Samsung Galaxy S2

Samsung's history in the smartphone game has been pretty quiet - a few budget offerings, some false starts with Windows Mobile and the popular Galaxy S is pretty much it.

With the Samsung Galaxy S2, the Korean firm has taken another step forward by putting all the best technology it can into a ridiculously thin mobile.

The Galaxy S2's main talking point is the Super AMOLED+ screen, featuring a whole host of new tech to make it far superior to even its predecessor.

The raised contrast ratio, better colour gamut and apparent 80 per cent reduction in power over the first version of the screen, all in a 2.1mm footprint, offer the best images we've seen on a mobile.

The design is nice too - the thickness has been kept to less than 9mm, which means the Galaxy S2 sits really nicely in the hand
The design aesthetic is very similar to that of the first Galaxy, with the main physical home button flanked by the two touch sensitive options for 'Menu' and 'Back' - and both are easy to hit and respond to a feather-light touch
The 4.3-inch screen doesn't actually feel as big as you'd think it might given the dimensions, but thanks to the reduced thickness Samsung has beefed up the screen size without a massive penalty.

The Galaxy S2 has also been spruced up with TouchWiz 4.0, a new version of Samsung's overlay for its smartphones.

It doesn't seem to be that different from the outset, but the notifications bar has been overhauled slightly to offer more pertinent functions and widgets are easier to manage from the home screen
Samsung also promised that you could use the gyroscope to enhance the live wallpapers, with them moving around as you held the phone, but we couldn't seem to make that work - we'll have a better play with the settings in our full Samsung Galaxy S2 review.

The rear of the phone shares a design ethic with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, with the mottled metallic shell underpinning the 8MP camera with single LED flash... we were hoping it would be a little bit better than that for a company with Samsung's imaging heritage, but it's fairly feasible that single LED unit could be brighter than the sun anyway.