Samsung Galaxy S II will hit UK shelves on 1 May

KOREAN HARDWARE GIANT Samsung has announced that its Galaxy S II smartphone will be available on 1 May in the UK.

The news comes after The INQUIRER reported in February that the phone would be available as early as 31 March from play.com, which has since changed its date to 6 May. The price on play.com has also dropped by £100 to £499.99, SIM free.

Clove.co.uk has the handset for £528 on pre-order, but not on a specific date, just quoting that first stock is expected in May. Expansys.com has also lowered its price to match play.com from a massive £629.99

The Galaxy S II is the successor to the popular Galaxy S and is slimmer, lighter and faster. It is a mere 8.49mm thick, 116g and has a huge 4.27-inch Super AMOLED Plus touchscreen.

Google's latest operating system for phones, Android 2.3 Gingerbread, comes pre-loaded and the phone has a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM and an 8MP camera capable of recording HD 1080p video.

The phone features Samsung's entertainment hub and a 'Live Panel' feature on the Galaxy S II allows aggregation of live web, social networking and application contents to a single customisable home screen.

We first saw the Samsung Galaxy S II at Mobile World Congress so for a closer look, check out our video demo of the Samsung Galaxy S II from the event. µ