Samsung has officially revealed the mini version of its flagship handset; the Galaxy S5, in the form of the Galaxy S5 Mini.
Design-wise, the new device is a mix of old and new. It retains the dimpled back plastic cover of its larger predecessor but, as its title reveals, it scales things down a bit with a 4.5 inch 720p screen and a smaller 2,100 mAh battery.
The new device also comes with 1.5GB of RAM as opposed to the S5’s 2GB.
Fans of the original S5, will be happy to learn that the mini version of the flagship also contains many similarities to its high-end counterpart.
The Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini retains both the fingerprint scanning home-button and rear heart sensor found on the S5. Additionally, it will also be water and dust resistance due to its IP67 rating. One glaring exception, however, is its inability to record 4K video.
Like the quartet of budget smartphones Samsung announced a few hours earlier, the S5 Mini will also run Android 4.4 KitKat out of the box, meaning that users won’t have to worry about upgrading their OS post-purchase.
Additionally, it will also come with the latest version of TouchWiz – which is a genuinely useful update to Samsung’s UI that includes some solid software tweaks including an Ultra Power Saving mode.
The Galaxy S5 Mini will hit Russia first, later this month, and will be available in black, white, blue and gold. Samsung has confirmed that global markets are to follow and that it will announce UK pricing for the handset soon.
The unveiling of the S5 Mini follows in the footsteps of the release of the HTC One Mini 2 and a recent leak of the LG G3 Mini.
UPDATE: We may have jumped the gun a little with the release date on this one. As you may know, it’s now August and the phone still hasn’t been released. That’s because Samsung has confirmed the UK release date to be August 7th.
There’s still no official word on price though, but we expect it to be somewhere in the £350- £400 range. That’s a lot of money for the specs here, but we’ll reserve all judgement until we get a chance to review it and see how it all comes together.
