The Samsung I8190 Galaxy S III mini is like a nostalgic return to the roots for the highly successful Galaxy S franchise. Quite similar to the original Galaxy S specs-wise, the new SIII mini aims to get as much of the Galaxy S III's personality into a smaller package that's easy on the thumb - and pocket.
The original Samsung Galaxy S III is currently the smartphone to beat, but to many it's too large of a slab to handle. A strong point can be made that a large screen is a must for a great browsing experience or video watching on the go, but not everyone is willing to put up a with the body size such a screen implies.
Samsung Galaxy S III mini official photos
The Galaxy SIII mini is ready to deal a serious blow to the competition in the midrange, by offering a more compact (and cheaper!) way to get the premium smartphone experience. An ambitious goal it is, but Samsung isn't afraid of a challenge.
Samsung I8190 Galaxy S III mini at a glance:
- General: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS 900/2100 MHz, HSDPA 14.4 Mbps
- Form factor: Touchscreen bar
- Dimensions: 121.55 x 63 x 9.85 mm, 111.5 g
- Display: 4" 16M-color WVGA (480 x 800 pixels) Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen
- Chipset: 1GHz dual-core processor, Mali-400MP GPU, 1GB RAM
- OS: Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean); TouchWiz UX
- Memory: 16 GB of inbuilt storage, microSD card slot (up to 32 GB)
- Camera: 5 megapixel auto-focus, face and smile detection; 720p (1280 x 720) video recording at 30fps
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, stereo Bluetooth 4.0, standard microUSB port, GPS receiver with A-GPS and GLONASS, 3.5mm audio jack, stereo FM radio with RDS, NFC
- Misc: built-in accelerometer, multi-touch input, proximity sensor, Swype text input
Actually, the spec sheet is not even half as exciting as the SIII's. The mini version has the unmistakable styling of the flagship but that's about where it stops. At first glance, it's much closer to the original Galaxy S. In fact, it looks like Samsung is merely publishing a remastered version of their 2010 hit single.
Well, we hate to jump to conclusions. Perhaps, there's more than meets the eye.
The Samsung Galaxy S III mini studio shots
We'll only know whether Samsung managed to get enough bang out of the middling specs when we are done with this preview, so let's waste no more time and get going. The hardware inspection starts right after the break.
Samsung I8190 Galaxy S III mini 360-degree spin
The Samsung Galaxy S III mini measures 121.6 x 63 x 9.9 mm, which is just about the size of the original Galaxy S. The mini is certainly way more compact than the current Samsung flagship, but its form factor is nothing out of this world. What we mean is you get 34% less screen in 26% less front surface - not exactly an engineering masterstroke.
The Galaxy S III mini is just a tad larger in every direction than a Motorola RAZR M, which fits a bigger 4.3" screen and a beefier 2000 mAh battery, so Samsung could have used the available space better.
Keep in mind though, that the Samsung smartphone has hardware keys, whereas the Motorola handset relies solely on on-screen navigation.
Design and controls
The Samsung Galaxy S III mini looks exactly the way its name suggests. After the Galaxy Note II showed us what the Galaxy S III would've looked like if it ate all its vegetables, we now have the flagship's little brother, who took a career in weightlifting. Shorter and stockier than the original, the Galaxy S III mini is a pretty nice looking mid-range smartphone.
The Samsung Galaxy S III mini and Samsung Galaxy S III side by side
While we did have our reservations about the Samsung Galaxy S III all plastic construction, its design is one that grows on you. What's more, the Galaxy S III mini is not facing the same kind of elite competition as its bigger sibling, so its looks might actually be an advantage. There aren't any polycarbonate bodies to be had in the Android mid-range, so some high-quality plastic is quite welcome.
The layout of the Galaxy S III mini's controls is similar to that of the Galaxy S III, but there are a few notable hardware omissions such as the ambient light sensor and a secondary mic.
Bellow the display you get the same three keys - capacitive Menu and Back buttons and a regular press Home key.
The usual set of keys sits below the display
Above the display we have the earpiece, as well as the proximity sensor. There's also a VGA front-facing camera for video-calls here, but no ambient light sensor, which means that automatic brightness control is a no-go on the Galaxy S III mini.
There's a front-facing camera but no ambient light sensor
The left side of the Samsung I88190 Galaxy S III is where the volume rocker is located.
The volume rocker is on the right
On the right side there's only a power key. Since the original Galaxy S III lacked a dedicated camera key, it would be foolish to expect one here.
