Our Samsung Galaxy Mini Review

[howard]

Here’s the Samsung Galaxy Mini from Mobilicity. It’s currently $169.99 on contract on Mobilicity. You get a 3.14” screen, 3MP camera, WiFi, GPS, Samsung Touchwiz and Froyo. (Gingerbread coming soon!)



Size-wise the Mini is about the same length as a Blackberry Torch but it’s thinner and more narrow.

It’s a very light plastic phone but it also feels well made. The back is soft to the touch, there’s a reasonable amount of detail and most importantly it doesn’t creak when you squeeze it.

Included with the Mini is a 2GB microSDHC card.

The screen has a plastic cover which has 2 minor problems. First off it’s really hard to wipe oils off of it. Secondly, plastic scratches much more easily than glass. If you get the Mini do yourself a favour and get a screen protector.



It has a TFT LCD display with a resolution of 240x320 and can display up to 262k colours.. At this resolution you’ll have to zoom in to read most webpages. I also found it hard to tell whether pictures are sharp or not since you can’t see a lot of detail. There’s a lot of colour shift if you move away from the center.

It works okay outdoors when it’s sunny. While I don’t have much praise for the display I’ll be honest, after using it for a few hours it didn’t bother at all. It’s usable and that’s what’s important.

I noticed that there were a couple of apps that weren’t available for the Mini. I suspect it’s because they don’t support the Mini’s 240x320 display.

The front has no physical buttons. Just the ear piece on top and the four touch keys on the bottom.



Micro USB port, 3.5mm headphone jack. The Micro USB port is quite recessed so some micro USB cables might not work with it. I found my Nokia charger disconnected very easily because of this (the charger that comes in the box works just fine).



Volume buttons and lanyard connector



Power and microSD memory card slot on the right.



The back has the fixed focus camera and phone speaker.



Taking the back cover off you’ll see the 1200 mAh battery and the sim-card slot underneath that. The phone speaker is very loud and sounds great. It’s quite a shock.



I was a little surprised that the Mini includes SWYPE in addition to Samsung’s keyboard. Both of them work really well on the Mini.



The Mini currently runs Android 2.2 - FroYo with Samsung’s Touchwiz software on top. The Mini should get an upgrade to Gingerbread eventually. I was very pleased that the Mini can operate as a mobile hotspot.



Touchwiz is laid out like the iPhone so you have 4 buttons which are always present along the bottom.



The launcher is organized into screens which you can move between side by side.



I really like how Touchwiz lets you toggle the WiFi, GPS, network, Bluetooth and most importantly screen orientation by pulling down the notification area. I also like how you quickly launch a task killer when you’re switching programs.

At 600Mhz, the Mini’s processor pales in comparison with other phonese we’ve reviewed recently. The Bold 9900 has a 1.2Ghz processor, the LG Optimus 2x has dual 1Ghz processor and the Mini’s bigger brother the Galaxy S II on Bell has dual 1.2Ghz processors. Of course all these phones cost a great deal more than the Mini so I’ll talk about how usable the Mini is. While it’s not lightening fast it’s definitely usable. The key is to not over do the multitasking. For example, don’t download an app from the marketplace, then switch to the browser while you’re waiting for it to download and then launch 3 new tabs all at once. If you can manage that you won’t mind the Mini.

I benchmarked the Mini: it’s Quadrant score is 547 which is similar to the Nexus One. I don’t game much on Android but I did download Angry Birds. It actually runs fine.

For some reason I wasn’t able to download Battery Indicator Pro (which I’ve purchased before) the Mini will just say ‘Loading’ and that’s it. I was able to install programs which I haven’t bought before like Angry Birds and Skype (both are free). I also noticed that the Android Marketplace runs really slow often times showing the Loading screen for extended periods of time.



You actually get Samsung’s Camera app. It’s got a 3 megapixel fixed focus camera on the back. Since it doesn’t have autofocus you can’t really take sharp pictures of things which are closer than ~1.5ft. Video is only recorded at 320x240 but it actually records a decent 320x240. Audio is also not bad.



The camera actually takes decent pictures outdoors. Indoors it struggles because there’s no flash.



For some reason you can’t download Adobe Flash to the Mini even though it’s running FroYo (a prerequisite for Flash on Android).

Extras include the Samsung Music program a voice recorder and a Full version of ThinkFree Office.You don’t get Samsung’s Video program (which has decent codec support).

I tested the phone in several different environments. (Inside, outside and in a food court.) Incoming audio were quite loud and had a very natural tone. Callers on the other end tells me my voice is loud and clear as well.

I didn’t have any other Mobilicity phones handy to compare the Mini’s RF against. In the past I’ve found Samsung’s to be average when it comes to this. If you get a chance to compare please post in the comments below.

Battery life is pretty good. With light usage you can actually get 2 days of standby.

While there are cheaper Android phones with better specs currently on the market most have a higher monthly cost if you want to use them when you don’t have WiFi.

So, if you’re a student and want a Smartphone with a huge selection of apps but don’t want to pay a lot for it and more importantly, don’t want to spend a ton of money for data each month then consider the Galaxy Mini on Mobilicity. It works well, has a decent sized battery plus it can also function as a mobile hotspot.

Written by DerekToronto and Howard Chui

[LeSong]

Nice review .. thanks but is it currently 169.99$ on contract on Mobilicity !?! :| are you sure !?

Sent from my Nexus S using HowardForums

[BurntPixels]

That's it. I want this phone.

[xtachx]

Nice review .. thanks but is it currently 169.99$ on contract on Mobilicity !?! :| are you sure !?

Sent from my Nexus S using HowardForums

you mean no contract .. :-)

[buurin]

Anyone want to try the unlocking DIY from xda?