Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket review: Aiming for the stars

The usual retail package

The retail package of the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket is as complete as it gets these days. Inside, you will find a charger and a USB cable, a pair of high quality earbuds, and the usual booklets.

The retail package of the Galaxy S II Skyrocket

A microSD card is missing but, given the massive amount of built-in storage, it is an excusable omission.

Design and build quality

The Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket has kept the measures of its T-Mobile relative. At 130 x 69 x 9.5 mm and 130 grams of weight, it is not the smallest device out there, but there is a lot of smartphone packed in its body. In our experience with it, we found it to be quite pocketable and light for its size.

The Galaxy S II Skyrocket sized up against Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 Plus and Focus Flash

The build quality of the Galaxy S II Skyrocket is on par with the rest of the Samsung made, upper echelon Android devices. High quality plastic is predominant, with a metal bezel surrounding the edges, and a Gorilla Glass covered front of the handset.

One unpleasant surprise we encountered was the lack of texture on the plastic back cover of the smartphone – a well known Galaxy S II signature. This makes the device quite slippery and accident prone.

The all black color scheme of the Skyrocket makes it look pleasantly understated.

The 4.52” Super AMOLED Plus screen of the Skyrocket is business as usual. Gorgeous colors and great contrast, along with superb viewing angles come with it. The only drawback here is the low pixel density and the WVGA resolution. The simply do not fit the rest of the spec sheet these days.

The large Super AMOLED Plus screen is beautiful

There is an upside however, to having a lesser resolution screen - it results in better performance of the handset, as the CPU has less pixels to deal with.

Below the large screen, you will find four touch-sensitive buttons – just like in the rest of the U.S. lineup of Galaxy S II devices.

The touch-sensitive keys under the screen

The earpiece, ambient light and proximity sensors, as well as the 2MP front-facing camera unit are located in the area above the screen.

There’s the video-call camera, the ambient-light and proximity sensors, and the earpiece on top of the display

The left side of the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket features the volume rocker. The volume keys double as zoom lever in camera mode.

The volume rocker on the left

Once again, there is no dedicated camera button on the right side of the smartphone. We believe that a camera unit this capable surely deserves one, as the virtual shutter key is far from perfect.

Again, we don’t get a camera key on a Samsung flagship

As usual, there is a 3.5mm audio jack on the top of the device. In addition to it, you will find second microphone which is used for active noise cancelling.

The top of the Galaxy S II

The microUSB port at the bottom is used for both data connections and charging. Not only does it support USB host but it also comes with MHL enabling HDTV-out connectivity with the proper adapter. The mouthpiece completes the picture.

MHL is a way of using both microUSB and HDMI through the same port. It makes sense, especially provided an HDMI port could’ve been near impossible to put in a phone this slim. The downside is you need an adapter to use a regular HDMI cable with this one.

The microUSB port looks as usual, but the MHL support adds a whole new dimension to it

The back of the Skyrocket is where the 8 megapixel Full HD-capable camera lens is located. Right under it is the LED flash.

The loudspeaker grille is also on the back of the device. It is located on the slightly elevated chin at the bottom.

The back of the Galaxy S II Skyrocket

Removing the paper thin battery cover reveals the SIM compartment, the 1850 mAh battery and the microSD card slot. The card slot can take microSD cards of up to 32GB, which can give you a maximum total storage of 48GB. Interestingly enough, both the SIM and microSD cards are hot-swappable.

Both the SIM and the microSD cards are hot-swappable

The 1850 mAh battery made it easily through a day of heavy usage which included about an hour of web browsing, an hour of phone calls, as well as a serious amount of video game play. Lasting for two full days is a bit of a stretch if you are a power user.

Handling the Skyrocket is a pleasurable experience most of the time. Our only grievance here is the lack of texture on the back of the device. We found ourselves being extra careful when playing around with the handset.

The phone handles well for its size