though.

Hardware:
Phone feels well-made but really plasticky, which is a good and bad thing. Good: it is really featherweight (again compared to the DroidX), and bad: the battery door almost feels like being broken off each time I take it apart. The volume rocker is in an awkward position, right opposite the Power button; most often I end up lowering the volume when switching on the screen. Otherwise, the phone sits pretty well in hand. One word of caution: it is REALLY slippery, you will need to get a cover/case pronto for better grip.

Internals:
Phone is blazing fast. The browser flies through mobile and non-mobile web pages on my wifi connection (haven't tried AT&T's 4G yet). Phone is pretty responsive to all screen actions, and I haven't found a single issue of lag yet.

Call quality:
No issues here. I could hear the other party loud and clear (had to bump up the volume button manually though), and vice versa. I haven't had a chance to try the speakerphone or bluetooth yet.

Software:
This is my first use of Samsung's TouchWiz interface, and I like it much better than Motoblur. There are 7 screens provided, with a pretty good array of inbuilt widgets. All usual suspects are present: weather, news, agenda, calendar, clocks and so on. Curiously enough, I couldn't find a way to get a numeric battery level indicator (DroidX has this in Settings); downloading a custom battery widget from the Android Market solved the issue.

Video playback of low and high-def clips (from Youtube and Vimeo) worked flawlessly. The clips played real smooth and crisp with good voice quality. I did not try music playback yet, so cannot comment on that.

One app that I really like is Kies Air: this lightweight webserver built into the phone makes file transfer between phone and PC a breeze.

I did notice slightly quirky behavior with the ambient light sensor: the screen brightness wouldn't adjust correctly based on the surroundings. I'm not sure this feature is working correctly. However, there's a simple way of getting around this by disabling 'Auto-adjust Screen Brightness' in Settings.

Camera / Camcorder:
Camera is better than ones I have seen on other phones. It takes great outdoor photos (like all other 8MP phones), and better-than-average low-light pictures. They are still a bit grainy, so don't dispense with your point-and-shoot / SLR just yet.

Camcorder has a strange issue though: it seems to continuously auto-focus as you are taking clips. A couple of times, it strangely went out of focus right in the middle of recording, resulting in a few seconds of blurry footage. I never had this problem with my DroidX.

Wishlist:
The 800x480 resolution feels really low for this gorgeous screen, I wish it was 1280x720.

Final thoughts:
Barring a few minor shortcomings, this is a great product which I would recommend anyday (unless you are waiting for the Galaxy Nexus).

I LIKED my iPhone 4 until I met the Skyrocket - Now I'm in Love! December 13, 2011

Reviewer:  T. White  (Colorado) -

I picked up my Skyrocket free from AT&T a little over a week ago when I purchased the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9. I previously had the iPhone 4 and I LIKED that phone. It wasn't perfect but coming from the HTC TouchPro 2/ATT Tilt 2 it was a significant improvement. I just had no idea what I was missing until I got the Samsung Galaxy SII Skyrocket! This phone is just incredible! Movies are gorgeous on the screen (no lines like a couple other reviewers mentioned), it is bright and the colors are just awesome. The flexibility and customization are of course because of Android, but this phone flies through tasks at rates my iPhone could only dream of. Surfing the web is much faster than on my iPhone, multi-tasking is such a non-brainer and need I say flash?! After a week, this is definitely a love story in the making. Add in the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 and I've got my cake and can eat it too.