Some found a lot of soft gifts under the Christmas tree, while others found a smaller successor to the very successful Samsung Galaxy With III. Yes, it is his "younger brother" that is mentioned here Galaxy The S III mini, released in November/November 2012, was Samsung's flagship at the time and one of the best devices of its kind globally. On the other hand, the S III mini is still a relatively sought-after item today, mainly thanks to its attractive price. In fact, this is a version for users with less demands, whose slogan "Small dimensions, big possibilities" it fits perfectly.
Hardware, Design
In addition to the smartphone itself, the small box includes a 160-page user manual, white headphones with a 3.5 mm jack and a microUSB charger. Headphones or the headset has buttons to answer and end the call and to decrease or increase the volume, while their sound, like the speaker on the back, is more than sufficient and loses quality only in moments when a lot of instruments are playing at once.
It does not differ much from its bigger brother in terms of design and processing, basically the difference is only in weight, dimensions and the location of the front video camera. While Galaxy The S III weighs 133 grams and measures 136,6 x 70,6 x 8,6 in millimeters with the camera on the front left, its smaller edition measures 121,6 x 63 x 9,9 mm with a weight of 111,5 grams and the webcam on the right. It is the smaller size and lower weight that make this device much easier to hold in the hand, although I personally had minor problems holding it for a few days after receiving it, probably because I was used to the much smaller HTC Wildfire S. On the right side of the phone we then find a hardware button to change the volume, on the opposite side is the POWER button, in front is the HOME button, and that concludes the list of all hardware buttons.
There is also absolutely no reason to be dissatisfied with its hardware, as with 1 GB of RAM, a dual-core 1GHz NovaThor processor from ST-Ericsson and a fairly powerful Mali-400 graphics chip, the phone can run even the latest games such as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for Android without much trouble. The only problem could then occur with the internal memory, where the user has 8 GB out of 4 GB, but this is solved by the microSD card slot, up to a capacity of 32 GB. As for the display, the phone has a great superAMOLED 4″ display with a WVGA resolution of 480 × 800 and 16 million colors. Connectivity is provided by 2G and 3G support, along with WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 and USB 2.0, and a chip for GPS and Glonass is used to determine the location.
Software
The software chapter is slightly behind, but really only slightly. The smartphone runs on an operating system Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean with the TouchWiz environment, but Samsung announced that an update to the latest version is planned Androidu, unfortunately not long after this announcement it was said that the update for Galaxy The SIII mini is on hold, so it's not at all certain that we'll ever see it. After starting the phone for the first time, I recommend that the user is connected to WiFi, because without an Internet connection, you can't do much in the first moments, in fact, almost nothing. Unlike some devices, Samsung or not, the phone's smoothness doesn't deteriorate even after a lot of apps are installed or currently in use, that is, until the operating memory runs out. Another software minus is the absence of automatic brightness control, which can be quite annoying during some activities, but it is nothing tragic, due to the brightness adjustment in the settings.
However, application compatibility is at a very high level, the smartphone can also run newer games such as Real Racing 3, Need for Speed: Most Wanted or even the above-mentioned game legend called Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas from Rockstar Games, although somewhat paradoxically - San Andreas , although Galaxy S III mini is not on the list of supported devices, it can be purchased without any problem, but Google Play will not allow you to purchase its older predecessor with the subtitle Vice City. As useful applications, I would then recommend Evernote, Advanced Task Killer, WhatsApp/Viber and finally the non-integrated Facebook, which caused me the most problems on my HTC.
Battery, camera
The weak link of the phone is the Li-Ion battery, which only has 1500 mAh and lasts for a day with medium/normal use, then the phone needs to be charged, which takes around 2 hours, so I recommend charging the phone overnight when it is not in use, so that it does not increase its charging time. When intensively watching videos, a 100% charged battery will decrease to approximately 3% after about 4-20 hours.
But Samsung made up for the average/low battery life with a great 5MP camera, autofocus and LED flash on the back of the phone and a VGA video camera on the front, useful especially for video calls. The problem can be with lighting, where you can't do as much with the camera in the dark as you can in normal lighting conditions, and the only solution then is the flash, which can sometimes cause problems. Unfortunately, the video camera, like the camera, is not equipped with image stabilization, but the quality of the resulting video can still be pleasing, as it is possible to shoot in 720p resolution at 30 FPS.
Verdict
In the end, it goes to Samsung Galaxy Mark the S III mini as a really great phone that you can't go wrong with. Regarding the price, it is also good to consider whether an older model is more worthwhile Galaxy The S2, which is priced similarly, but has a higher processor performance, but loses points on design and age. Price Galaxy The S III mini is currently around CZK 5000 (€200), which corresponds to, and actually exceeds, the price/performance ratio, when for less money you get a machine that will be able to run even newer applications and games. You definitely don't have to worry about the addition of "mini", because at first glance it certainly doesn't look like a small smartphone and it's not even a "paddle". It fits perfectly in your pocket, and often you can't even feel, let alone see, its outline. The version with NFC and without NFC is currently on sale and can be found in white, blue, black, gray and red.
