I'm sure its a good enough phone, but why aid confusion by calling it the SIII mini, when it differs from its bigger brother by more than just size?
Samsung shoots Galaxy S III with shrink ray, unveils 4in Mini
Samsung has officially unveiled the Galaxy S III Mini, the widely predicted compact version of the firm's flagship Android smartphone. As revealed earlier this week, the Mini boasts a 4in, 800 x 480 display plus a dual-core 1GHz ST-Ericsson Novathor U8420 chipset powering Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. The blower features a 5Mp rear …
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Friday 12th October 2012 10:22 GMT Select * From Handle
I love this...
Samsung clearly made the 4inch version just so that they can label the equivalent apple phone "mini". These days size matters! My love length is 4.8" oh yours is only 4" lol it must be mini...
Marketing via products good idea Samsung, we will see how this fairs... *gets popcorn ready*
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Friday 12th October 2012 10:28 GMT Arctic fox
"With the device clearly aimed at competing more directly with Apple's latest......"
"4in, 800 x 480 display plus a dual-core 1GHz ST-Ericsson Novathor U8420 chipset powering Android 4.1 Jelly Bean."
Clearly aimed at the iPhone5? The SGIII certainly is - a very fine phone. This however is clearly aimed at the mid-end market which not the case with either the iPhone5 or the SGIII. Just precisely what does the writer mean by that statement? If I have misunderstood something here (which is perfectly possible) I would be grateful if someone would enlighten me.
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Friday 12th October 2012 10:37 GMT Anonymous Coward
Disappointing
For something branded as an SIII I would have expected a quad-core CPU and a pixel density to match the SIII's 720p screen. Dropping to a dual-core and lowering the screen res basically make this a phone that looks like a small SIII but really isn't. Bad form Samsung.
I don't see how El Reg can think it competes with the iPhone 5, the spec puts it more in line with the 4S. Maybe it's got an absolutely belting GPU to make up for the rest of the spec?
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Friday 12th October 2012 10:49 GMT JaitcH
I think prefer the 0.8 inch extra, and my Canadian tailor
The additional goodies found in the SIII (Org) far out way the perceived benefits.
Still, this demonstrates that the Android stable of handsets far outweighs the Cuperino competition, in size, function and even ruggedness.
In fact, it seems that Samsung is stuffing almost everything into it's products whereas Apple users have to pay 30% tithings to by more apps just to make their favourite squeeze functional.
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Friday 12th October 2012 11:04 GMT Anonymous Coward
This is Samsung showing that for all their claims of engineering "innovation" they cannot squeeze up-to-date performance specs, display technology and networks (LTE) into a decent sized phone, only their phablets and monster phones get anything of the sort.
But still they might fool a few punters with the S3 branding... If only car manufacturers could get away with this, Aston Martin could sell a DB9 "Mini" with a Corsa engine.
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Sunday 14th October 2012 14:39 GMT Anonymous Coward
>This is Samsung showing that for all their claims of engineering "innovation" they cannot squeeze up-to-date performance specs
Call me old fashionned, but I think they start with a price point and then figure out what's achievable profitably in terms of specs.
They use the same 3rd party components in terms of radio that Apple do, innovation it ain't, at least not Samsung's or Apple's. Since it wouldn't effect cost of components, I'd guess they looked at power req and balanced this against desirability/availability of LTE - figuring a greater number of potential users would rather have an extra couple of hours than an extra couple of MB/s.
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Friday 12th October 2012 11:27 GMT Noel Morgan
Marketing
I think it is marketing genius.
It is clearly aimed at a lower end of the market than the 'proper S3', people who wont be purchasing either an iPhone or a full S3
However compare apple's 'premium' iphone5 with 4" screen and dual core processor selling at the £500 mark to this phone suggested to sell at £300.
The idea is to suggest that the cut down S3 mini is a similar phone to the iPhone5. If you want the best phone around get the S3. (Samsung marketing - not necessarily my opinion)
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Friday 12th October 2012 13:43 GMT MGman
The S3 could have pulled me away from an iPhone if it wasn't for it's size.
So the mention of a 4" S3 a few days ago kept my newly arrived iPhone 5 in it's packaging until I could see what was announced.
Turns out there is nothing to see here and I'll stick with Apple as my phone for now (I can always get an Android fix from my Galaxy Note and an imported, rooted, Kindle Fire)
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Friday 12th October 2012 14:00 GMT jungle_jim
full circle
I used to like Microsoft because that was all I knew.
Then I liked apple because they were the quirky underdog.
Then I liked Samsung because they offered something that would shut the OTT Apple bunch up.
Now I'm really hoping I'm going to like the next batch of Microsoft stuff.
Funny how these things work.
nb: its getting late here and I have had many beers so this opinion is subject to change.
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Saturday 13th October 2012 12:29 GMT Mikko
Re: Battery life
You are probably correct. The 4" form factor in an ultra-thin phone is clearly one of the reasons why iPhone 5 has so much worse battery life than the S III, even with a non user replaceable battery (5.45 Wh vs 7.98 Wh battery capacity).
Saving on screen resolution and CPU frequency may be the only way to get an acceptable compromise between screen size, battery life, and "sexy" thinness.
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