Gadgetory

andrew authority what is going on my name is Kevin the tech ninja and today we're going to take a look at one of the most anticipated device wait a minute I thought I reviewed this device already you know what I'm having deja vu because Samsung has released another variant of the galaxy s5 this is the Galaxy s5 mini the s5 mini feels looks and smells just like his big brother not saying the design is bad but the s5 mini is just a smaller version of the galaxy s5 you know today the mini stands at five point one six inches tall 2.55 inches wide and just to spell point thirty-six inches thick just a hair thicker than its big brother but it's still a slim device and for what is worth I can't bend it it tips the scale at four point two three ounces and just for further reference the average weight of a smartphone is four point nine ounces the same ruggedness introduced with the s5 was passed on to the Mini it's rated for ip67 dust and water resistant that's the certification that allows your device to be submerged under one meter of water for 30 minutes and also for dust this is the highest rating no dust should ever find its way under your screen on the front of the device you have a front facing camera and on the top edge you'll find the IR blaster towards the bottom you'll find a large patented samsung home screen button and to the left of the home screen button you'll find recent applications button and to the right of the home screen button you'll find the back arrow now a big fan of samsung's chrome design but it actually looks like it's been beat up after a couple months of using your phone on the right side of your device it only has one button and that's the power button and now you grip your phone your thumb naturally goes to that spot right there so this is the perfect location for it on the opposite side you'll find the volume rocker and at the bottom is the USB port on the back of the vice you'll find an 8 megapixel camera and also it shoots video at 1080p at 30 frames per second and that's actually a huge downgrade from the 16 megapixel camera and also the 4k recording found on the s5 the heart rate monitor is located on the back under the lens as well and underneath that you'll find a Samsung's logo which pops out a bit and on the back you also find the speaker grille as well the 4.5 inch screen on the Mini is only 720p resolution also has 320 PPI now this is below the industry standard for flagship but putting a 1080p resolution screen on a phone this small would probably just take up more power than provide a stunning image it's really hard to see the extra pixels when you're viewing surface is so small the super-mo LED display still trials the same color reproduction properties as other phones using the screen expect a bright screen with punchy and vivid colors now I think the contrast is up a little too high on this display and some will agree with me but our eyes are actually tuned to see this and find it a more enjoyable picture that's why a lot of manufacturers go with the oversaturated screen versus natural colors but you can actually go into the settings and adjust that too if you like the Texas crisp and easy to read even a few feet away the colors make images come to life and it really jumps out at you it feels like the normal s5 screen just a bit smaller besides the display the hardware is where you'll find most of the drastic changes the specs on the s5 mini is considered men rage this Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 is in tow will also find 1.5 gigabytes of RAM and 16 gigabytes of on-board storage now 16 gigabytes isn't enough storage there is a micro SD card slot under the back cover fast 5 is also no slouch when it comes to gaming since it comes with a decently powered and rino 305 GPU when looking at the hardware the performance narrative is halfway written the only thing we need to account for is the highly scrutinized TouchWiz skin TouchWiz does affect the performance on this device specifically comparing the s5 mini to a phone with similar specs running a stock Android ROM the difference when navigating the UI the in-app experience is pretty much the same but launching apps there's a hint of delay and also pressing the home button sometimes it just takes a few moments for it to actually go back to your home screen now a lot of times online you'll see this referred to as touch with lag if you are new to android or all the Android phones you have used has been Samsung then your experience will be the status quo even with mid-level specs the device handles most tasks with little issues most games you play will run as a developer intended on this device with little to no lag but once you launch a game that taps into system requirements a bit more then you experience a lot of slowdown the battery on the s5 mini gives you all day power that's 5 mini has a smaller battery compared to the s5 but to compensate it uses components that requires less power now it's a compensation that benefits the battery greatly I was able to get around 2 days of usage with about 3 hours of on-screen time now that's right on par with the phones that has the best battery life like the s5 the inmates and also the note 3 the s5 mini camera is fast easy crisp and chock full of features the camera is an 8 megapixel shooter which is half the size of the original s5 also the aspect ratio of the pictures is 4 by 3 resolution which works great if you're looking to upload pictures to Instagram or even Facebook you can change the ratio but you will be hit with some quality loss now as far as features there are way too many to talk about right here but our buddy Josh Pagar from Android authority what's going on everybody actually made a video and you can check that out as the Samsung s5 feature focus on the camera now everything is pretty much the same as far as settings as far as modes but just understand that it's a lower megapixel on the camera but everything else is the exact same there's a column of shortcuts found on the left to adjust any setting that you could think of and these icons are arranged in a grid although they may be in this grid it's still hard to find what you're looking for but after a few days I was able to pretty much memorize where everything was also there's a button for different types of shooting modes a lot of the modes are very specific and some may not be useful but there are a few gems in there like panoramic mode and sport mode and have a pretty good feeling that most people will keep it on auto now the images that come out of this phone look great they're sharp they're clean and actually have a lot of detail it pretty much surprised me a lot of people think that at lower megapixel means the less quality but actually doesn't mean that the lower the megapixel it just means you can't zoom in as much you can't crop as much and things like that but for me the true star of the show is the depth of field you can really get a nice blurry background and a sharp foreground and when it's done right the results are awesome now for mid to low light you'll lose some of that quality but for a cell phone it's one of the better cameras out there now as of this recording the galaxy s5 mini is running Android 4.4.2 now you also know that it's running TouchWiz in the background and you may have an opinion on TouchWiz already if you do that's okay you probably are right one of the features that was introduced with this version of TouchWiz on the s5 was the S health this is Samsung's one-stop shop for all things health wise once you get a set up it has a built in pedometer you can track your exercises and also your heartrate now it's not going to replace your fitness band but it's a nice start to something that could become bigger over time a few more things on the software side is kids mode and also Smart Remote his mode actually does not come installed on the phone but you have a shortcut to install it from Samsung's App Store kids mode locks down your device so only certain applications can be accessed from the home screen now as a proud uncle of three kids this is something that all phones should have I wish it was built natively into Android you can actually hand your phone to your kid and not really worry about them getting to something weird or going through your pictures or anything weird like that we also have the Smart Remote it uses an IR blaster to control TVs you can easily program the remote by selecting the type of TV and is not much else I can really say about it it has a minimalistic approach to controlling TVs and it just works is the Galaxy s5 mini a good phone well the answer to you is if you enjoyed the s5 normal you wanted a smaller device than it is a good phone now if you haven't used the s5 yet the s5 and the s5 mini both are excellent Android devices whether you like TouchWiz or not you can't deny it's a good phone it's fast its responsive the screen looks very good and also a lot of the software features that Samsung has added is actually not that bad the TV mode is nice the kids mode is great the camera is pretty good and you know what the smaller form factor is starting to grow on me I'm not sure if this is something I can use as a daily driver but it was pretty refreshing to just have a tiny phone in my hand and be able to text with one hand or actually do anything with one hand and it wasn't that cumbersome to keep in my pocket so these larger devices are too much for you or you have a smaller hand or a lot of times you have something else in your hand you want a one-handed phone and the s5 mini could be your phone a choice as always guys my name is Kevin the tech ninja make sure you like this video and subscribe to our Channel