Samsung Unveils Galaxy S4 ‘Mini’

Samsung is betting that there’s a market for cheaper, smaller Android smartphones. To that end, it has announced the Galaxy S4 mini, which features a 4.3-inch display and less robust specs than the standard Galaxy S4.

CNN’s Doug Gross reported, “The Galaxy S4 mini, a slimmed-down version of Samsung’s flagship smartphone, is on its way, the company announced Thursday. Widely rumored after an accidental leak, the company confirmed that the mini will be one of the products rolled out at a Samsung event in London on June 20.”

The Wall Street Journal’s Karen Friar observed, “The S4 Mini unveiled Thursday may appeal to people with smaller hands as well as smaller wallets: It has a 4.3-inch screen where its counterpart has 5 inches, and it weighs less. But overall, its hardware is less nifty: it has an 8-megapixel camera rather than 13 megapixels on the original model, for instance.”

Ars Technica’s Casey Johnston added, “The Galaxy S 4 mini will have a 960×540 screen, 1.7GHz dual-core processor, 8GB of storage (5GB is available and accessible to users), 1.5GB of RAM, and an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera. These are a number of small spec bumps from the Galaxy S III mini released last year with its 800×480 screen, dual-core 1GHz processor, and 5-megapixel camera.”

PCMag’s Chloe Albanesius noted, “The Mini will be available in white frost and black mist, and comes in 4G LTE, 3G HSPA+, or 3G dual SIM versions, depending on where you live. Samsung did not mention where the phone would be released or when.”