Well I traded in my Photon today for the GS2. After playing with it for a few hours, I'm convinced it was completely worth it. I thought I'd share some of my thoughts for others that may be on the fence, or just interested in the phone in general.
PROs
My biggest concern going was the screen. Not the whole 4.5 inches of Super AMOLED+ goodness, but rather the resolution. I was afraid of WVGA looking pixelated at that size, especially after seeing the Wirefly review. Turns out, my fears were completely unfounded. Not only does it look great, it looks better than the Photons qHD 4.3" screen. Sure, it's ever so slightly more jagged if you look closely at curves, but it doesn't have that nasty 'screen door effect' the Photon suffers from.
My favorite attribute of this phone is by far the profile though. The Photon felt solid and comfortable, but frankly it was fat and heavy by comparison. I don't mind a hefty phone, but there's something to be said about a profile this sleek. Reviews don't do this quality justice.
The notification is much larger and brighter than the Photon. I found my self staring at the Photon for a few seconds to figure out if the light was flashing. It was also harder to see the light when not viewing the phone straight on. No such issues with the GS2.
So far, battery life seems good enough. For one, it's actually easier to see the drain pattern since the battery usage plot shows 1% increments instead of 10% increments like the Photon. I charged it to full (~97% is when it said it was full), installed about a dozen apps (over Wifi), set up my Accounts, apps, and layout and I've been listening to Google Music over the last hour and I'm at ~93%. This is with 4G and GPS disabled and intermittent service. It's worth noting, however, that it took twice as long to charge than my Photon did. It takes about 2 hours for a full charge, my Photon would charge in almost half that.
Battery follow up: I got 12 hours of heavy usage yesterday. I expect >24 hours with moderate usage.
One of the things that bugged me about that Photon was that Blur and Google Services were keeping the phone awake 40% of the time, no matter what I did. I was even disabling things like using network time. Factory reset, updated PRL and Profile, disabled absolutely everything I could find, didn't set up an email account or use text messaging and still couldn't get below about 40% awake time (when the screen was off). The GS2 is almost never awake when the screen is off. By eye, I'd say less than 5% of the time.
Not having to use an app for screenshots makes me happy.
The camera blows away the MoPho.
This one's small, but it boots in just a few seconds. Much faster than the Photon.
CONs
I do have a couple minor knocks as well. I get about 1 bar less service on average at home. Of course, I don't know if that's an absolute difference, or merely how the number of bars is calculated.
There is no option to mute alarms when the phone is on vibrate or silent. I wrote and app to fix this: http://androidforums.com/application-announcements/419758-tool-quiet-time.html
I find the outer edge of the phone a little slippery, but the textured back helps a bunch.
Like mentioned above, charging is quite slow. I'm still getting average times, but it's 2+ hours for a full charge.
The camera lens does indeed seem to be in danger of being scratched, as mentioned by a few others. The aluminum bezel around the camera sticks out a fraction of a millimeter and the lens is recessed about half that distance. I don't think it quite touches when the phone is laying down (it's difficult to tell), but if it were to sit on any sort of debris (grain of sand) it's going to dig right in. The LED window is flush.
I also miss the text messaging app on my Photon. On the GS2, when you're typing the input box expands to 4 lines, plus the keyboard and you end up with a tiny window (just 1/3 of the screen) to actually see the conversation. You're lucky to see 2 messages. It just doesn't look as slick as the Blur version either.
There's a bug where scrolling becomes very twitchy when the phone is plugged in. It looks like this happened on the Moment and maybe Epic as well. Still seeing exactly which circumstances cause it.
You have to hit the capacitive keys right on the icons. It's not like the Photon where you slap the general vicinity and it works.
The sound isn't quite as good. As someone who will be using the phone extensively for music, I can say it's not that much worse.
The notification light is only two color. Red and blue. Presumably it should be capable of purple too, but I've yet to see it and Light Flow couldn't get it to work.
I think Blur is a much nicer interface than TouchWiz, personally. The launcher, lock screen and messaging app are all ugly as sin on TouchWiz. LauncherPro+ and WidgetLocker were among the first apps to grace my GS2.
The installed Swype keyboard doesn't automatically insert spaces in front of one letter words like 'a' and 'I'.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents. I'll try to add more as I come across it if people are interested. I'm willing to look at specific features if anyone has questions as well.
Feel free to chime in with your own woos and woes, I'm interested in hearing what other users have to say about their new toy.
