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Our Samsung Galaxy Mini Review

Samsung is entering the race for high quality, budget friendly smart phones with the Samsung Galaxy Mini. You can get one of these smart phones without taking out a loan and still get many features found in standard devices. If you are making the jump from a basic feature phone to a smart phone this may be the choice for you.

Hardware

The Samsung Galaxy Mini is, like its name says, small and lightweight – a miniature phone that easily fits in your pocket. It comes in stylish black with accent colors such as lime green. It is fitted with a 3.2 inch capacitive touch screen. Underneath the touch screen are three buttons – back, menu, and home. Samsung has placed protective plastic covers over the microSD card slot and the USB port which we found fascinating. Power and volume buttons are ergonomically placed. The back of the device is home to a 3 megapixel camera. The overall build of the phone is secure and appears to be a great value for the price of the phone.

We were not so happy with the 320 by 240 screen resolution. Hopefully Samsung will move up a pixel size in future generations. The internal aspects of the Mini feature a 600 MHz CPU and 384 MB of RAM. There is 150 MB of storage dedicated for apps. The hardware is not super fast, but it is fast enough for us considering the price.

Software

The Samsung Galaxy Mini operates on Android 2.2.1 or Froyo layered with TouchWiz. If you are familiar with TouchWiz you will notice it has been trimmed to fit the screen size but still operates similar to other Samsung phones. The phone is loaded with up to seven home screens you can customize with Android widgets and Samsung apps. You get the standard Swype keyboard app which speeds up typing. Android apps include the music player, calendar, clock, and a new Social Hub. To transfer media and receive firmware updates the phone utilizes Samsung Kies. The Mini has excellent download speeds for a device of its class. On the 3G network you can expect up to 4 MB per second in urban areas.

What We Liked

We liked the battery life we got with the Samsung Galaxy Mini. You will get a day’s use off of one charge unless you are into heavy usage. The camera is decent and the resolution of photos is average for this class of smartphones. The big plus is the speed. For a budget smart phone we were pleasantly surprised to get the speed we discovered when downloading and using the phone. Finally, the UI was easy to navigate.

What We Disliked

The lack of a camera flash is a big disappointment in this day and age. Some of the preloaded app shortcuts are impossible to remove – for example, the Casino app. However, this seems to be a common practice with smart phones these days.

Our Final Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy Mini is an excellent choice for anyone making the jump from feature phone to smart phone. It is budget friendly and offers many choices for owners.

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	Samsung Galaxy Mini
General
Form Factor	Candybar
Dimensions	110 x 61 x 12 (mm)
Talk Time	371 mins
Standby Time	387 hours
Weight	105 g
Quad Band	Yes
Photo and Video
Integrated Camera	Yes
Camera	3.20 megapixels
Video Player	Yes
Phone
Polyphonic Ringtones	Yes
Smart Phone	Yes
Internal Memory	160MB
Memory Card Type	MicroSD (max 32GB)
Messaging
Instant Messaging (IM)	Yes
Screen
Colour Screen	Yes
Touch Screen	Yes
Connectivity
3G	Yes
Bluetooth	Yes
Email	Yes
WAP	Yes
Web Browser	Yes
Wi-Fi	Yes
GPS	Yes
Music and Radio
FM Radio	Yes
MP3 Player	Yes
MP3 Ringtones	Yes
Additional Content
Downloadable Content	Yes
Downloadable Games	Yes
Downloadable Ringtones	Yes

Samsung Galaxy Mini Full Specification

General

Photo and Video

Phone

Messaging

Screen

Connectivity

Music and Radio

Additional Content