it's a lot faster than the 1st version and has a significantly larger battery (which was really necessary, from what I can tell).

I've always been drawn to those Beats Audio products but I, too, have to say that I won't buy anything new until the Nexus Prime has been announced. Although, of course, it's unclear when that one will hit Switzerland - the Nexus S didn't sell well here. heck, they're selling it off in Aldi now :-)

It's now 499 CHF from digitec. Seems like a great price. Its 580$ in the US

Anyone find it cheaper?

http://www.toppreise.ch/prod_225880.html

The price war seems to have plateaued out at around 490 CHF.

I am trying to upgrade the firmware to get 2.3.5 and, man, is Samsung Kies the worst program ever or what? Kies Air is nice, but this is just awful. It doesn't recognize my phone, constantly makes me reinstall the drivers, and so on...

Kies is definitely a pos.

I bought the phone a month ago and I think mine does have quite poor call quality. I can't hear the other party clearly and they can't hear me well either. I'm a bit worried that if Itake it back to Digitec, I'll be without it for a month or so, lose my settings and data and get a repaired phone or replacement with the same defect.
Anyone else experienced muffled sound quality or Digitec's (or Samsung's) repair quality?

Hearing quality can be the provider and not the phone? Have you tried in several places?

I also hate Kies and never use it. However when I heard about the fw upgrade I fired it up, let it install the Kies program update(s) and then proceeded with the fw upgrade. It did exactly as you said, kept looping through driver installs, hanging, insisting on backing up the whole phone etc..

In the end I rebooted the PC and the fw upgrade proceeded smoothly after that. Basically you need to reboot after you've upgraded Kies to the latest version.

It took me almost 2 hours to get it to work, and the latest version available in CH is 2.3.4. It's really nice. I'm noticing much better battery life, smoother use, and Swype has become more user-friendly.

Apprently 2.3.5 is slowly rolling out across the world (we should get it by the end of this month) and I heard the battery life is even better. You get 2+ days use easy with it.

And whoever is responsible for Kies needs to get shot in the face.

How did you manage to get 2.3.4. I just asked mine to check for update and it says there is no update available. (I have 2.3.3)

Do you mean on your phone? It doesn't update firmware like that. You have to do it through Kies, which you download from Samsung, (not Kies Air) and through a cable connection on your computer. If I misunderstood and you've done all that, it may be for all sorts of reasons. If your phone is a French, UK, or German import, for example, it could take longer to come out. They're rolling them out region by region. Some like Hong Kong already got 2.3.5. Others like Scandanavia only recently got 2.3.4.

OK...I was doing it wrong and I will connect the cable now. Does the Kies program provide 2.3.4?

The latest firmware update should be 2.3.4, yes.

Ok so I have installed Kies and finally got the Samsung to connect....and now it says i have the lastest software version....on the phone it says 2.3.3

Do you have a branded version of the SGS II?

Branded? If you mean with Swisscom, sunrise...no. I bought the phone direct from Digitec

Which doesn't necessarily mean you didn't get a Swisscom or Sunrise phone.

Apart from that: has 2.3.5 been officially released for the country zone Switzerland's in?

Peter

I dont know about 2.3.5 but I still have 2.3.3 so just 4 would be fine....

I'm sure that the phone is not branded or locked in any way. There would be some sort of program/app with those names. It was bought full price too.

the only way you can tell it has carrier-specific firmware installed is by looking at the build number. Digitec oftentimes import stuff from O2 or T-Mobile Germany. Those phones don't look any different from unbranded versions but have a carrier-specific ID tag.

Anyone figured out to update firmware with a Mac?