The power key is in its usual spot
The 3.5mm audio jack is at the top of the Samsung Galaxy S III mini. There's no secondary microphone here, as there's no active noise cancellation or stereo sound recording in videos.
The 3.5 mm audio jack is on top
The microUSB port sits alongside the primary microphone at the bottom and is used for both data connections and charging. USB host and MHL are not supported.
The microUSB port and the primary microphone
The back of the Samsung I8190 Galaxy S III mini is where the 5 megapixel camera lens is located. It has the LED flash and the loudspeaker grille on its sides.
The 5 megapixel camera lens
Removing the battery cover reveals the 1500 mAh battery. Bellow it are the microSD card slot and the SIM slot, which takes regular size SIMs. The memory card slot is located below the battery, so hot-swapping is not an option.
The microSD card slot is under the battery, so no hot-swap
Display
The Samsung Galaxy S III mini uses a 4" Super AMOLED screen of WVGA resolution (800 x 480 pixels). It's identical to the screens used in the original Samsung I9000 Galaxy S and the Galaxy S Advance and the image quality is about the same.
The pixel density clocks in at 233 ppi, but since the AMOLEDs of that generation use a PenTile matrix, you can spot the familiar dottiness. It's not a big deal, but it's one of those things that once you spot, you can't get out of your head.
All things considered, the Galaxy S III display offers more than decent image quality for a mid-range device. Colors a punchy, blacks are as deep as on other AMOLEDs and the viewing angles are extremely wide. There's some color shift when looking from an extreme angle, but the screen remains perfectly legible.
| Display test | 50% brightness | 100% brightness | ||||
| Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | |||
| Samsung Galaxy S III mini | 0 | 221 | ∞ | 0 | 385 | ∞ |
| Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III | 0 | 174 | ∞ | 0 | 330 | ∞ |
| Samsung I9070 Galaxy S Advance | 0 | 185 | ∞ | 0 | 326 | ∞ |
| Samsung I9103 Galaxy R | 0.51 | 407 | 806 | 0.92 | 785 | 858 |
| Samsung I9001 Galaxy S Plus | 0 | 251 | ∞ | 0 | 408 | ∞ |
Sunlight legibility is also quite good, as testified by the Galaxy S III mini performance in our dedicated test.
Contrast ratio
- Nokia 808 PureView4.698
- Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III3.419
- Samsung Omnia W3.301
- Samsung Galaxy S3.155
- Nokia N93.069
- Samsung Galaxy Note2.970
- HTC One S2.901
- Samsung Galaxy S II2.832
- Huawei Ascend P12.655
- Nokia Lumia 9002.562
- Samsung Galaxy S III mini2.422
- Motorola RAZR i2.366
- Apple iPhone 4S2.269
- HTC One X2.158
- Nokia N82.144
- Apple iPhone 42.016
- Sony Ericsson Xperia ray1.955
- Sony Xperia U1.758
- LG Optimus 4X HD1.691
- HTC One V1.685
- LG Optimus Vu1.680
- HTC Desire V1.646
- LG Optimus 3D1.542
- Nokia Asha 3021.537
- Nokia Lumia 6101.432
- Gigabyte GSmart G13551.361
- HTC Desire C1.300
- LG Optimus L71.269
- Meizu MX1.221
- Samsung Galaxy Pocket1.180
- Sony Xperia tipo1.166
- Samsung Galaxy mini 21.114
Handling
The Samsung Galaxy S III mini is really easy to handle with its curved back fitting nicely in the palm of your hand. Single-handed operation is also always an option - the only area so far, where the Galaxy S III mini beats the original Galaxy S III.
The Samsung Galaxy S III mini held in hand
Nature UX in smaller form factor
The Samsung Galaxy S III mini comes with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and the latest TouchWiz UI, dubbed Nature UX. It's the premium combination that we saw on the Galaxy SIII and the Galaxy Note II and it undoubtedly lifts the stock Android user experience.
The lockscreen is a standard "tap and drag in any direction to unlock" affair and there're ripples accompanied by water-drop sound as you drag your finger. Samsung has provided four customizable shortcuts at the bottom of the screen - drag one up to activate the specific app. In case of missed calls or incoming messages for example you can drag to unlock the device and directly launch the call log or the messaging app.
The dock at the bottom of the homescreen now fits five custom shortcuts or folders. The rightmost one opens the app drawer as usual, but you can change the other four to any shortcut you like or even a folder full of shortcuts.
As usual, you can pinch to zoom out and easily manage homescreen panes - add, delete or just reorder them. You can have 7 panes at most, which are enough to fit plenty of content even if you use widgets that cover an entire pane.
