Say hello to the Android smartphone of the year so far: The Samsung Galaxy S2.

Say hello to the Android smartphone of the year so far: The Samsung Galaxy S2.

Android based phones are coming thick and fast this year. So much so, that it is going to make actually choosing one a bit of a minefield. At least that's the case if you haven’t clapped eyes on Samsung’s flagship phone for 2011, the Galaxy S2.

Anyone who is looking for a super-powered mobile phone is going to get it here with the Galaxy S2, which features a beastly 1.2 GHz dual-core processor running of a generous 1GB of RAM. That’s theoretically faster than the super speedy iPad 2 and should give users all the power they are ever going to need.

Obviously a higher spec CPU makes for a power-hungry phone, especially when you consider that the Galaxy S2 screen size has jumped from the original 4-inches to 4.3-inches. Thankfully there is no need to worry about charging in the middle of the day thanks to the display technology which is a Super AMOLED Plus screen that uses a fraction of the power used by a conventional LCD screen and will ensure a least a day’s worth of heavy smartphone use.

To top it all off, there is a monster 8-megapixel camera with LED flash on the back and a 2-megapixel shooter on the front.

All of this will be housed in a ridiculously thin casing that, at just 8.49 millimetres, makes the Galaxy S2 the thinnest phone in its class, even eclipsing the iPhone 4.

The phone will also be running Android Gingerbread, the latest version of the operating system for smartphones and this will provide a silky smooth user interface as well as allowing for the Galaxy’s newest feature called Near Field Communication (NFC).

NFC is an innovative new communications protocol that functions as a data exchange between devices and NFC tags once they are within four feet of each other. This might not seem like a big deal but it will, in the future, facilitate for instant transactions (just wave your phone at the counter and walk out) or even a full medical history that updates itself after every doctors visit or treatment.

It’s heady stuff and is unlikely to become a part of everyday life for another couple of years but if electronics giants like Samsung, Nokia, Sony and Apple are including it in their future plans, expect to see this one fly.

For our money, the Samsung Galaxy S2 is the must-have Android phone of the year so far. As to when Samsung actually get around to releasing it is anyone’s guess and but we reckon that Samsung is going to drop this Apple-baiting bomb very near to the summer launch of the iPhone 5.