So, I asked in a poll what you guys would like me to review next, and you selected Browsers. So, I'm going to be doing 3 separate reviews on the following browsers:
- Stock standard one that comes with the Galaxy S2
- Dolphin (see the Dolphin Browser review here)
- Opera Mini
Now, I've been pretty much using the standard browser on my S2, and I must say, I'm pretty much happy with it. It doesn't have issues displaying the sites I like to frequent, and I've even done some online banking with the regular "desktop interface" of my bank's website (that will be the same interface that desktop PC's will have when doing online banking).
In fact, it works so nicely with that that I don't even bother to register for cellphone banking at all, I can just do it with my regular browser!
Here are a couple of screen shots of the standard browser in action:
Since the Galaxy S2 screen still isn't the size of a tablet or regular PC, what happens when you browse is the address bar get hidden from sight. To see the address is easy though, you simply swipe down, and there it is.
One thing that I'm not that fond of though, is you have to "press" the bottom left button on the phone itself, and the tap "windows", which opens up the list of open windows you have:
When I do the review of Dolphin, you'll see how they handle that.
Other than that, I couldn't find fault with the default browser. It handles Flash, SSL and has a whole bunch of settings also, here're the list of settings available for it:
As you can see, lots of settings so that you can tweak how it functions for you.
Zooming in can be done in 3 ways - you can double tap somewhere, and the browser zooms in on that part. If it is text your double tapping on, then it will fill that text to the screen width. Sometimes, if the website you're viewing doesn't have a mobile friendly stylesheet, then the text will still be too small to actually read it.
You can zoom in manually by pinch-zooming also, but like I said above here, the text doesn't fit in the area you're viewing automatically, so you'll have to scroll sideways to view the content when zoomed in.
Another funky way of zooming, which in my opinion is just a gimmick, is you tap two fingers on the screen at the same time, then you tilt the phone itself - this will then zoom as you're tilting the phone. I find that only cool for showing off the phone :)
So, in my opinion, if you don't use your phone for all of your internet browsing needs, then the stock standard browser does the job, with its few minor annoyances.
If you do, however, use your phone a lot more for browsing, then I'd recommend getting something else... I'll be looking at Dolphin next, as well as Opera Mini.
Keep well, and until next time!
