The Galaxy S5 mini looks quite similar to its flagship sibling, but replaces most of the high-end hardware*with mid-range components.
Samsung has officially announced the Galaxy S5 mini, a compact version*of the Galaxy S5*that doesn’t deviate from the industry norm of mini smartphones that offer hardware that is nowhere near as high-end as their flagship counterparts.
The Galaxy S5 mini sports a 4.5-inch 720p Super AMOLED display, a small upgrade over the 4.3-inch qHD screen of the Galaxy S4 mini. Whether a 4.5-inch display can be called mini is still a matter for debate, though it’s certainly not out of the ordinary considering all flagship Android phones these days sport 5-inch and bigger screens, putting a damper on comfortable one-handed usage.
While the display has been downgraded, the Galaxy S5 mini does feature all the sensors of its bigger brother, including the fingerprint scanner and heart rate sensor. It also carries over the fake leather material with stitching on the back, though that shouldn’t be a bad thing for most since it does improve the ergonomics of the phone and makes it easier to handle.
The hardware on the Galaxy S5 mini is rather mid-range, and*includes a 1.4GHz quad-core processor, 1.5GB of RAM, an 8-megapixel rear camera, 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera, 16GB of internal storage that’s expandable via microSD cards,*Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, USB 2.0, GPS, and IR Remote connectivity, and a 2,100 mAh battery. There’s an LTE variant as well, which will also feature an NFC chip and support download speeds of up to 150 Mbps.
On the software front, the S5 mini has quite a lot in common with the Galaxy S5. It runs Android 4.4 KitKat with the newest version of Samsung’s TouchWiz UX, along with features such as Ultra Power Saving Mode (which disables the display’s color output and most other functionality to save battery life), Kids Mode, and Private Mode, a feature that allows a user to hide private files and lock them away with their fingerprint acting as the password.
The Galaxy S5 mini will be offered in four fancy colors:*Charcoal Black, Shimmery White, Electric Blue and Copper Gold.*Samsung hasn’t revealed its pricing, but the handset will be available in Russia in early July and will later roll out to other countries, with a dual SIM version titled Galaxy S5 mini DUOS for select markets.
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