Samsung GALAXY mini Review

Introduction:

Android has started from high-end to reach the mid-end and even touch base with low-end handsets. It plays nice with all of them, but don't expect it to be all the same – you have to sacrifice some of its functionality. The Samsung GALAXY mini cuts the corners when it comes to price, but aims to deliver you the versatile and robust experience of an Android handset. Does it succeed? Read on to find out.

While we're completely in favor of the low price (the GALAXY mini will cost you $230 off contract), there is a couple of trades you need to make. First, of course you have to swallow the smallish low-res 3.14” screen with its 240 x 320 pixels. In addition, the average 3.0-megapixel camera lacks auto-focus. Finally, the lack of Flash hinters your browsing experience significantly – especially if you're into online video. But if you can live with that – you will be awarded with an affordable smartphone with a responsive capacitive screen, nice build and smooth, lag-free performance. But before we dive in the Android world, let's examine the exterior of this new Galaxy of a handset by Samsung.

Design:

In the Samsung GALAXY mini world, sizes are smaller and you'll notice this with the 3.14” screen. The rather modest display has a resolution of 240 x 320 and supports 262k colors, allowing you to virtually make out every single pixel on the screen. The low pixel density renders it hard to read smaller fonts, so common in the browser, and you'll have to zoom in to get a legible amount of detail. We would hate to blow the resolution issue out of proportion, but if image quality is of utmost importance to you, the GALAXY mini might not be the best affordable handset out there.



You can compare the Samsung GALAXY mini with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

After your look slides off the screen, though, is when you'll notice the simple yet stylish accents of the handset's design. The perfectly flat screen is surrounded by slopes and edges, but the curves have a soft feel working in concert with the matte finish of the plastic materials. These might be aesthetics of practical essence, but arguably this is the best kind of aesthetics. The overall look and size might not have been inspired by the Samsung Corby series, but the two handsets certainly look similar.

The front holds the earpiece and three physical buttons defined by the brushed finish of the main menu key right in the middle.


The backside features an inward curve with a very pragmatic non-slip textured finish. The easily removable battery cover houses a 3.0-megapixel flash-less fixed-focus camera unit and the speakerphone in the bottom. But despite the ease of taking it off, you'll only need to remove the cover in order to access the SIM card – the microSD card slot working with cards of up to 32 gigs is conveniently located on the right side along with the lock key. The left side holds the volume rocker, while on top a 3.5mm headset jack and a lid-protected microUSB are the final touches to the coherent design of the GALAXY mini.

Interface and Software:

Android and Samsung should ring the TouchWiz UI bell and rightly so – on the software side of things, we're treated with the usual visuals courtesy of Sammy. Our final unit arrived with a standard edition of TouchWiz supporting pinch-to-zoom in menus and the homescreen as well as all the usual Froyo functionality wrapped into a buttery smooth package. The main reason for that lies in the low-res screen, the 600MHz processor and 384MB of RAM, which are just sufficient for simple tasks.

A quick run through the main features of TouchWiz has to mention the updated drop-down menu in the homescreen, which allows you toggling the connectivity switches. The contacts menu is simple – a swipe to the right on a contact's name starts a call, a swipe to the left – messaging, and finally a tap on it brings up the quick access menu with all means of communication available. Text input is also pretty standard and despite the small screen we had no trouble typing our messages with a great deal of speed and precision.



In terms of software, the GALAXY mini is bloatware free and loaded with most of the necessary stuff – the Google suite of apps which shines with its excellency, a file manager and Quickoffice as an office package. The office app, unfortunately, doesn't support document editing. And mentioning apps we reach a very sensitive topic for Android – fragmentation. The GALAXY mini is a blatant example of fragmentation. Even the office program suffers from jittery framerates, but don't even dare throwing a game like the somewhat popular Angry Birds! The load doesn't crash the handset, but looking at the horrifically slow performance, we almost wished it did.

Internet and Connectivity:

The Internet is where we all live nowadays and we were happy to see that the browser on the GALAXY mini functioned quite fluidly, despite (or possibly because of) its lack of Adobe Flash. Text, though, looks pixelized and you'll often need to zoom in to be able to even make out letters. In terms of speed, Sammy threw in a pretty robust connectivity package with dual-band 3G reaching 7.2Mbps on the downlink and support for Wi-Fi b/g/n, as well as Bluetooth 2.1. The GALAXY mini also supports all four GSM bands making it a true world phone.


One of the advantages of having Google Maps is the quick access to navigation and precise location services, aided by the included GPS unit.

Camera and Multimedia:

The 3.14-megapixel camera is modest in both ambition and performance. It produces some rather accurately colored shots on a fine day, but noise was an issue and indoor images tended to turn out pale with washed out colors. The fixed-focus camera unit was one of the shortcuts taken when Sammy decided to make this budget-centric device, but this shortcut is hardly justified - macro shots are impossible with a fixed focus camera and video capture suffers as well. The quality of the images is below average, see for yourself in the sample shots we took below. The only positive side is the presence of some manual settings like shooting modes including panoramas and smile shots.




Video footage is captured at QVGA (240 x 320) resolution and 15fps, which makes it a viable option only for MMS messages.

Samsung GALAXY mini Sample Video:



The GALAXY mini has a smallish screen, but that's not to say that video playback isn't possible. Quite the contrary – the phone plays nice with MPEG-4 files out of the box, while for all other codecs like DivX and Xvid you'll need to stop by the Android Market for a quick download of, say, RockPlayer. We also loved the music playback – the nice clear sound from the loudspeaker on the back and the pleasant experience with headsets is definitely one of the phone's biggest pluses. Stereo FM radio with RDS is also there to entertain you on the go.

Performance and Conclusion:

The most important thing about a phone is its calling quality and we found the output of the microphone on the GALAXY mini clean and loud enough as our callers reported hearing us with the natural tone of our voice. The small low-res screen shouldn't tax the battery as much as those monstrous high-res displays, but don't expect this to boost battery life significantly as the phone lasts two days with moderate use.

In a nutshell, the GALAXY mini is what it claims to be – a small and affordable handset with no groundbreaking functionality. At its current price of around $230 off contract, we are willing to forgive some of its flaws – the lack of Flash support, even the below average camera performance, but it's the poor support for even basic games like Angry Birds, which we couldn't run at a playable framerate, and most importantly the low screen resolution, that should make you sleep over the thought of getting this handset. For a slightly larger sum, you can go with the time-proven LG Optimus One, which ups the game with a 3.2-inch screen with higher resolution of 320 x 480, and no issues running basic software. But if you simply want 3G speeds and the web with full support for Google's amazing suite of apps, the GALAXY mini won't disappoint.

Samsung GALAXY mini Video Review: