Samsung Announces the Galaxy S5 Mini
by Joshua Ho on July 1, 2014 10:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Samsung
- Galaxy
- Mobile
- Galaxy S5
Today Samsung announced the Galaxy S5 mini, which continues the Galaxy S mini line the same way that the One mini 2 continued the One mini line. Interestingly enough for the international variant the Galaxy S5 mini uses a Samsung Exynos 3470 SoC for the LTE variant, along with an Intel XMM7160 modem. There are a few areas where the GS5 mini bests other similar mini branded devices, such as the 1.5GB of RAM instead of the 1GB found on the One Mini 2. As with the One mini 2, there’s no 802.11ac support. Fortunately, Samsung has improved the display panel to a 720p SAMOLED with 4.5” diagonal compared to the qHD panel of the GS4 mini. I’ve included a table of the specs released below.
| Samsung Galaxy S5 mini | |
| SoC | Exynos 3470 4x1.4 GHz Cortex A7 |
| RAM/NAND | 1.5 GB LPDDR3, 16GB NAND + microSD |
| Display | 4.5” 720p IPS LCD |
| Network | 2G / 3G / 4G LTE (Category 4 LTE) |
| Dimensions | 131.1 x 64.8 x 9.1mm, 120 grams |
| Camera | 8MP rear camera, 1080p30 max. 2.1MP F/2.0 FFC |
| Battery | 2100 mAh (7.98 Whr) |
| OS | Android 4.4 with TouchWiz UX |
| Connectivity | 802.11a/b/g/n + BT 4.0, USB2.0, GPS/GNSS, MHL, DLNA, NFC |
| SIM Size | MicroSIM |
For those unfamiliar with the Exynos 3470, this is a quad core Cortex A7 solution running at 1.4 GHz, along with a Mali 450 GPU. Based upon the amount of Broadcom design wins in Samsung devices it’d be reasonable to infer that the WiFi/BT combo chip is a Broadcom design win as well. The Intel modem is something that we’ve seen before on the Galaxy K, so it’s no surprise to see the same on the Galaxy S5 mini. The phone is also IP67 resistant like its larger cousin, although the USB flap is no longer needed for this variant. Overall, this phone seems to be intent on keeping the mini moniker to its roots. It’s definitely designed to target a more midrange audience, although it'll take a review to see whether it does this effectively.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
33 Comments
View All Comments
Mobile-Dom - Tuesday, July 1, 2014 - link
the fact it doesnt use a Snapdragon 400 interests me, i want to see how this performs against the One Mini 2 and the Moto Gcraighamilton - Saturday, December 6, 2014 - link
well between the three...S5 mini stands out having been rated as one of the top phone based on consumer satisfaction ( see http://www.topreport.org/phones/ for instance...)Achtung_BG - Tuesday, July 1, 2014 - link
For this price, Huawei Honor 6 is better.ZeDestructor - Tuesday, July 1, 2014 - link
Yet another mid-range phone given the branding (and most of the price) of the flagship...Dissapointing.
ZeDestructor - Tuesday, July 1, 2014 - link
On the other hand, intel LTE chipset.. Looks interesting.jeffkibuule - Tuesday, July 1, 2014 - link
Interesting but outdated, Intel XMM7260 should already be rolling out to OEM customers today.Spuke - Tuesday, July 1, 2014 - link
I didn't see a price. How much is it?ZeDestructor - Tuesday, July 1, 2014 - link
Looking at what's out right now:From mobicity.com.au (because I live in Australia, funnily enough) unlocked:
SGS5: 699.95
SGS4: 479.95
SGS4 Mini 4G LTE: 369.95
The Mini is over 2/3 the price, while having less than 3/4 the performance and much crappier software support (because presumably it will end up being a lower-volume model).
Malih - Wednesday, July 2, 2014 - link
The Minis before this do seem like they were lower volume models, but with added gimmicks like water resistance, fingerprint security and heart rate monitor, this could sell better than previous models, considering the competition doesn't have such advantage.Death666Angel - Tuesday, July 1, 2014 - link
The "mini" moniker clearly denotes its specs in this day and age though. Or would you say a Radeon R5 is using the branding of the R9 flagship because of its "R" usage?And yes, One Mini 2 (wtf were they thinking with that name) has only 1GB if a certain website called "anandtech" can be trusted :D.