Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini review
What is it?
The Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini? You unequivocally need us to explain this one? Ok. It’s a lite chronicle of a genuine S4; smaller screen, smaller price.
What’s great?
It’s unequivocally sharp and so accessible to lift around that you’ll forget we even possess it. The spec is also good and high, and a shade arrangement tiny yet pretty.
What’s not?
The camera doesn’t emanate good formula and a battery life is a bit of a worry.
The bottom line:
Not unequivocally a phone person’s phone yet value deliberation if we wish something entirely featured that works yet a hitch.
Samsung
Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini: Review
With a cost of flagship mobile phones creeping ever higher, it’s of tiny warn that so many mini versions of a same handsets have popped adult to overpass a opening between a haves and a have-some-but-not-quite-enoughs.
We all know what a cracker a Samsung Galaxy S4 is and we all know how wily it is to lift off lite versions of these large boys yet sketch a apparent unpleasant comparisons. Nonetheless, we have high hopes for a S4 Mini, generally given that a same £350-400 handset cost can means we a 5-star Samsung Galaxy Mega. Surely this has to be a leader too? Right?
Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini: Pocket size
Jumping from reviewing Samsung’s largest phone on offer, a Samsung Galaxy Mega, to this micro mobile creates it tantalizing to speak about a high and a ridiculous, yet a law in this box is that it would be tough to contend that was which. What we can contend for certain is that trade adult a phone with a 6.3-inch shade for one during 4.3 inches on a arrangement erratic takes definitely some removing used to. It’s all felt like something of an visual illusion.
The Mega competence be large yet a Mini is indeed definitely normal in size. After all, it has unequivocally identical measure to a 2011 Samsung Galaxy S II and is usually 0.7 inches brief of a S4 itself. All a same, while “Mini” competence seem an astray pretension formed on a numbers, that’s accurately how this phone comes off in a hand. At 124.6 x 61.3 x 8.94mm and 107g, it’s slim, it’s compact, it’s neat and it’s each bit partial of a Galaxy line of mobiles – for improved and for worse. It’s unimportant and easy to lift around yet with a cosmetic demeanour and feel, and dull candybar edges, it’s also definitely unremarkable. No one is ever going to enrich we on how it looks. It’s flattering and petite yet there’s 0 possibly difficult or remotely adventurous about it. Perhaps a usually genuine engaging partial is that there’s a choice of 3 colours. Just a contrition afterwards that they’re black, white and blue.
Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini: Camera credentials
For something some-more mid-range, a Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini has some unequivocally decent imaging options. You get a large 8-megapixel sensor for your categorical camera, with Full HD video recording, and a 1.9MP section on a front for holding selfies and live discuss with your friends and family. You can adjust white balance, ISO, tinker with bearing remuneration and do usually about all one would design of a difficult camera app. The difficulty is that a tangible finish product is something of a let down.
It all looks good on a Mini’s arrangement – both before and after constraint – yet a blue stain of a Samsung screens has prolonged flattered to mistreat and creates all seem distant richer than what’s indeed been recorded. More than usually a colour superfluity let down yet is that a visual supply on this tiny device has a bent to blow all out during a smallest pointer of a high energetic operation (i.e. a shot with a brew of light and dim areas) and, realistically, that’s a infancy of a detailed situations that users will find themselves in. It means that a fact in a shadows is transparent yet all else has a misty liughtness about it, and that’s a large contrition given a hardware and estimate intensity available.
The video is a tiny improved since a sound is rubbed definitely nicely. The microphone picks adult serve divided noises simply even in shrill environments and balances them unequivocally accurately opposite any grunts we competence make from behind a camera. It’s, of course, no compare for an outmost mic yet it’s as good as it gets for mobile phone.
Dan Sung
Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini: Silky screen
While it does no favours for a use of a camera, on a and side, a shade of a Galaxy S4 Mini is something of a stunner. Sure, it’s not a 1080p arrangement but, frankly, we do need it on a shade that size. The 540×960 fortitude and ensuing 256ppi firmness is simply adequate to give that Retina feel. Throw in a 16 million colour record and it’s of tiny warn that a outcome is so pleasing.
The intensity Achilles heel here is with a Super AMOLED shade lighting resource that Samsung prefers to a LCD character selected by both Apple and HTC. What you’ll mostly find is that AMOLEDs simply aren’t as bright. While that’s loyal with a Mini, it’s indeed not too bad in crafty summer sun. You’ll still flicker yet we will be means to use a thing.
One of a best facilities of a Samsung UI also helps out a lot during this indicate and that’s a Adapt Display. The aim of this crafty square of programming is not usually to adjust a liughtness levels of a shade depending on a ambient light yet also to tinker with a contrariety and superfluity levels to fit what you’re indeed doing with a phone from examination a film to sharpened home video.
