Please help... Will the SGS2 do what I need? SSG2 vs iPhone 4s

[tommyt]

I currently have a iPhone 3gs but the battery life isn't what it used to be. I love the awesome screen of the SGS2. I would really like to get away from the iPhone however, I need the SGS2 to do what I need it to do.

My typical daily usage: I spend about an hour a day on line reading news, email, surfing, FB and YouTube videos. I also listen to about an hour of music or watch music videos with my earbuds. Then I send and receive about 50 txt a day and spend a total of maybe an hour on the phone. I also use the GPS daily. I would say the screen is lit a total of about 2 to 3 hours a day.

I also purchase music and music videos form iTunes and have over 1000 AAC songs and 300 MPEG-4 music videos that I purchased on iTunes many of which have DRM copy protection. I guess I could upgrade to music to non DRM which would cost me but I still need to be able to transfer, play and watch the AAC and MPEG-4 files on the SGS2

What I need the SGS2 to do for me:

Give me at least 10 hours between charging using it the phone the way I do above.
Accurate GPS and routing with street view preferably using Google maps.
Be able to copy my iTunes library of AAC and MP3 songs as well as my MPEG-4 music videos to the SGS2 and be able to play/watch them.

Also, I currently have a Ipod/iPhone to car adapter that allowes me to control the iPhone's music player thru my OEM head unit and stearing wheel. The adapter plugs into the back of the head unit instead of the AUX IN 3.5mm jack and it also charges the phone. I can change tracks and playlists without touching my phone or taking my hands off the steering wheel. Is this available for the SGS2?

Is the SSGS2 right for me?

Thanks,
Tom

[sungod]

drm is apple specific, you'll need to export those tracks in an unlocked format (itunes can do this)

usage sounds similar to mine, i charge once a day, but i do notice that the battery life seems variable for no apparent reason, battery life will depend on screen brightness and other options, so the only way you can be sure is try it and see, but bear in mind that unlike an iphone you can change the battery, or use a higher capacity one, so if you do find it a bit short there are ways to improve things

iphone mp4 typically plays ok on it, but bear in mind there are many options within mp4, and plenty an iphone can't handle

so a video being 'mp4' is no guarantee that any particular device can play it, but if the file isn't drm'd you should be able to convert any that have problems - i've got several gb of videos and c. 3000 tracks that i just dragged from my mac onto the phone

the main annoyance i found is that because itunes is actually quite messy about how it tags music (and to compensate is very liberal about handling this), i had to do a lot of cleaning up tags to get correct artist/album/artwork

no idea on the car head unit, whether there's an adaptor for the sgs2 might be something you need to ask the unit's manufacturer

otherwise there's this...

http://www.mobilefun.co.uk/cablejive...cks-p32195.htm

...but it doesn't do any remote control, just audio and power

[BM08]

Ive just come from a iphone 3gs to my S2 which ive now had for about 2weeks.

I just want to say first, if you've used a low spec android phone please dont use it as a guide to what Android is about, i had a free upgrade 4months ago (which i didnt really need but had it as a spare), it is a HTC Wildfire S, good little phone but it does not compare to the S2, its like a Ford Focus V's a BMW M5!

So far first impressions are that its just as good as all the reviews/ravers suggest that it is, the ONLY thing i miss about my iphone is being able to play Ronnie O sullivans snooker, this isnt available on Android as far as i know, which isnt really a deal breaker.

Good points(boy is there loads) compared to the iphone, obviously the screen, that extra size really does help when web browsing/playing games and watching videos etc and im blown away with how crisp/sharp/bright the screen is, really is superb. Another thing i love is the internet is faster as the iphone has 7.2mbps HSDPA and the S2 has 21!, you can really see the difference if your lucky enough to be in an area that has HSDPA speeds.
Another biggie for me is the fact that the speaker/ringer is ALOT louder than the iphones was, for example when i was out shopping with the iphone in my pocket i would always miss calls and texts because i didnt hear it, but with the S2 i can hear it easily, heck i even heard it when i was stood outside in strong winds with the phone in my pocket, and thats with the volume only on half-ish.
And obviously the actual OS is so much more customisable, i find myself chopping and changing everything and i didnt even need to jailbreak/root the phone to do so, and as you also probably know, most of the paid apps on the iphone are available for free on Android, even alot of the awesome live wallpapers you can get for free too, so really its possible to have all the apps you want AND set the phone up how you want it without having to pay a single penny, the total opposite to Apple, if you wanted to do that you'd have to really dig deep into those pockets(without jailbreaking).

