Samsung Galaxy S II lands in the UK on April 27

Samsung Galaxy S II

The Samsung Galaxy S II smartphone is coming to Phones 4u on April 27 with a free 8GB microSD for pre-orders.

That means you'll have to sign up for a £35/month contract on Orange to get the phone for free.

The replacement for the Galaxy S – best multimedia phone in our 2010 Awards – has a 4.3in touchscreen in place of the original's 4in display, and uses what Samsung calls Super AMOLED Plus technology to reduce power consumption while maintaining brightness and clarity.

A dual-core processor is used to give speed said to equal that of a PC, and the new phone runs Android 2.3, aka Gingerbread, a key function of which is the ability to make wireless payments.

Yet the phone is lighter and thinner than the original Galaxy S, shaving 5g off the weight and 1.4mm from the thickness: the new model is just 8.5mm thick and weighs 116g.

Samsung hopes the Galaxy S II will become the new standard for smartphones when it appears, and will build on the 10m+ Galaxy S phones sold since that model was launched eight months ago.

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Andy Clough

Andy is Global Brand Director of What Hi-Fi? and has been a technology journalist for 30 years. During that time he has covered everything from VHS and Betamax, MiniDisc and DCC to CDi, Laserdisc and 3D TV, and any number of other formats that have come and gone. He loves nothing better than a good old format war. Andy edited several hi-fi and home cinema magazines before relaunching whathifi.com in 2008 and helping turn it into the global success it is today. When not listening to music or watching TV, he spends far too much of his time reading about cars he can't afford to buy.