Samsung Galaxy S III mini Review

Introduction:

Although the overall tendency for screen sizes of Android handsets is to go up, it seems phone makers aren't willing to forget about the not so tech-savvy users who would actually prefer having a more compact device. The Samsung Galaxy S III mini is a perfect example. It's designed to bring most of the goodies of the Galaxy S III in a significantly smaller form-factor. However, the S III mini is more intriguing than your typical mid-range model, as it has the privilege of being named after one of the best and most popular Android phones around.

When we first caught wind of the S III mini, many thought that it'll still be a very high-end model, only with a smaller screen size. Now that all about the device is known, some seem to be disappointed by the phone's mid-range specs. To tell you the truth, we don't know why that is. We feel that the Galaxy S III mini is an awesome 4” smartphone with a lot of potential and very few flaws. Let's examine it closely and see where it excels and where it falls short!

Design:

Isn't it obvious? The Samsung Galaxy S III mini's appearance is super-inspired by its bigger sibling, the Galaxy S III. If you don't look closely, you might even think that the S III mini is simply a shrunken version of the GS III, but that would be wrong. Thanks to some minor changes like moving the Home button a bit higher on the S III mini, Samsung has managed to achieve a more pleasing look. Overall, the handset is pretty good-looking, with its white version being perfect for women.



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

Thanks to the compact size and rounded edges, the Galaxy S III mini is extremely easy to hold and operate. Using it with one hand only is a joy and doesn't give you any sense of discomfort.

We guess we won't surprise anyone if we say that the phone's casing is entirely made of plastic. While can't find too many advantages to that, we kind of like the fact that Samsung has used a nice, glossy plastic, as opposed to a soft-touch matte finish that can often give you the feeling of dirty hands.

The physical buttons of the S III mini, which includes the Home, Volume and Lock keys, all function fairly well, although not perfectly. We would have liked them more if they were a bit “clickier,” especially the Lock key. The metallic border that is around the Home key also makes pressing it a bit uncomfortable, but this is being close to nitpicking now.

By the way, we aren't fans of how the capacitive Menu and Back buttons completely disappear when they aren't lit up. This is also present in the Galaxy S III, and, well, we guess that you get used to it at some point, but it simply doesn't feel very “natural,” or... normal.


Display:

So, the most interesting thing here should be the 4” screen size of the Galaxy S III mini. We have to say that we quite like it. In fact, it seems perfect for most basic stuff that one can do on a smartphone, like using the organizer features, browser, camera, etc. Well, if you are a heavy user, who plays a lot of games, or watches a lot of video, or simply uses their smartphone as their main computer, then we'd recommend getting something with a bigger screen, like the GS III or One X or Note II, but in most other scenarios, where you're using your phone as a phone, organizer, social networking device, some web browsing and the occasional game, we think the 4” display of the S III mini is big enough to provide a comfortable experience.

One of the things that people didn't like about the S III mini is the WVGA (480 x 800) resolution. Sure, it won't blow you away, especially when 'HD' screen have almost made their way to mid-range devices nowadays, but one thing we have to note here is that what's important is pixel density, not the resolution itself. In the case of the GS III mini, the pixel density is 233 ppi which means that almost everything on the screen is fine-looking. It's certainly not a Retina Display, but it's still good enough to provide a comfortable experience. So, it's not right to simply compare resolutions; you have to factor in the eventual difference in screen sizes as well.

One thing that certainly isn't helping this display is its PenTile pixel arrangement. Because of that, one can notice individual pixels easily if they look closely at the screen. Some colors are particularly prone to appearing dotted due to the PenTile matrix. All in all, though, as we said above, the experience is still pleasant.

The S III mini's display uses the Super AMOLED tech, which means that its colors are very saturated, while the contrast levels are really high. It's one vivid, yet somewhat unnatural screen. Outdoor visibility isn't very good, just like on most other AMOLED screens. If you shield the display with your hand, though, you'll be able to make out the stuff on screen.

Interface:

One of the stronger sides of the GS III mini is that it comes with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean straight out of the box. While Samsung is notoriously slow when it comes to issuing software updates for its handsets, it's good that the manufacturer is at least trying to install the latest platform version on its devices prior to launch. On top of that, of course, we have the company's custom TouchWiz user interface.

For those who still can't get why smartphone manufacturers put these UIs on their phones, it's because this is one of the things they can do in order to differentiate their products from those of the competition. Not only can they drastically alter the looks of their handset, but they can also add tons of new features and other functionality that isn't present on other Android phones. With the latest iteration of the TouchWiz UI, dubbed “Nature UX”, Samsung has actually made one of the best, if not the best Android interface. It's very responsive and smooth, it looks good, and is full of little cool animations and transitions that make it seem quite lively. Its downside is that it's a bit on the cluttered side, with lots of options and not the most intuitive layout. Indeed, this is software that will take some getting used to, especially if you haven't used a Samsung smartphone before, or if you aren't of the tech-savvy type.



Messaging:

We can't say that the QWERTY keyboard that's part of the TouchWiz interface is the most comfortable we've seen for this screen size. Especially in portrait mode, the keys seem to be on the smaller side, which could limit the speed of typing. If you send a lot of messages/emails daily, and find the built-in QWERTY uncomfortable, we'd recommend that you install some kind of a third-party keyboard with a better layout.


Other than that, the phone is fully-equipped with anything you might need, including the glorious Gmail application and Samsung's own ChatOn service.