The Galaxy S III mini homescreen
The notification area offers quick toggles for Wi-Fi, GPS, Silent mode, Screen rotation, Power saving. Only five toggles fit the screen at a time, but you can scroll them sideways to reveal more functions - Notifications (toggles icons in the top row of the screen), Mobile data, Bluetooth, Driving mode and Sync.
The lockscreen • Notification area
The app drawer has a tab that lets you pull out widgets straight to the homescreen. Unlike stock Jelly Bean, you cannot move between tabs by swiping through the pages - you have to explicitly hit the widgets tab. Some will find this more logical (scrolling past the available apps to find yourself in the widgets takes some getting used to).
Using pinch-to-zoom reveals an overview of the pages and lets you rearrange them, but you can't create new ones. Hitting the menu key reveals some more options, including hiding apps or enabling tap-to-uninstall mode.
The app drawer
The app drawer has three view modes - Customizable grid (where you can freely rearrange icons), Alphabetical grid (if you think you can find apps quicker when they're ordered alphabetically) and Alphabetical list (this one makes shortcuts easy to hit, but isn't very space efficient). You can also view just the downloaded apps by hitting the Downloaded apps icon.
The widgets list
Jelly Bean comes with various widgets and Samsung have added even more. Some widgets are resizable too - a feature we've seen in some custom UIs is now available natively in Jelly Bean.
Context menu
Once you get several apps running, you can use the task switcher to go back and forth between them. It's an Jelly Bean-style vertical list with a screenshot and a name for each app. Swiping an app sideways removes it from the list.
There's a button at the bottom of the list to bring out Samsung's home-brewed task manager with a Remove all button. This is the quickest way to clear up both the list and some RAM.
App switcher • Task manager
Overall, the Nature UX dressing on top of Android 4.0.4 looks great and the Galaxy S III mini does pack a lot of the features of its flagship. It's rare to see a compact device having most of the bells and whistles.
And despite the lack of a quad-core Exynos chipset, the dual-core Galaxy S III mini handles the heavy Samsung skin equally well. It didn't even experience that much difficulties with a heavy live wallpaper on and we have no doubts it'll be even smoother come launch.
Synthetic benchmarks
The Samsung Galaxy S III mini features the NovaThor U8500 SoC, which features a dual-core Cortex-A9 processor, clocked at 1 GHz. Graphics are handled by the single-core Mali-400 GPU and there's 1GB of RAM available.
Keep in mind that the benchmark scores are likely to improve ahead of release. So without further ado, let's kick off with BenchmarkPi, which test the per-core CPU performance.
Benchmark Pi
Lower is better
- Samsung Galaxy S Advance530
- HTC One S306
- Samsung Galaxy S II452
- HTC Sensation XE536
- Sony Xperia S536
- Samsung Galaxy S III mini509
- Sony Xperia go543
- Samsung Galaxy S Duos855
- Sony Xperia sola551
Linpack came up next to put the dual-core CPU of the NovaThor U8500 chipset to the test. The Galaxy S III mini scored a respectable 60.3 MFLOPS, but still trailed behind some of the competition.
Linpack
Higher is better
- Samsung Galaxy S Advance64.74
- HTC One S210
- Samsung Galaxy S II77.6
- HTC One V34.4
- Sony Xperia S86.4
- Samsung Galaxy S III mini60.3
- Sony Xperia go69.95
- Samsung Galaxy S Duos24.83
- Sony Xperia sola68.1
SunSpider is a JavaScript benchmark - here the relatively up-to-date software gives the Galaxy S III mini an edge. It came really close to the HTC One S, but lost to the two Krait cores.
SunSpider
Lower is better
- Samsung Galaxy S Advance2663
- HTC One S1708
- HTC One V3299
- HTC Sensation XE4404
- Samsung Galaxy S III mini1955
- Sony Xperia S2587
- Samsung Galaxy S Duos4214
- Sony Xperia go3228
- Sony Xperia sola2837
- Apple iPhone 4S2217
Moving on to the other web performance benchmark, BrowserMark tests how up-to-date is the S III mini with the latest web standards. The Galaxy S III mini managed to beat the similarly spec'd Galaxy S Advance due to its newer Android version. The HTC One S and Galaxy S II had the upper hand, however.
