Samsung's Galaxy S2 picked as top smartphone by German consumer group

SEOUL, Sept. 1 (Yonhap) --Samsung Electronics Co.'s Galaxy S2 was rated as the best smartphone by a German consumer group in its review of product quality and functions, industry sources said Thursday.
Stiftung Warentest, a Berlin-based independent consumer organization, gave the Galaxy S2 smartphone 1.8 points, the highest score among 15 smartphone models evaluated in its survey, according to the sources.
The product review scored high-end handsets from six cell-phone makers based on their call quality, usability, call reception, camera, mobile Internet, music, battery use and others.
The Galaxy S2 smartphone, which is Samsung's flagship model for this year and also among the products entangled in patent lawsuits with Apple, received outstanding scores for its call quality, usability, global positioning system and battery use.
Apple's iPhone 4 was the runner-up, followed by the Desire S smartphone by Taiwanese phone maker HTC, they said.
The results, which also include evaluations of smartphone products from Nokia Corp., LG Electronics Inc. and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, will be published in the September issue of Test magazine, a German consumer report with a monthly circulation of over 510,000.
The results come on the heels of a German court's temporary sales ban on Samsung's Galaxy Tab tablet computer in the European country until lawsuits with Apple are resolved, giving Apple a victory in the series of legal battles between the world's two largest smartphone makers.