Internet:

The Galaxy S III mini can provide a wonderful browsing experience. Although the official browser of the Jelly Bean platform is now Chrome, Samsung has decided to stick with its version of the ICS stock browser, which seems like a wise move, for now at least. The thing is we've noticed that the stock ICS browser can actually outperform Chrome for Android, and when you factor in the improvements that Samsung traditionally adds to the Android browser, we can understand why the company has preferred to go this way.


Flash Player is nowhere to be seen, though, and as some of you probably know, it's no longer available for download from the Google Play store, so if you really want to experience the “full web”, you'll have to find the plug-in somewhere else and side-load it.

It's worth noting that the handset does not support any type of 4G connectivity. It maxes out at HSDPA 14.4 Mbit/s and HSUPA 5.76 Mbit/s. This isn't a deal-breaker in our opinion, as this kind of 3G speed should be enough for most data-requiring applications, as long as you have decent coverage.

Processor and Memory:

The processor that Samsung has used for the Galaxy S III mini is one of the things that seemed to have pissed people off. The “problem” here is that while many expected the company to utilize its super-powerful quad-core Exynos 4412 chipset, it has instead gone with an ST-Ericsson NovaThor U8420, which is a dual-core CPU clocked at 1GHz. The GPU chip is the Mali-400MP, which packs quite a punch.

All in all, the system performance is great. The NovaThor chip is doing a wonderful job so there isn't reason to worry about performance. Now, there are some slight hints of lag scattered throughout the system, but they are just that – very slight hints that simply cannot ruin the positive impression made by the device. And as we said earlier, since you probably won't be using the S III mini as your primary computing device, why would you need a cutting-edge chipset here in the first place?

The Galaxy S III mini comes with 1 GB of RAM, which is a standard amount even for high-end smartphones nowadays. While we were testing the phone, we did not encounter any visible slowdowns.

Internal storage is yet another area where the Samsung Galaxy S III mini performs admirably. Coming in 8GB and 16GB flavors, not only does the mini have plenty of built-in storage, but it also features a microSD card slot, which can read cards of up to 32 GB, so storage space won't really be an issue with this device.

Camera:

There's no reason to be disappointed because the camera of the S III mini is “only” 5 megapixels. Not only does it feature a great deal of options to let you try and get the most out of the picture, but it also shoots more than decent photographs.

Pleasantly looking like the rest of the TouchWiz UI, the camera interface features all the settings that you'll find in the manufacturer's higher-tier devices, including various scene modes, effects and so on.


As we said, the photos you can take with the S III mini are more than decent. They certainly aren't top class, as one might expect, but can easily beat most of the mid-range competition, and even some of the high-end devices out there. We like how the photos stay on the smoother side, when the camera is set to its default state. That doesn't mean it lacks sharpness, but the value in this is that you get a natural-looking and noise-free image. Macro shots also turn out quite well.


A similar behavior is observed when the photos are being taken indoors. Once again, the camera prefers to sacrifice some sharpness for a smoother image that isn't plagued by noise. Using the LED flash in low-lit rooms can provide very satisfying results with decent sharpness and unusually low noise levels.

The Galaxy S III mini can record video at an up to 720p resolution. The video is OK, with a stable, smooth frame-rate of 30 fps. Do not expect wonders from it, though.

Samsung Galaxy S III mini Sample Video:



Samsung Galaxy S III mini Indoor Sample Video:



Multimedia:

You shouldn't expect anything out of the ordinary in this area. You can run pretty much any video you like on the Galaxy S III mini, and it'll play it for you, as long as you're gentle.

The music player's filtering options are in the form of tabs at the top part of the screen, and besides the standard functionality that you have in pretty much every phone nowadays, you also get a good selection of EQ presets and the Music Square feature, which lets you choose the type of music you want to listen to, based on your mood, and it'll automatically pick the best-fitting tracks for you. Basically, it's a square grid, with the horizontal axis going from passionate to joyful, and the vertical one from exciting to calm. It did work well with the tunes in our library.

Call quality and Battery:

The Galaxy S III has a very good earpiece that delivers loud and clear sounds with ease. Well, the microphone of the handset on the other end of the line should also be of decent quality, but when it comes to the earpiece itself – it can do a great job. The mic of the S III mini is not as brilliant, as our voice didn't sound as well to our callers, but it's still more than decent.

The battery that supplies power to the Galaxy S III mini is a 1500 mAh one, but unfortunately, official talk-time and stand-by times have not been disclosed. Nonetheless, after we used the handset for a while, we came to the conclusion that it can easily go through two normal days of use, as long as you don't push it too hard. If you happen to be a heavy type of user, you can expect up to one day of battery life out of it.

Conclusion:

The Samsung Galaxy S III mini is a lovely mainstream smartphone. All of a sudden, the Galaxy S III's “nature-inspired” design looks and feels right in your hand. The device is easy to hold and operate, while its 4-inch screen is big enough to provide a comfortable and pleasant experience for smartphone users.

We won't really recommend this one if you're a diehard geek who wants the biggest and baddest device possible, but we can certainly recommend it to pretty much everybody else. It's a well-balanced performer with absolutely no major drawbacks.

With Samsung being dangerously close to conquering the high-end of the Android landscape, it looks like the South Koreans are now willing to take over the mid-range as well. With strong performers like the Galaxy S III mini, it looks like they will.

Software version of the reviewed unit: Android 4.1.1, Build JRO03H

Samsung Galaxy S III mini Video Review: