Samsung Galaxy Mini

Android phones are now relatively common – the likes of the Huawei U8150 and Motorola Flipout make decent entry-level phones. Samsung’s newest entry in the sub-$400 category is the Galaxy Mini.

There’s a lot to like about this little phone. The phone is solidly constructed and the green highlights along the ribbed sides of the phone extend into the interior under the battery cover. It’s a little cheap looking, but the colour adds a funky edge. The size fits comfortably in your hand, and is very pocketable, but it has some issues.

For starters, although the screen size is 3.1 inches, the resolution is just 240 x 320, which makes text look slightly pixelated. Reading text, such as in emails, can be frustrating – we kept wishing for a focus button to sharpen things up. The onscreen keyboard is a little small for comfortable typing, too, but a typing app such as Swiftkey should assist. The lack of Flash is disappointing.

On the positive side, however, the Galaxy Mini runs Android 2.2, so the limited 160MB of onboard memory won’t cause too many issues and the additional 2GB supplied on microSD card helps out for photo, video and app storage. We’d still recommend that you go fairly light on the apps for best speed. The processor, at 600MHz, handles internet browsing well and mostly delivers responsive apps. The relatively large battery and low-spec processor means that battery life is good – we got three days out of the phone during light use.

There's no doubt that the Samsung Galaxy Mini cuts corners to provide a great price, but for the most part, the cuts make sense for an entry-level phone.

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