Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini – small and fierce

The Samsung Galaxy S3 is a run-away success, and now Samsung has extended its range with the S3 Mini. Is it just a smaller version of the S3? LIRON SEGEV, AKA the Techie Guy, finds out.

The S3 Mini looks identical to its larger S3 brother. You have to look closely to realise it is a smaller phone it even has the same high end marble white chassis the S3 has.

But, in your hand you will notice that it is indeed smaller as it measures in at 121.55 x 63 x 9.85 mm, and weighs 111.5 grams.

It is small enough that your fingers don’t have to do that hop-skip-and-jump to get to various sides of the screen that we have become accustomed to.

The perimeter layout is as we have come to expect from Samsung phones. It has the MicroUSB slot at the bottom and the same Home button and the soft Back & Menu buttons. On the right is the Power button, on the top is the headphone jack and on the left is a Volume rocker. The microSD slot is under the battery (so no popping that SD card in and out without switching the phone off first).

The Galaxy Mini is powered by a dual core 1GHz CPU and comes pre-installed with the Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean operating system.

Turn the phone over, and behind the cover is the removable battery. This might seem trivial, but its becoming more important as people have stated to carry two batteries if they know they will have a busy day on their phone. The Samsung Mini uses a standard SIM not a microSIM or nanoSIM used in most other new phones.

Getting around the phone

The Jelly Bean operating system is day to use and the 4.0‚” WVGA Super AMOLED screen is bright enough to see in daylight. Swipe down from the top and the Drawer opens with access to settings, network options, GPS, Bluetooth and a range of other configuration options.

To make a phone call, tap on the Phone Icon and the dialer opens up where you can access your contacts or start dialing.

Start typing the number you want to call and it instantly starts to make suggestions of all the contacts that have those numbers.

Finally, Samsung has not forgotten to include the ‚”turn the phone over to reject an incoming call‚” feature.

Using the Internet

These days, using the Internet is just as important (if not more) as making a call. The Galaxy S3 mini has all the connectivity you could want: HSPA 14.4/5.76 900/1900/2100 and EDGE/GPRS 850/900/1800/1900. It also connects to WiFi so no costs are incurred for those big downloads.

Because the Galaxy S3 Mini uses an Android operating system, you are able to install Chrome. Chrome logs into your Google account and instantly gives you access to your Google bookmarks, history and saved pages – letting you browse them offline.

The Camera

What self respecting Mobile Ninja doesn’t use their phone to share with the world everything they see?

The Galaxy S3 Mini has two cameras. A 5MP with LED Flash at the back and a VGA camera in the front.

It comes with most of the settings that the S3 has including Buddy photos share and Smile shot.

The quality of the pics are not on S3 8 MP scale, but are not bad at all. I especially like the fact tat you can place the focus on a particular part of the screen and not just the middle and the flash really does its job well.

Yes there are contrast issues between light and dark and some will find it an irritation, but for what I need and for what most people need on a day to day basis, this is perfect.

How’s the sound?

I downloaded my music collection onto the S3 Mini which was transferred with Kies with no problem. As soon as I plugged my headphones in, I noticed that the notification bar pops open with all the pre-installed media related apps including Music Player, Video Player, Video Hub, FM Radio, YouTube. This is pretty cool as you can instantly access these from one location.

Video Playback

The S3 Mini has the same features for video playback at the S3 which is just brilliant.

I always liked the pop-up player that you can view any video clip and overlay that on top of anything else that you are working with without missing a single second.

The Battery Power

With all these cool features, I was surprised to see that I managed to last an entire day of heavy usage. The main drain of the battery is usually the display assuming that since the screen is smaller along with Samsung’s battery-saving techniques, these all helps to keep the phone going.

Even when playing high intensity graphic games, the Galaxy S3 Mini just kept on going.

So in Summary

If you like the look and feel of the original Galaxy S3, then you will love the design and feel of the Galaxy S3 Mini.

The phone easily slips into your shirt pocket and you are are able to handle fully with one hand.

The Galaxy S III Mini is available at recommended retail prices starting at R3 999 for the 8GB version. It is also available on the Cell C website on contract for R279 pm over two years.

* Liron Segev is also known as The Techie Guy. You can read his blog at www.thetechieguy.com or follow him on Twitter on @Liron_Segev

* Follow Gadget on Twitter on @GadgetZA