Sadly, Adapt Display usually works on a native, built-in apps yet we can still select from a series of accessible presets for anything else. The formula meant that examination Full HD cinema behind on a Mini are unequivocally not too bad during all. Unusually for mobile devices, it’s definitely probable to get adequate sum in darker scenes to get a good perspective of what’s going on. The usually empathize for this sold conditions is that a 4.3 inches of shade genuine estate doesn’t accurately make for a cinematic experience. If examination videos is what we wish to do, you’d be improved off with a bigger device. You can get divided with a peculiar part of The Apprentice yet try anything Hollywood and you’re going to be blank a subtleties of what a filmmakers intended.
Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini: Performance perks
Despite a petite dimensions, a Mini has copiousness underneath a hood. It’s indeed unequivocally identical to a Samsung Galaxy Mega – a phone that roughly seems twice a size. The dual-core CPU with 1.7GHz time speed is simply adequate to run Android 4.2.2 in multiple with a 1.5GB of RAM available. As one would design of a Galaxy S family, it all creates for a well-spoken operation with 0 detectable loiter no matter how countless or difficult a apps we chuck during it. That’s taken a lot of work to get right by Samsung and, as many as we take it roughly as speechless these days, it’s positively not to be sniffed at. There are copiousness of brands who do not exercise Google’s mobile OS with such grace.
The downside to this tiny hot-rod is that tiny distance battery indispensable to fit inside is tiny in terms of ability as well, and it turns out that this 1900mAh section is usually usually about adequate to get we from emergence ’til eve with some flattering normal use. If we intend to bake a pixels prolonged into a night, afterwards a Mini will come adult short. What’s more, cruise that this is a box when a phone, and therefore a battery, is code new. Twelve months into a two-year agreement and we competence usually be removing 80 per cent as many life time out of a singular charge. You could good find yourself reaching for a phone horse by mid-afternoon.
Dan Sung
Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini: Apps and features
Another large offered indicate of a Mini is that it has many of a engaging apps and facilities that you’ll find in a S4 correct – most, yet not all. The reality, of course, is that many of these add-ons are usually gimmicks and are of tiny use during all.
For example, S Voice, Samsung’s answer to Siri, is benefaction yet sincerely pointless. More mostly than not it doesn’t rightly recognize what you’re observant and it’s arguably reduction accessible than usually regulating your finger anyway. It’s a identical story for S Travel, Story Album and many things that you’ll find in a Samsung Hub. These are generally widgets that won’t final prolonged on your desktop. Motion and gesticulate controls to navigate around a Android OS or tongue-tied your phone also sound fun yet are generally reduction fit than a normal means of achieving a same ends.
The reduction voluptuous facilities that we will suffer – since they work 99 times out of 100 – are a likes of Smart Stay, that keeps a shade from going into standby when you’re looking during it; S-Beam for promulgation files over a atmosphere to other inclination around possibly NFC or Wi-Fi Direct; and Screen Mirroring where we can share your shade on another device, for instance a television. The WatchON app that turns your Mini into a remote control and also provides TV suggestions is also unequivocally good. Beyond that selection, there’s tiny that won’t let we down.
Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini: Getting connected
We’ve already mentioned a serve of NFC yet there’s also 4G packaged into a Mini too. While we suppose conjunction will be used by a infancy of owners in a initial 12 months, they’re a kind of facilities that competence usually come into their possess come 2014 as a infrastructure for both technologies grows.
Wi-Fi, of course, is something that you’ll be appreciating from a get go but, it’s value observant that a Mini suffers from a debility in a WLAN radio that we’ve seen before in Galaxy phones. It has a robe of dropping off a network during a serve boundary of a signal. That would be ideally normal yet a difficulty is that it tends to do so a metre or dual before some other connected inclination from other manufacturers.
And for a final warning before we broach a MSN verdict, yes, interjection for including a choice of expandable storage Samsung; but, no, we don’t like that you’ve put a microSD container underneath a battery in a behind of a phone. Hot swapping your memory cards while a phone is switched on is something that’s usually not possible. Still, that’s substantially a scapegoat that we have to make when looking to container so many into a form so small.
Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini: Verdict
There’s positively no doubt that a S4 Mini is a unequivocally efficient phone. It works roughly accurately as it should and there’s unequivocally few flaws, if any during all, that will make we bewail shopping it. What it doesn’t unequivocally offer though, is a lot in a approach of excitement. It’s about preference and about seamlessness of operation and on both of those things it delivers.
If we wish a handset with a reasonable cost that feels definitely high spec, afterwards this is substantially it. The difficulty is that it’s blank touches of peculiarity to be a genuine initial choice among these mini phones. The camera is roughly zodiacally deliberate one of a cornerstone of good mobile and a S4 Mini slips adult here. The battery is also adjacent on poor, and that’s another pivotal area.
It’s tough not to like this phone yet with a unequivocally normal demeanour and feel, and tiny in a approach of large shade film fun, it’s also tough to adore it.
Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini:Available now, from £360 SIM-free or from giveaway on agreement – check a latest prices with Bing