BrowserMark
Higher is better
- Samsung Galaxy S Advance81557
- HTC One S98435
- Samsung Galaxy S II111853
- HTC One V42342
- Samsung Galaxy S III mini90971
- Sony Xperia S74990
- Samsung Galaxy S Duos64321
- Sony Xperia go76820
- Sony Xperia sola73840
- Apple iPhone 4S88725
Vellamo
Higher is better
- Samsung Galaxy Note II2418
- HTC One X (Tegra 3)2078
- Samsung Galaxy S III mini1377
- Samsung Galaxy S III1890
- LG Optimus 4X HD1568
- Meizu MX 4-core1468
The Samsung Galaxy S III mini packs a single-core Mali-400 GPU, which achieved 31.9 fps in NenaMark 2. That's by far not the most impressive score we've seen, considering the WVGA resolution, but it still suggests playable framerates on most occasions.
NenaMark 2
Higher is better
- HTC One S60.5
- Samsung Galaxy S Duos19.7
- Sony Xperia go42.8
- Sony Xperia sola27.7
- Samsung Galaxy S II51.6
- Samsung Galaxy Note 10.143.6
- Samsung Galaxy S III mini31.9
- Sony Xperia S37.5
- HTC Sensation XE23
Unfortunately, we have AnTuTu benchmark data only for quad-core smartphones, but we decided to see how the Galaxy S III mini fares here as well.
AnTuTu
Higher is better
- Samsung Galaxy Note II13562
- Meizu MX 4-core11820
- Samsung Galaxy S III mini5823
- LG Optimus 4X HD11735
- HTC One X (Tegra 3)11633
- Samsung Galaxy S III10767
Quadrant
Higher is better
- LG Optimus G7439
- HTC One X (Tegra 3)5952
- Samsung Galaxy Note II5916
- Samsung Galaxy S III mini2698
- Samsung Galaxy S III5365
- Meizu MX 4-core5170
- LG Optimus 4X HD4814
So the Galaxy S III mini can't compete with the most powerful chipsets currently on the market, but it fares pretty well in the mid-range. The Galaxy S III mini isn't made to be a computing powerhouse, but rather a trusty companion in everyday tasks and it seems capable of delivering there.
Functional Gallery
The Samsung Galaxy S III mini comes with the default Jelly Bean Gallery, which as you'd imagine has been treated to some TouchWiz flavor. It opens up in Albums view, which is what we're used to seeing - it lists all folders with photos in the phone. Rather than the familiar stacks, the app uses a grid of photos, two on a line.
Besides, Album view, photos can also be sorted by Location, Time, Person (photos with tagged faces) and Group.
The Gallery app
Getting inside an album displays all the photos in a rectangular grid, which is horizontally scrollable. When you try to scroll past the end, the photo thumbnails will tilt to remind you you're at the bottom of the list.
When viewing a single photo, you'll find several sharing shortcuts and a delete button above the photo, while below is a line of small thumbnails of all other photos in the album. You can tap those small thumbnails to move to other images or you can just swipe to the side.
Viewing a single photo • Simple editing options
The Gallery also supports highly customizable slideshows with several effects to choose from, as well as customizable music and speed. You can also highlight specific images to be included in the slideshow.
The slideshow option is highly customizable
When viewing a photo with people's faces in it, the Galaxy S III mini will try to detect them automatically (and you can manually highlight faces where it fails). Buddy photo share will use your contacts' profiles to try and recognize who is who automatically.
Putting a name to the face • Manually marking a face
Social tag makes sure that whenever a face is recognized in the photo, their status message appears and you can easily call or message that contact.
TouchWiz music player is feature rich
The Galaxy S III mini utilizes the same TouchWiz-clad music player, as its bigger brother, the Galaxy S III. Samsung has enabled equalizer presets (including a custom one) along with the sound-enhancing SoundAlive technology, which features 7.1 channel virtualization. The company also uses SoundAlive in some of their MP3 and Android-powered media players.
Music is sorted into various categories, but the most interesting one is called Music square - it's quite similar to the SensMe feature of Sony Ericsson phones. It automatically rates a song as exciting or calm, passionate or joyful and plots those songs on a square (hence the name).
Music square creates automatic playlists based on your mood • SoundAlive offers an extensive list of presets
From here, you can highlight an area of the square and the phone will automatically build a playlist of songs that matches your selection.
The music player has benefited greatly from the TouchWiz UI
You can swipe the album art left and right to move between songs. You can also put the phone face down to mute the sound or place your palm over the screen to pause playback.
The Galaxy S III mini player is DLNA-enabled, so you're not limited to tracks on your handset - songs on devices connected to your Wi-Fi network are as easy to get to as locally stored songs.
