Samsung Officially Debuts The Galaxy S III Mini: 4″ Mid-Range Jelly Bean In A Smaller Package

The Samsung Galaxy S III is the next big thing, and as Samsung’s marketing squad won’t let us forget, it’s already here. But another “big thing” in a decidedly smaller package is making its way to center stage as we speak.

Yes, you’ve heard about it before, but this time it’s official. Meet the Galaxy S III Mini.

We learned just yesterday that it would in fact be called the Galaxy S III Mini and that it came with a 4-inch display, but we knew little else. Reuters suspected it would land in Europe. Little phones are so in right now.

In terms of specs, we’re looking at a 4-inch Super AMOLED display with an 800×480 resolution. Samsung has also opted to use a 1GHZ dual-core chip instead of that quad-core EXYNOS proc, along with throwing 1GB of RAM and an NFC chip under the hood. There’s also a 5-megapixel camera around back (capable of 720p video), and a VGA front-facing camera for video chat.

Perhaps most importantly, the Galaxy S III Mini will ship with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

The little guy will come in 8GB and 16GB flavors, expandable via a microSD slot. And you’ll have a relatively standard 1,500mAh battery.

As you may be inferring, this is most certainly a mid-range device.

Samsung has diluted the Galaxy brand by throwing the word Galaxy on just about everything. But calling this phone a Galaxy S III mini is a step beyond that. The design is the same, sure, but the design is hardly what makes the Galaxy S III great. In fact, it’s one of the flagship’s few shortcomings.

That’s not to say it’s an awful phone. But the screen resolution, in particular, and the lack of LTE connectivity definitely puts a damper on things.