The S5 Mini wasn’t able to run Epic Citadel at our usual Ultra High Quality setting either, so we had to settle for running our benchmarks on High Quality instead. On this setting, it managed a very smooth average of 53.7fps. This is promising for anyone who likes playing more demanding games on the move, but graphical fidelity was disappointing. Okay, so it's not a full HD screen on the Mini, but the 720p display is still impressive. Since itís a 4.5-inch screen the need for 1080p isn't as great as on bigger models - though the HTC One (M7) has a 4.7-inch 1080p screen and looks amazing. Shadow areas weren’t too muddy either and the sky was very well exposed True, the smaller virtual keyboard on the mini takes a little more care to type accurately, but, on the other hand, as it were, a little less reach is needed. Snug but usable. Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini: Battery The GS5 Mini model we're reviewing has 16GB of onboard storage, of which an ample 11.8GB is available to use. Samsung also provides a microSD slot, naturally, which works with cards up to 128GB.

But despite the hardware and software limitations, the GS5 Mini's rear camera generally takes good-looking shots — better than the HTC One Mini 2's 13-megapixel camera, at any rate. Most of the time you'll get pleasing shots without any of the aberrations associated with low-quality smartphone sensors: visible noise, mushy over-processed images, artefacting or washed-out color. On the whole, particularly in daylight, the Mini captures decent-looking photos with a plenty of fine detail. Look up close and you'll see evidence of software sharpening, but even that's not too obnoxious. Above the display lies the earpiece, the ambient light sensor, the proximity sensor and the 2.1MP front-facing camera. Also to the left of the earpiece lies the LED notification light, which is normally invisible - it blinks only for notifications.

The Galaxy S5 gets shrunk, but smaller isn't always better

The device is claimed to be water resistant despite the exposed USB charging port, while the USB charging port of the Galaxy S5 requires to be covered by a flap to ensure water protection. The Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini is an Android smartphone developed by Samsung Electronics. It was announced in May 2014 and released on July 1, 2014. The S5 Mini is a mid-range model of its flagship Galaxy S5 smartphone and a successor to the Galaxy S4 Mini. It competes with the HTC One Mini 2 and the Sony Xperia Z1 Compact. It has a similar design and software features to its high-end counterpart, the Galaxy S5. [4] [5] Specifications [ edit ]

On top of that, Samsung's got the S5 Mini loaded up with all the connectivity features you'd expect from a modern Android phone — quad-band HSPA and support for the main European LTE bands, along with Bluetooth 4.0 and 802.11 a/b/g/n Wifi support. All of that functions as expected, and the GS5 Mini's LTE reception was comparable to that of other current Android phones. At first glance, the UI is essentially identical to what you'll see on a full-sized Galaxy S5. Same bright, colorful widgets, dark teal color schemes and labyrinthine settings menus. TouchWiz has grown to the point where if you can imagine it, there's probably a feature buried somewhere in that maze of colored circles that'll let you do it.Inside, the S5 Mini takes a more radical departure from the Qualcomm-powered Galaxy S5 we got in the UK. That handset used a2.5GHz Snapdragon 801 chipset, while the Mini uses one of Samsung’s own quad-core 1.4GHz Exynos 3470 processors instead. While the Exynos 3470 is perfectly fast enough to run Android 4.4.2 and Samsung’s customised TouchWiz interface, the phone’s web browsing performance was much slower than we were expecting. The 720 x 1280 resolution gives a pixels per inch count of 326, the same as the iPhone's Retina display, so no wonder it looks great. Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini: Camera Note that the camera on the S5 is capable of 4K recording but that's not the case here. Still, the 1080p video looks pretty good, too. Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini: Performance The Samsung Galaxy S5 mini succeeds because it's a more widely usable size than the bigger S5, and because it cuts few corners in the shrinking process. To include a fingerprint sensor, infra-red blaster and heart rate monitor on a phone that you can splash without ruining are significant achievements. And the size and software mean that it's very pleasing to use. This screen is bright, colourful and has the vividness that Super AMOLED offers. Samsung is king of Super AMOLED and matches software to hardware with shortcut icons, wallpapers and app choices that all make the most of the colour saturation the tech excels at. Even if this means the results are sometimes eye-searingly colourful.

The S5 Mini only has a 4.5in screen and a 1,280×720 resolution, but its Super AMOLED display is just as lovely to look at as the S5’s. Our colour calibrator showed it was displaying an outstanding 100 per cent of the sRGB colour gamut, so you can expect colours to look their very best when watching films and videos. Update: Phones have gotten bigger, it’s fair to say – especially if you’re a fan of Samsung. Handsets start at 5in, and the S6 and S7 didn’t get their own “mini” versions, leaving the Galaxy S5 Mini the last small (sort of) flagship Samsung produced. Assuming you can find one in 2017 (most places have retired it), is it worth owning?

Still, charging an extra battery is arguably even more of a faff than remembering to plug it in when you turn in. Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini: Verdict The first figure refers to dust resistance - six is the highest rating there is - and the second to water-resistance. Seven is good, and protects against immersion in water between 15cm and 1m for half an hour. Not only has Samsung translated the design of the Galaxy S5 into its mini variant but the company has also successfully made it feel the same. The materials feel equal in terms of quality and the phone feels equally-comfortable in the hand. The retail box of the Samsung Galaxy S5 mini is about the size of the phone it has within. Underneath the Galaxy S5 mini lie headphones, a microUSB cable and an A/C adapter. Several leaflets complete the retail box. This is the other area where the specs have dropped. The 16MP camera on the S5 is replaced by an 8MP model here. Even so, that's the same as the iPhone 5s sensor resolution or indeed lots of other phones. True, the HTC One Mini 2 has a 13MP camera and the Sony Xperia Z1 Compact has a whopping 20.7MP sensor, so higher-resolution sensors are far from impossible.