For today the smartphone Samsung Galaxy Mini is one of the most popular smartphones on the market. The phone’s “secret of success” is the most evident – the phone is really cheap. It is actually one of the most affordable devices on the market that can be bought if needed just for $130. At the same time the lucky owner would get the device with good quality and proprietary software shell.
Still rest on the laurels is the bad strategy and in the month of February of this year a change for a popular low-price device was introduced. The authors from Samsung didn’t take the trouble of finding the original name calling the novelty just the Galaxy Mini 2. Still if one starts to compare the first and the second “mini” it becomes evident that they are completely different. The new model is far superior to its predecessor and is apparently not a product of the lowest-price category.
Now it became a bit difficult to give classification to the Samsung models’ range. The price of the Galaxy Mini 2 is yet unknown but the present company portfolio has the devices with the worse characteristics. For instance, Galaxy Y produced in the autumn of the previous year, that was soon supplemented by the “dual SIM” Galaxy Y Duos. Of course, it is the price that has the first importance for that case. If it stays within the range $200-250 the Galaxy Mini 2 (GT-S6500D) has all the chances to become a best-seller. Why so? We are going to tell it later. As usual, let’s start with examining of the design.
Design
The information on the Galaxy Mini 2 has become accessible just recently, in February. The features of the device were then known, still, not in details. Anyway, the appearance of the smartphone depicted on the photo corresponds to reality. The smartphone looks exactly the same as on the first picture.
The previous Galaxy Mini (GT-S5570) was made to be both simple and bright. The black front panel and back cover were separated by the bright lettuce green “interlayer” of the sides. It gave the device an unusual appearance, however, thanks to the black color the device had quite strict style. For the Galaxy Mini 2 the designer found even better decisions.
The front panel remained black. The eye is catched by the chromized glossy rim from plastic. Thanks to it the smartphone looks more presentable and much more expensive than it really is. As for the sides, they got the matt grey color. It looks attractive and unusual as well. Still the choice of the paint is to our mind doubtful as in the course of time quite visible worn spots may appear on the sides.
Yet the it the back cover that is the most alluring. It got the bright orange color or the dark yellow color with the orange tint – it is difficult to name the color precisely. Anyway the appearance is very impressive. Seeing so bright colors one gets the desire to smile and touch the phone with own hands, to feel its relief. And the back cover has the places “to feel” as it is made from the durable, high-quality molded plastic.
The shape of the Galaxy Mini 2 matches its style – it has distant resemblance to a “soap remnant” being very smooth and all rounded. Thanks to such a shape as well as to the extra grip on the back cover and small size of the smartphone it is convenient to hold the phone in the hands.
Samsung managed to create a good smartphone for the youth. The device has bright, catchy appearance and high quality of the assembly (the phone’s hardware is made with great accuracy – all the details fit one another). Besides, it doesn’t remind of a “painty” toy – the Galaxy Mini 2 has the presentable appearance, typical for an expensive device. Therefore it is important now that all the rest features are of high quality as well. Let’s see if the producers managed to fulfill the task.
Controls and Connectors
The first Galaxy Mini had a distinctive feature of the three physical buttons. Within the Samsung model range it is just the Galaxy Y Pro and the Galaxy Y Pro Duos that have such buttons left in the present time. The Galaxy Mini 2 has the “classical” design of two touch-sensitive and one large physical button in the center.
The names of the buttons didn’t change – the left touch-sensitive one brings up the context menu and the right one serves to return. The central button is used to move to the desktop.
The both touch-sensitive buttons are illuminated with the dim white light.
In the upper part of the front panel there’s the speaker covered with the black grid and the illumination sensor. The device has no front camera. Apparently the Samsung producers decided to economize on it.
In the center of the back cover upper part the camera’s eye is located and to the left of it there are cuts for the speaker. The manufacture’s logo made with the relief paint is placed a bit lower.
The lower part, as it was mentioned already, has quite a convenient grip.
The placement of the connectors in the Galaxy Mini 2 is almost standard. The only difference is the slot for the microSD-card on the left side, hidden under the small, easily moved cover (the Galaxy Mini model had such a slot on the right side). A bit upper, exactly on the place where the fingers usually grip the phone, the volume regulation buttons are placed. They protrude enough and can be easily found by feeling. The upper part has the hole for the strap as well.
The right side has just small power switch button.
Using the 3.5 mm connector one may plug in earphones and headset in the upper part. The recess made to remove the back cover is also located there. The cover is removed quite easily and it is not at all necessary to grow long and strong nails for it.
The lower side “was honored” to have the micro-USB connector and the microphone.
Under the cover there is the battery with 1300 mAh capacity, occupying more than half of the phone.
After taking out the battery we found the slot for the SIM-card. The slot for the microSD with the connection to the left side is also located there.
Display
Eventually we came to the weakest part of the Galaxy Mini 2, to its display. Looking at it one gets strong feeling that Samsung manufacturers decided to economize on it. It is not that bad though but the viewing angles spoil the general impression from the display. If the device is strongly inclined vertically the image loses brightness, horizontally – fades.
