The Samsung Galaxy S5 is a great phone, but it’s also big and expensive, so a smaller, cheaper alternative could certainly find itself some fans.

Sadly we’re still waiting for one, but there were shrunk down versions of the last two Samsung flagships so we’re pretty confident that a pint sized version of the S5 will turn up sooner or later. While nothing’s been confirmed we’re also starting to get a picture of what we might be in store for, so pull up a chair and read on for all the news and rumours regarding the Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini.

Release date and price

The Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini could be touching down very soon indeed. The S4 Mini arrived at the end of June last year and most internet speculation is currently pegging the end of June as the likely date for the S5 Mini too.

There’s little to go on for pricing, but the S4 Mini launched at around £350 so there’s a fair chance the S5 Mini will follow suit.

Display

We’ve seen a user profile for a device believed to be the Galaxy S5 Mini and it was listed as having a 1280 x 720 display, which unfortunately would mean it’s not full HD, but it would be an improvement on the 960 x 540 Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini.

The actual size of the S5 Mini’s screen is likely to be 4.5 inches, as several rumours have pointed in that direction, most recently SamMobile received a whole heap of information about the handset from an anonymous tipster, and among the details was the fact that the device will have a 4.5 inch 720p screen.

That would make it marginally bigger than the 4.3 inch Galaxy S4 Mini but still a lot smaller than the full fat Galaxy S5.

Design

The Galaxy S5 Mini looks to have a very similar design to its larger sibling, right down to a mottled back, if images received by SamMobile are anything to go by. The same source also claims that the handset will be IP67 certified dust and water resistant and that the back cover will be removable.

Power

One area where the Galaxy S5 Mini may differ substantially from the Galaxy S5 is in its power, but there’s conflicting information here. A user agent profile revealed a Snapdragon processor running at 2.3GHz, but Sam Mobile reports that it will have a 1.4GHz quad-core Exynos 3470 processor alongside 1.5GB of RAM, so it remains to be seen what we’ll actually get, but the latter of those two seems more likely as we’d expect it to be downgraded from what the Galaxy S5 has.

Camera

Current rumours point to an 8 megapixel main camera and a 2.1 megapixel front facing one, both of which can shoot video in 1080p. On paper that would make it the same as the Galaxy S4 Mini’s camera if true, though it’s entirely possible that other improvements have been made.

Features

According to SamMobile the Galaxy S4 Mini will have a fingerprint scanner and heart rate monitor just like the more expensive Galaxy S5. It’s also thought to support Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC, have 16GB of built in storage, a microSD card slot, run Android 4.4.2 KitKat and share many software features with its big brother, such as Ultra Power Saving Mode.

If all of this comes to pass then the Galaxy S5 Mini could be a far more compelling handset than its predecessor, with some solid specs and a number of high end features. If it really is going to be announced at the end of the month then we should soon know whether or not these rumours are true.

3g.co.uk