Samsung Galaxy Stratosphere II Review

User Interface:

Even though the Samsung Galaxy Stratosphere II a mid-range device, it would have been nice if it came with Android Jelly Bean. Instead we are presented with Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich, though it does feature the updated Samsung TouchWiz Nature UX interface layer that is found on other models, such as the Galaxy S III, which you can read more about here. This is a nice improvement over the older TouchWiz interface used by the original Stratosphere, as the Galaxy Stratosphere II is more fluid in moving between the homescreens and app drawer, not to mention you can now have 7 homescreens instead of just 5. Naturally, there is also a nice selection of desktop Widgets to choose from.


Everything else pretty much standard for a Galaxy model, such as the phonebook and contacts, E-Mail and messaging, organizer and calendar, as well as Samsung’s S Voice, S Beam, and AllShare features. Other apps included are Amazon shopping and Kindle, Amazon MP3, Audible, Color for Facebook, IMDb, Let’s Golf 3, NFL Mobile, Plants vs Zombies, QuickOffice, Slacker Radio, VZ Navigator, and Zappos.



Processor and Memory:

The Samsung Galaxy Stratosphere II features a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm MSM8960 Snapdragon S4 processor along side with 1GB of RAM, which is the same as on the Pantech Marauder.

	Quadrant Standard	AnTuTu	NenaMark 2
Samsung Galaxy Stratosphere II	4128	9700	60,2
Samsung Stratosphere	1231	3652	24,2
Motorola DROID 4	2552	8119	37,2
Samsung Galaxy S III	5335	12016	58,6

As you can see from the above test, the Samsung Galaxy Stratosphere II with its dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor not only crushes the original single-core Stratosphere, but also vanquishes the Motorola DROID 4 with its dual-core TI OMAP 4430 processor. Even though it’s not as fast as the quad-core Galaxy S III when it comes to benchmarks, the Galaxy Stratosphere II still feels quite fast and zippy when running apps and multitasking.

The Galaxy Stratosphere II also comes with 8GB of internal memory, of which 4.2GB is available to the user. This is nice improvement over the original Stratosphere, which only came with 4GB of internal memory, and left only 1.9GB available to the user. You also have the option of using microSD memory cards up to 32GB in size.


Internet and Connectivity:

It should come as no surprise that the Samsung Galaxy Stratosphere II can make use of Verizon’s 4G LTE data network. Though using the 4” display can feel cramped at times, especially when viewing large web sites, they are still properly rendered and easy to navigate.


When firing up the SpeedTest.net app, we were able to get download speeds of 7 Mbps and uploads of 3 Mbps. Even though these are not jaw-dropping speeds, they are still good enough for the device to quickly load web pages and download apps. Also supported is Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n (2.4GHz, 5Ghz). What did surprise us is that the Galaxy Stratosphere II supports Global Roaming, which means it can be used outside the US with GSM (850/900/1800/1900MHz) and HSPA/UMTS (2100MHz) networks.