On the other hand, one shall remember that the device is planned to become a change to a low-price Galaxy Mini which had even worse quality of display. In which way? Firstly the resolution of 320x240 is quite a low quality, especially comparing to the present-time “HDs”, “Retinas” and such like. The Galaxy Mini 2 has the display with a bit larger diagonal (3.27" in comparison to 3.14") and resolution of 320x480. These are to be the key changes in comparison to its predecessor. The image is much clearer on such a display.
Moreover, the screen Mini 2 has quite a good brightness at the level of 359 cd/m2, so there is a reserve left and the device demonstrates good qualities when placed in the sunlight. However, the black brightness level is high as well – 0.51 cd/m2 if the 100% brightness is set. That means that the black color looks “grey” which is by the way confirmed by the respectively low contrast of 677:1.
The color temperature chart with its value which is far from the reference value of 6500 K cannot be attributed to the best ones as well. It takes to intensify the black almost to 100% to get the resemblance of the normal temperature value. Anyway the best result was 8000 K, which implies the problems with the white balance – the screen image has the bluish tint.
On the other hand the gamma curves were a pleasant surprise. The curve received after the measurements almost entirely corresponded to the reference curve with the value of 2.2. Whatever deviation from the normal value there is it is quite small, which means that the picture has no places with excessive lighting or dimming.
After all, one should mention that the screen has no protective Gorilla Glass which is also a typical foe a model of the low-cost category. However, the display performs its touch-sensitive functions perfectly well demonstrating quick and adequate reaction to each touch. By the way, the screen is able to recognize up to 5 simultaneous touch points.
Camera
The camera is different in comparison to its predecessor. Samsung continues equipping the low-price models with MP sensors, which is not much, generally speaking. On the other hand it is well-known that it is not the amount of megapixels that have the greatest importance. Still, before analyzing the quality of the pictures let’s have a look on the interface.
For that case it is the proprietary interface Samsung TouchWIZ, already known from the smartphones of the South Korea Company, which has the most important role. It is much more attractive and convenient than the standard Android interface.
Below one may see some test photos:
The quality of the images gives quite questionable impression. Still, everyone agrees that it can be characterized not better than “below the middle level”. When taken outside in the daylight the pictures have quite good quality, in general, with just a little problem of the white balance. The pictures taken in low light are quite good as well, however, both of them are not clear enough.
And of course, the phone can be used for recording of video. However the device is not designed to support any HD quality video.
The Galaxy Mini 2 is designed to support video recording only for the resolution of 640x480 and lower which is the standard for the low-price models.
Specifications
The Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 has far better specifications than the Galaxy Mini. As all the improvements were made to the most important characteristics the smartphone have got much better quality on the whole. Let’s analyze the changes in details:
As one can notice the Galaxy Mini 2 has really become better in the majority of its characteristics. In the first place it is necessary to name the processor. The Galaxy Mini has The Qualcomm MSM7227 installed. In comparison to the previous model it is just the frequency and one new symbol – MSM7227A that were changed. Usually, such a change is quite insignificant and denotes that some alterations in the chip were made. However, for that case the difference is very large as it implies the change of the architecture: from ARMv6 – of the first model to ARMv7 – of the second one.
In general the SoC MSM7227A is a relatively new model. Qualcomm has issued it in the year 2011 and the MSM7227 is the novelty of 2009. It is not surprising then that the latter one has the maximum frequency of 600 MHz whereas for the first one such a value is the minimum while the maximum makes 1 GHz. Still it is the architecture change that is the most important alteration. The ARMv7 is much more effective. The support of the greater amount of applications is another issue. Some of the programs won’t launch with the chips ARMv6, for example the Adobe Flash plugin, some games, especially the contemporary 3D ones. So the processor Galaxy Mini 2 made a great step forward.
However, the graphics engine of the MSM7227A wasn’t changed and the chip has as before the poor Adreno 200 GPU. Anyway that shouldn’t become the reason of complaints as the owner is going to get the productive processor while the excellent quality of graphics will remain the advantage of the more expensive phone models.
The Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 has larger RAM of 512 MB (before – 384 MB) which is also a merit. One more pleasant addition is the embedded memory for 4 GB (practically it is accessible a little less than 2 GB). On the other hand in the Galaxy Mini model one could use just 160 MB.
The wireless module was considerably improved as well, especially the Wi-Fi part. For example, the DLNA support and the function of connection to the other devices Wi-Fi Direct were added. The 802.11b/g/n standards are still supported. Bluetooth was updated to the 3.0 version which is also a merit. As for 3G parameter – nothing was changed there and the phone is able to receive the data at the speed of 7.2 Mbit/s.
The change of the display as well as of the camera was described earlier. As for the dimensions the novelty is despite of the increase in the display size and the change of general parameters is even smaller and thinner than its predecessor! Apparently, it became possible, thanks to the fact that the physical buttons were partially removed. By the way, the weight of the model remained the same.
