The phonebook is as capable as always
Samsung has made a few alterations but the phonebook is pretty much the same as it was in the original Galaxy S. It has a wide range of features and virtually unlimited storage capacity.
One concern is that the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket cannot display SIM contacts and there’s simply no setting for that. You can import/export contacts to/from the SIM card but you can’t display them alongside the phone memory entries. We’ve seen that on other high-end phones as well.
The phonebook offers the Quick contacts feature, which enables you to tap the contact photo for a popup menu with shortcuts to call, text, or email. The Samsung-specific swiping gesture is here too: swipe a contact right to make a call and left to compose a message.
There are many info fields that you can assign to each contact, but it still remains perfectly organized. You have all the types listed and there's a plus sign on the right through which you can add another item of that type. Pressing the minus sign under it deletes the extra field.
The contact info screen is tabbed. The first two tabs are pretty standard – one displays the person’s contact information the other keeps call and message history. The third and fourth tabs handle the social stuff – status updates and the contact’s online galleries.
Great telephony
The Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket has a grand in-call quality and the sound is sharp and loud. Reception is high-quality and you will not suffer dropped calls however, in areas of very poor coverage, the sound would naturally break up.
The dialer and call log have been integrated into the phonebook, each with a separate tab. Smart Dial is available and works like a lure as it searches names and numbers all together. Only one contact is shown (with contact photo) and you can tap the down arrow to view the rest.
The dialer also offers quick shortcuts for making a video call or sending a message instead.
Thanks to the proximity sensor, your screen will automatically turn off during a call. The available options during a call include taking a note, using the keypad, muting, holding the call or adding another call to this conversation.
Messaging
The messaging department is quite simple: there are no folders here, just a new message button. Under that button is a list of all your messages organized into threads.
Swiping on a message header will do exactly the same as in the phonebook – a left swipe starts a new message, while swiping to the right will start a call.
There’s application-specific search that lets you quickly find a given message among all your stored SMS and MMS.
In order to add message recipients, just start typing the corresponding name or number and choose from the contacts offered.
When you add multimedia content to the message, it is automatically turned into an MMS. You can either quickly add a photo or an audio file to go with the text or compose an MMS using all the available features. The multiple slides are all shown inside the compose box.
Moving on to email, the Gmail app supports batch operations, which allows multiple emails to be archived, labeled or deleted. Multiple Gmail accounts are also supported.
There is also a generic email app for all your other email accounts and it can support multiple POP or IMAP inboxes. You have access to the original folders that are created online, side by side with the standard local ones such as inbox, drafts and sent items.
Google Talk handles the Instant Messaging department. The G-Talk network is compatible with a variety of popular clients like Pidgin, Kopete, iChat and Ovi Contacts. Support for video calls is also on board.
