After one of the most whimsical (read: nauseating) press conferences in memory, Samsung finally gave those assembled at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona the chance to get their hands on its brand new smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S II.

The firm boasted continually of the phone's 4.3in Super Amoled Plus screen and it does look incredibly sharp and crystal clear, with image display quality some of the best we've seen on a smartphone.

Samsung was also keen to promote how slim and light the device is, weighing just 116g and measuring 8.9mm wide. While most smartphones are hardly bulky things, the Galaxy S II was noticeably lighter than others on the market and impressively slim too.

Furthermore, with a dual-core processor it's very zippy to navigate, with screens and applications loading instantly, while the firm was keen to promote that this would make it ideal for multi-tasking too.

There's also an 8-megapixel camera that takes very impressive photos, while a 2-megapixel front-facing camera provides suitable quality for video calling.

While we were unable to try the touted security features on the phone, given the amount of time Samsung spent promoting them during its press conference it certainly seems it's gunning for the business market.

Working with Cisco and Sybase means that it is clearly trying to overcome the issues preventing widespread corporate adoption of the Android platform that RIM and Apple have largely managed to overcome.

Many business users could have their heads turned by this device, even iPhone 4 or existing Samsung Galaxy S customers, although of course the anticipated iPhone 5 could put paid to that.

Perhaps our only gripe is with the name. The Samsung Galaxy S II. Was that the best the marketing team could come up with?

Author: Dan Worth

14 Feb 2011