Loudspeaker
The Samsung Galaxy S III mini earned a score of Average in our traditional loudspeaker test. Here's how it stacks up against the competition.
| Speakerphone test | Voice, dB | Ringing | Overal score | |
| Nokia Lumia 800 | 60.9 | 59.0 | 61.7 | Below Average |
| 66.2 | 60.5 | 69.0 | ||
| Apple iPhone 4S | 65.8 | 64.5 | 74.6 | |
| Samsung Galaxy S III mini | 63.2 | 66.2 | 74.4 | |
| HTC Desire V | 60.9 | 75.3 | 62.0 | |
| Sony Xperia S | 72.7 | 61.8 | 69.6 | |
| HTC One S | 65.1 | 64.6 | 76.7 | |
| HTC Sensation XE | 65.8 | 65.4 | 76.9 | |
| Motorola RAZR XT910 | 74.7 | 66.6 | 82.1 | Very Good |
| 76.6 | 75.7 | 84.6 | Excellent |
Stills and video
The Samsung Galaxy S III mini comes with a 5MP camera and is able to capture photos at a maximum resolution of 2560 x 1920 pixels.
The interface is virtually the same as on the Galaxy S III. On the right there's the still camera / camcorder switch, a virtual shutter key and the gallery shortcut (which is a thumbnail of the last photo taken).
On the left you get several controls and the good news is that you can pick any four shortcuts to put there - you can easily have all frequently used features just a tap away.
The fifth shortcut always points to Settings. You can also move the icons around to your liking.
The camera interface
The actual images are among the better we've seen from a 5MP snapper. We're pleased with colors and the photos have good dynamic range, too. There is some noise in the shadows, but overall, the noise is kept reasonably low.
Samsung GalaxySIII mini camera samples
Even if this is the best Samsung can get out of the Galaxy S III mini, we're not complaining. The images look good enough, especially considering that this is not a camera-centric device. We could still see improvement in the retail unit.
Samsung Galaxy S III mini camera samples
720p video recording
The Samsung Galaxy S III mini did well in the still camera department but video recording isn't as good. The smartphone can only do 720p video recording, which is not quite impressive these days when every other phone does 1080p. At least at 30 fps, the captured videos are quite smooth.
The camcorder interface is almost the same as the still camera's - you get the same customizable panel on the left with five shortcuts.
Camcorder interface
Here's an 720p video sample taken with the Galaxy S III mini.
The Jelly Bean browser is good
The Samsung Galaxy S III mini has the Jelly Bean version of the Android browser, which is one of the last iterations before Chrome takes over for good. Naturally, you have the option to install one of the other third party browsers available at the Play Store, including Chrome as the Galaxy S III mini is a 4.1 device.
The Android browser
The browser supports both double tap and pinch zooming along with the two-finger tilt zoom. There are niceties such as multiple tabs, text reflow, find on page and so on. A neat trick is to pinch zoom out beyond the minimum - that opens up the tabs view.
Tabs view
We had issues with the Flash support on the Galaxy S III mini but this could again be the non-final software to blame. Otherwise there's no reason why the S III mini might have trouble with Flash content. The two Cortex A9 cores the device is packing are perfectly capable of playing even HD Flash content.
The Web browser comes with Incognito mode, which enables you to surf the web without the browser keeping track of your history or storing cookies. You can also switch to a more minimalist UI, which currently is in a Lab stage. It disables most of the browser's user interface and gives you a quick five-button layout to access the basics.
First impressions
Sadly, the Samsung Galaxy S III mini isn't the compacted version of the Galaxy S III flagship some may’ve hoped for. What we got instead is a Galaxy S Advance on a new chassis and a minor RAM upgrade. In fact, on one market or the other, the Galaxy S Advance was known as the Samsung Galaxy S II Lite, so you can guess where this is going.
We are not saying that a slightly refined Galaxy S Advance doesn't make a great mid-range smartphone. In fact we are certain that, if priced right, the Samsung Galaxy S III mini will sell in millions, not least because of its resemblance to Samsung’s flagship.
That doesn't change the fact that Samsung is simply trying to use the well-established name to promote a far less inspiring product. A valid marketing strategy that might as well be, but it’s not impossible for it to backfire. It took the company three years to build the S lineup into a synonym of premium smartphone experience, but overpopulating it with ordinary handsets runs the risk of taking some of the magic away.
That said, bringing some magic to the masses would be the exact opposite school of thought – and Samsung may be getting ready for the holiday season already.
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