Introduction
Released nearly a year apart, the Sony Xperia S and the Samsung Galaxy S II are not that different - both are flagship droids with dual-core CPUs and 4.3" screens. But the newer Xperia S brings some fine upgrades, like the 12MP camera and the 720p screen.
Still, the Galaxy S II is the outgoing Samsung flagship while the Xperia S is the best and the brightest of Sony's new NXT series and will be for a while longer, so it will have to fight off the onslaught of quad-core droids headed to market.
Processor aside, the Sony Xperia S brings a high-pixel-density 4.3" screen with 720p resolution and Mobile BRAVIA engine. Then there's the 12MP camera with 1080p video recording, a notable advantage as most new recently announced phones use 8MP shooters. There's also excellent connectivity and so on.
The 1.5GHz dual-core CPU and Adreno 220 GPU showed promising performance, beating most dual-cores too. Here's the summary of the pros and cons of going for the Sony Xperia S.
Sony Xperia S over Samsung Galaxy S II:
- 4.3" 720p screen (342ppi) over 4.3" WVGA screen (217ppi)
- 12MP still camera over 8MP
- 1.5GHz Scorpion CPU over 1.2GHz Cortex-A9 CPU
- Standard microHDMI port over MHL port (requires adapter for HDMI out)
- GLONASS support in addition to A-GPS
- All units have NFC over optional support in the S II
- 1750mAh battery over 1650mAh
- 3D sweep panorama and Multi Angle modes
Samsung Galaxy S II over Sony Xperia S:
- SuperAMOLED Plus screen has excellent black levels and better viewing angles
- Expandable storage, 16GB/32GB built-in over 32GB fixed storage
- 8.5mm thick (with some thicker areas) over 10.6mm (with thinner areas)
- Weighs 116g over 144g
- Bluetooth 3.0+HS over Bluetooth 2.1
- 2MP front-facing camera over 1.3MP front-facing camera
Both phones have features that we wish the other had, so there's no clear winner. Also, we'll be doing thorough testing too match the performance in seemingly equal areas (e.g. 1080p video capture) and also if the differences change the end user-experience (1.5GHz CPU vs. 1.2GHz, 1750mAh battery over 1650mAh and so on).
You should already be familiar with the structure of these head to head articles - we'll start off with a general comparison and then dig into the specifics, like screens, cameras, battery life and so on.
Software and hardware overview
The Sony Xperia S and the Samsung Galaxy S II both have 4.3" screens with roughly the same aspect ratio, so you'd be forgiven for thinking that both phones are about the same phones.
The Galaxy S is shorter, slightly wider and noticeably thinner than the newer phone, the Xperia S. The Sony's Human Curvature design means it's nearly the same thickness at the edges, it's much thicker for the most part of its body. It's also heavier than the Samsung.
Samsung Galaxy S II
Here are some specific measurements - the Sony Xperia S is 128 x 64 x 10.6 mm big and weighs 144 g. The Samsung Galaxy S II is 125.3 x 66.1 x 8.5 mm and 116 g.
The Xperia S has a fresh design with the illuminated transparent strip at the bottom, which help it to really stand out.
Sony Xperia S
We'll cover the screens in a separate chapter, there are more general hardware differences to cover here. We'll just note that both have scratch-resistant glass covering the screens, the Galaxy relies on the popular Gorilla Glass, while the Xperia uses an undisclosed source.
Moving on to storage, the Xperia S comes with 32GB of built-in memory, but it's non-expandable. The Galaxy S II on the other hand comes in 16GB and 32GB varieties, but it does have a microSD card slot if you really need that much storage.
When speaking of card slots, it's worth noting that Samsung use the traditional SIM card format, while Sony have opted for the newer (but less common) microSIM.
There's a lot to be said about connectivity, so we'll give it its own chapter further down.
Both the Sony Xperia S and the Samsung Galaxy S II run Android 2.3 Gingerbread and both are behind the times. However, both are going to be updated to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich soon, so they'll have a chance to catch up.
They have different user interface customizations, with TouchWiz changing more (notification toggles, adding/deleting homescreens, etc.), while Sony staying closer to the vanilla Android experience.
The custom interface of Sony Xperia S • TouchWiz on Samsung Galaxy S II
Which one you prefer is up to you, but since you can easily change the launcher on Android that's not a big deal.
Both phones come with a number of apps out of the box, including several tools for social networking. They're powerful enough to run anything in the Google Play Store (the rebadged Android Market), so you can easily add to their functionality.
Screen comparison
The Sony Xperia S and the Samsung Galaxy S II have 4.3" screens but this is where the similarities ends.
The Galaxy S II uses a SuperaAMOLED Plus screen with 480x800 pixels resolution. It's characterized by deep blacks (zero light coming from black pixels), theoretically infinite contrast and excellent viewing angles. The pixel density of the screen is 217ppi.
The Xperia S has an LCD screen with a much higher resolution - 720x1280 or 2.4x the number of pixels. This pushes the pixel density to the whopping 342ppi, higher than even the iPhone 4 and 4S, which are largely responsible for the pixel density craze.
Anyway, the Xperia's screen has decent black levels (though the Xperia arc did a little better here. The Xperia S brightness is generally middle of the road but it's still about 50% brighter than the Galaxy S II. The contrast is over 1000:1, but is lower than the Xperia arc and the Galaxy S II screens.
Both screens have about the same reflectivity and they have very good sunlight legibility.
Sony Xperia S and Samsung Galaxy S II have excellent screens in their own right
Here's the table that compares the brightness and contrast of the Xperia S, Galaxy S II and other phones we've tested. Note that we couldn't get accurate measurements for the Xperia S screen at 50% brightness and they are not included in the table (Sony's software always adjusts the screen brightness according to the ambient light sensor, no matter what you do).
| Display test | 50% brightness | 100% brightness | ||||
| Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | |||
| HTC Sensation XE | 0.23 | 172 | 761 | 0.64 | 484 | 752 |
| Nokia 701 | 0.64 | 619 | 964 | 1.12 | 1022 | 905 |
| LG Prada 3.0 | 0.19 | 184 | 993 | 0.81 | 835 | 1031 |
| Sony Xperia S | - | - | - | 0.48 | 495 | 1038 |
| LG Optimus Black | 0.27 | 332 | 1228 | 0.65 | 749 | 1161 |
| Sony Ericsson XPERIA Arc | 0.03 | 34 | 1078 | 0.33 | 394 | 1207 |
| Apple iPhone 4S | 0.14 | 205 | 1463 | 0.52 | 654 | 1261 |
| Samsung Galaxy Nexus | 0 | 112 | ∞ | 0 | 247 | ∞ |
| Motorola RAZR XT910 | 0 | 215 | ∞ | 0 | 361 | ∞ |
| Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II | 0 | 231 | ∞ | 0 | 362 | ∞ |
| Samsung Galaxy Note | 0 | 287 | ∞ | 0 | 429 | ∞ |
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