In general, the Galaxy Mini 2 doesn’t look as the lowest-price category model any more. It is sooner a middle class model. Correspondingly, it’s price is likely to change to the level of $250-300. Probably, later the price is going to sink. Anyway it is going to be quite attractive.
Performance
As we attributed the Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 to a middle-class smartphones, we are going to compare it to the models of the same class. For example, to the LG Optimus Hub E510. It appears that it is just the camera and the display that is better in the latter model. So strange it may seem, but the model has the worse characteristics of processor – Qualcomm MSM 7227T, based on the ARMv6 architecture. Still it has the same frequency as the chip of the Galaxy Mini 2 – 800 MHz. So, it would be interesting to compare and to find out which architecture is better.
The Smartbench tests reveal great advantage of the Galaxy mini 2 Model. The only exception is the Games testing with Smartbench 2012. Apparently, the latter is based generally on GPU, so the difference in the speed is not really significant.
The Benchmarks AnTuTu System Review and Quadrant confirm the results received from the Smartbench. The new Samsung smartphone demonstrates much better speed, especially in comparison to the devices with the outdated chips on the base of ARMv6 architecture.
The Linpack task is to measure the “net” processing power excluding the operation of all the other system modules. The result is measured in megaflops. And according to the test the Qualcomm MSM 7227A (Mini 2) is more than two times faster than MSM7227T (E510).
In the course of the browser testing one can observe the same picture. The Galaxy Mini 2 is far ahead of its competitor which is formally positioned as a device from the higher class category. However the LGE510 costs about $160-200 if the Samsung model will be about $30 more expensive it beyond the comparison.
The 3D testing doesn’t reveal great difference between the models. Anyway, both of them are based on Adreno 200 GPU. Yet the CPU is used, so the Galaxy Mini 2 has the advantage.
As usually, to test the autonomous operation time we used our own methods. The Galaxy Mini 2 shows a bit better results in that testing as well. Generally it demonstrates quite good battery life. The interesting fact about it is that the Samsung smartphone holds the charge better and at the same time provides almost double speed growth having the battery of less capacity than the LG E510 battery!
Software
The Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 software is at least not worse than that of the competitors. It has the Android 2.3.6 operating system installed which is the standard for the smartphones of that category. Naturally, the Samsung manufacturers didn’t forget to use for the device the proprietary interface TouchWIZ, version 4.0. So the device is ready for exploitation directly after unpacking.
We don’t see any reason in describing the TouchWIZ interface once again. For those who are interested in the software offered by the Galaxy Mini 2 we will give a few screenshots with the list of preinstalled applications:
The ThinkFree Office is, perhaps, the most interesting one. As all the other the Samsung manufacturers doesn’t use the full office pack for the low-price category phones being satisfied with the mere viewers (as, for instance, in the Galaxy Y Duos model). However the Galaxy Mini 2 is obviously the device from the higher category and therefore is “permitted” to have such functions. We would like to mention though that the ThinkFree Office for some reason didn’t launch in our test unit. Let’s leave it to the Samsung manufacturers that are supposed to correct it for the production units.
The operation of Video Player is quite questionable as well. Judging from the sign and the word “Video” beside it one becomes sure that the choice of the function was correct. Still the player didn’t detect our test film, and after the way to the file was showed to it the player reported an error.
Those who are interested in the appearance of Samsung “Google Phones” applications may visit next page that has the Software screenshots. Now, let’s move to the conclusion.
The Conclusion
We suppose that final impression about the Galaxy Mini 2 is not difficult to guess – we liked the smartphone without doubts. It has bright and stylish design, good quality of the assembly, high performance, quite good features. All the above mentioned creates quite an attractive image of the device.
Of course there are some drawbacks. First and foremost, it is the display, especially its bad viewing angles. Still, one shall take into consideration the model to compare to. In comparison to its predecessor, the Galaxy Mini, the new model display have become much better – it has larger size, higher resolution which means better quality of the picture. However, the LGE510 display is much better. According to our measurements it gives much brighter picture and, what is more, the latter has no problems with the color temperature and the viewing angles.
Another serious drawback for the Galaxy Mini 2 owner, to our mind, is the use of the matt grey paint for the sides of the phone. We guess that in the course of time the phone is likely to get scuff marks and, therefore, an unattractive look.
We don’t see any other drawbacks of the Galaxy Mini 2. However, one shall wait until its price is known.
Pros:
- Bright and stylish design
- Good quality of the assembly
- HVGA-resolution display
- High productivity for the device of that level
- 4 GB of the embedded memory
- Long battery life
- Samsung TouchWIZ
- small size and weight
- Wi-Fi Direct support
- The microSD-card slot on one of the sides
Cons:
- Bad viewing angles of the display and the white balance problem
- High probability that the device is going to look unattractive with time
- The Camera characteristics are far from being excellent
Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 Software Screenshots
Desktop
Applications
Calls and Contacts
Alarm
Calendar
Music Player
Browser
Navigation
Gallery
File Manager
Notes
Voice Recorder
FM-tuner
AllShare
Google Talk
Task Manager
News & Weather
Kies Air
Chat On
YouTube
Settings
