Gadgetory

the samsung galaxy s3 mini has been around for a year but it's new to AT&T and there's one very compelling reason why you might want to buy it it's a one dollar reason I'm Jessica doll court for CNN and this is your first look the s3 mini looks a lot like the s3 that came before it not the s4 it's got that same rounded corner high gloss shape the same sort of brushed color for this pebble blue version globally it also comes in white there's a 4 inch AMOLED display on here it's pretty bright it doesn't have the highest pixel density but it is just fine for day-to-day use the operating system gets a bump here to android 4.2 point2 not android 4.1 so that's really great it's got the TouchWiz interface riding on top of it so you get a few extra Samsung tools but you're not going to find everything that you see in the samsung galaxy asked for flagship phone so just be aware of that there is a very reliable 5 megapixel camera on the back with autofocus and flash took pretty good pictures and 720p HD video so I thought that was great low-light shots aren't so hot but there is a night mode so that might help there's also a front-facing vga camera that took very basic front-facing shots I wouldn't use it for video chat if you have an alternative inside there's a 1.5 gigahertz dual-core Qualcomm processor it's going to be fine for navigating around but you're going to notice some slow down especially when you're using the camera and trying to take one picture quickly after another this phone does come equipped with AT&T 4G LTE speeds were pretty good and consistent I found the phone also comes with NFC and s beam you are going to be able to transfer our content like photos and videos from one equipped phone to the next one interesting little tidbit is that this version 480 has a slightly higher battery 2000 milliamp hours instead of 1,500 and that's to accommodate the extra resource drain from LTE specs aren't the highest on this phone definitely not as high as some of the other mini phones that are out there today but it does cost about a dollar so it's a really great deal for what is essentially a free phone I think it's going to be best for first-time smartphone users for somebody who just wants a very basic and reliable android smartphone I'm Jessica doll court for cnet you can catch my full review at cnet com