I know ive not answered everything in your post but i hope ive at least eased your mind alittle about making the move from the iphone to S2

Any questions about how does this or that compare to the iphone just ask away.

[tommyt]

Thanks sungod and BM08...

To both of you or others... How accurate is the GPS? I've heard that the GPS isn't that accurate at all and slow to respond. My iPhone is unbelievably accurate and within 5' outdoors on google maps satellite view and much more accurate than even my Garmin Vista dedicated GPS for hiking.

For BM08, Have you transferred and music from iTunes to the SGS2? If so how easy/hard was it? Did your tags get messed up? Was there any loss in quality and if you purchased music from iTunes was there an issue with the DRM protection?

Regards,
Tom

[Doomed]

I think it depends.

If your in Europe there is a GPS fix on xda forums for Android devices which seems to improve it a lot (Easy to find on the front page of xda).

[BM08]

Sorry chap but ive not copied any music from itunes, ive just copied and pasted direct from my pc, i dont have as much as you anyway.
And i havent used the nav side of things yet.

[krizzz]

I came from iPhone to SGS2. There are apps to sync with iTunes, no problem.....As for the GPS I find it very accurate and SatNav has never let me down, it's better than my dedicated set....

[christo]

Thanks sungod and BM08...

To both of you or others... How accurate is the GPS? I've heard that the GPS isn't that accurate at all and slow to respond. My iPhone is unbelievably accurate and within 5' outdoors on google maps satellite view and much more accurate than even my Garmin Vista dedicated GPS for hiking.

For BM08, Have you transferred and music from iTunes to the SGS2? If so how easy/hard was it? Did your tags get messed up? Was there any loss in quality and if you purchased music from iTunes was there an issue with the DRM protection?

Regards,
Tom

I switched recently from an iPhone to the S3 and my partner has an iphone 4. We travel a lot and we've been comparing them a lot. We've seen wildly different GPS performance all over the US and in Europe. Sometimes the iphone is more accurate, sometimes the S2. But right now we think the S2 is better, plus the maps UI on android is so much nicer.

For music I had to change anything with DRM to mp3 (e.g. m4p), though almost all of my music was already mp3. There are lots of ways to do this. The default music app doesn't play m4p, I didn't try too hard to find a way to play them on my phone, since I didn't want the DRM anyway.

It is trivial to move it to the phone, much easier than with iphone (you don't use itunes, you just copy using your computer's filesystem).

Overall I find the S2 much much better than the iphone, with the sole exception of battery life. The S2 battery is quite simply undersized for this phone. You need a micro usb cable with you at all times.

-Christo

[schrodinger]

I find the volume on the S2 a tad too low especially when I receive emails or texts when in town or a busy shop etc. Is there any way to increase the volume via an app or something?

Thanks

[mark22]

I switched recently from an iPhone to the S3 and my partner has an iphone 4. We travel a lot and we've been comparing them a lot. We've seen wildly different GPS performance all over the US and in Europe. Sometimes the iphone is more accurate, sometimes the S2. But right now we think the S2 is better, plus the maps UI on android is so much nicer.

For music I had to change anything with DRM to mp3 (e.g. m4p), though almost all of my music was already mp3. There are lots of ways to do this. The default music app doesn't play m4p, I didn't try too hard to find a way to play them on my phone, since I didn't want the DRM anyway.

It is trivial to move it to the phone, much easier than with iphone (you don't use itunes, you just copy using your computer's filesystem).

Overall I find the S2 much much better than the iphone, with the sole exception of battery life. The S2 battery is quite simply undersized for this phone. You need a micro usb cable with you at all times.

-Christo

Have you looked at the battery saving thread, there's nothing wrong with it on this phone.