This phone I’m quite proud to review. Mostly because I own a Galaxy Mini and this is the Galaxy Mini 2. I will try to review it in comparison to the first Galaxy Mini to see if anything has changed at all ( and if any, how much it has changed ).
- Processor : 800 MHz, Adreno 200, Qualcomm MSM7227
- RAM : 512 MB
- AndrodOS : 2.3 Gingerbread
- Camera : 3.15 MP
- Display : 320 x 480 pixels, 3.27 inches (~176 ppi pixel density)
Let’s get down to business, shall we. The phone itself isn’t much bigger than the original. Actually, they are the exact same size. It does, however, have a few differences. Some of them are major improvements, but then again, the Mini 1 was also quite a good phone ( granted it was among the older ones ). They both weigh the exact amount ( 105 g ) and they are both the same size ( 110 x 60 x 12 mm ). The main difference to be observed here is the lack of buttons on the Mini 2. While the first Galaxy Mini had 3 buttons : the menu, back and Home button, the Galaxy Mini 2 only has the Home button as a press-able button. The other two are touch sensitive controls.
The screen has also been improved in the color department. Not too many differences in the resolution or type of screen, but the color modification was direly needed. The screen remains a TFT Capacitive Touchscreen, but this version has 16 million colors, instead of the 256 K colors the other one had ( which really makes a difference ). One can’t help but say that an AMOLED may have done a better job than a TFT, but then again the TFT does its job right and is reliable nonetheless. The resolution of the screen reaches 320 x 480 pixels and the screen is 3.27 inches big. The pixel density revolves around 176 ppi for this one. It also has multitouch, just like the last one. Granted, the resolution is higher than it was on the Galaxy Mini ( the first one ) and so is the screen and pixel density, but this one does not have the TouchWiz UI that the first one had.
As far as memory is concerned, the Galaxy Mini 2 overtakes the Galaxy Mini 1 in every way possible. Be it about internal memory, RAM or anything else, this phone is better than the last ( which was the idea in the first place … just saying : I’m glad they’re doing it right ). The Internal storage space is now up to 4 GB of storage ( which is more than the 160 MB that the Galaxy Mini had ) and it also has more RAM. This phone has 512 MB of RAM ( a good number, but not as good as 1 GB – still, no point in making the Galaxy Mini 2 too overpowered ). Still, it’s a step forward, considering the first Galaxy Mini only had 384 MB of RAM. Don’t take me wrong, even with 384 the phone still runs superbly, but there is always room for improvement ( such is the nature of our technologically advanced world ). If by some unholy reason 4 GB of storage is too little for you, feel free to buy a MicroSD card for the phone. Anything works as long as it doesn’t exceed 32 GB ( if that is even possible for a MicroSD card ).
Moving on to the camera. There are no changes here whatsoever. The camera is the same as the Galaxy Mini’s camera. That’s no problem for me, however, since I never plan on using a phone as a camera. Why on earth would you buy a professional camera in the first place if you were planning on using the camera of the phone to take snaps or record video with it. The main camera is a 3.15 MP one and the secondary camera is nonexistent. The main camera can take snaps at a resolution of approximately 2048 x 1536 pixels and has no other feature besides geo-tagging. The video option of the camera only records in VGA quality and at a steady 25 fps. The exact same goes for the camera of the first Galaxy Mini.
Moving on to the hardware side of the phone : there have been some minor modifications done to this part. One of them is the fact that this Galaxy Mini 2 has a stronger processor than the Galaxy Mini 1. The rest of the changes are sort of nonexistent. The processor isn’t much stronger, however. You’ll notice that the numbers don’t make much of a difference, but the difference in performance is highly noticeable. What I’m talking about is the fact that the original Galaxy Mini had a 600 MHz processor, and the Galaxy Mini 2 will have an 800 MHz processor. The GPU will be an Adreno 200, just like the first Galaxy Mini ( still, it’s better than no GPU at all ). The chipset is also similar to the first Galaxy Mini, being a Qualcomm MSM7227 chipset. The sensors are more or less similar, this phone having and accelerometer, a proximity sensor and a compass. However, there isn’t too much to be impressed about on the sensors part, since all smartphones have those sensors. Same saying goes for the multitouch thing.
On the final part of the review / preview we shall talk about the Operating System that this phone comes with. While the first Galaxy Mini came out with 2.2 Froyo and was update-able to 2.3 Gingerbread, this one already comes out with 2.3 Gingerbread and there is no news whatsoever if it will ever receive the Ice Cream Sandwich update. Odds are it will, through some method or another, considering that the more talented developers out there managed to make ICS for the first Galaxy Mini, and that’s a pretty weak phone compared to the other ICS supporting phones. However, Gingerbread is sufficient for me, since I don’t really plan on using the phone to do who knows what complex actions such as cracking multiple data-bases, hacking Swiss banks or remote-controlling Transformers.
Since I’ve decided to add a bit more to my reviews, here is a short list of the features you can expect to see on this phone :
- SNS integration
- MP4/H.264/H.263 player
- MP3/WAV/eAAC+/AC3/FLAC player
- Organizer
- Image/video editor
- Document viewer
- Google Search, Maps, Gmail,
- YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk, Picasa integration
- Voice memo/dial
- Predictive text input
With this our little review ends and I can honestly say that I can’t wait for Q2 of 2012 to see this phone up close and personal. Hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it and if you feel there is something I have left out and is of utter importance, feel free to leave suggestions in the comments below and I shall try to consider them for my future projects.