More info in this thread
Live wallpaper selection and screen in direct sunlight: Post 5
Call quality, GPS, call quality, and speakerphone: Post 12 (Follow up on GPS: Post 18)
Second opinion on the feel of the phone (regarding weight, mostly): Post 28
Screen off animation (two posts): Posts 71-72
PROs
My biggest concern going was the screen. Not the whole 4.5 inches of Super AMOLED+ goodness, but rather the resolution. I was afraid of WVGA looking pixelated at that size, especially after seeing the Wirefly review. Turns out, my fears were completely unfounded. Not only does it look great, it looks better than the Photons qHD 4.3" screen. Sure, it's ever so slightly more jagged if you look closely at curves, but it doesn't have that nasty 'screen door effect' the Photon suffers from.
My favorite attribute of this phone is by far the profile though. The Photon felt solid and comfortable, but frankly it was fat and heavy by comparison. I don't mind a hefty phone, but there's something to be said about a profile this sleek. Reviews don't do this quality justice.
The notification is much larger and brighter than the Photon. I found my self staring at the Photon for a few seconds to figure out if the light was flashing. It was also harder to see the light when not viewing the phone straight on. No such issues with the GS2.
So far, battery life seems good enough. For one, it's actually easier to see the drain pattern since the battery usage plot shows 1% increments instead of 10% increments like the Photon. I charged it to full (~97% is when it said it was full), installed about a dozen apps (over Wifi), set up my Accounts, apps, and layout and I've been listening to Google Music over the last hour and I'm at ~93%. This is with 4G and GPS disabled and intermittent service. It's worth noting, however, that it took twice as long to charge than my Photon did. It takes about 2 hours for a full charge, my Photon would charge in almost half that.
Battery follow up: I got 12 hours of heavy usage yesterday. I expect >24 hours with moderate usage.
One of the things that bugged me about that Photon was that Blur and Google Services were keeping the phone awake 40% of the time, no matter what I did. I was even disabling things like using network time. Factory reset, updated PRL and Profile, disabled absolutely everything I could find, didn't set up an email account or use text messaging and still couldn't get below about 40% awake time (when the screen was off). The GS2 is almost never awake when the screen is off. By eye, I'd say less than 5% of the time.
Not having to use an app for screenshots makes me happy.
The camera blows away the MoPho.
This one's small, but it boots in just a few seconds. Much faster than the Photon.
CONs
I do have a couple minor knocks as well. I get about 1 bar less service on average at home. Of course, I don't know if that's an absolute difference, or merely how the number of bars is calculated.
There is no option to mute alarms when the phone is on vibrate or silent. I wrote and app to fix this: http://androidforums.com/application-announcements/419758-tool-quiet-time.html
I find the outer edge of the phone a little slippery, but the textured back helps a bunch.
Like mentioned above, charging is quite slow. I'm still getting average times, but it's 2+ hours for a full charge.
The camera lens does indeed seem to be in danger of being scratched, as mentioned by a few others. The aluminum bezel around the camera sticks out a fraction of a millimeter and the lens is recessed about half that distance. I don't think it quite touches when the phone is laying down (it's difficult to tell), but if it were to sit on any sort of debris (grain of sand) it's going to dig right in. The LED window is flush.
I also miss the text messaging app on my Photon. On the GS2, when you're typing the input box expands to 4 lines, plus the keyboard and you end up with a tiny window (just 1/3 of the screen) to actually see the conversation. You're lucky to see 2 messages. It just doesn't look as slick as the Blur version either.
There's a bug where scrolling becomes very twitchy when the phone is plugged in. It looks like this happened on the Moment and maybe Epic as well. Still seeing exactly which circumstances cause it.
You have to hit the capacitive keys right on the icons. It's not like the Photon where you slap the general vicinity and it works.
The sound isn't quite as good. As someone who will be using the phone extensively for music, I can say it's not that much worse.
The notification light is only two color. Red and blue. Presumably it should be capable of purple too, but I've yet to see it and Light Flow couldn't get it to work.
I think Blur is a much nicer interface than TouchWiz, personally. The launcher, lock screen and messaging app are all ugly as sin on TouchWiz. LauncherPro+ and WidgetLocker were among the first apps to grace my GS2.
The installed Swype keyboard doesn't automatically insert spaces in front of one letter words like 'a' and 'I'.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents. I'll try to add more as I come across it if people are interested. I'm willing to look at specific features if anyone has questions as well.
Feel free to chime in with your own woos and woes, I'm interested in hearing what other users have to say about their new toy.
More info in this thread
Live wallpaper selection and screen in direct sunlight: Post 5
Call quality, GPS, call quality, and speakerphone: Post 12 (Follow up on GPS: Post 18)
Second opinion on the feel of the phone (regarding weight, mostly): Post 28
Screen off animation (two posts): Posts 71-72
