Flashback: Samsung's Galaxy S minis were small but hardly deserving of the S-branding

08 October 2023
The Galaxy S III mini started an interesting experiment - is there are market for a smaller phone that looks just like the pricey new flagship? We think you know the answer.

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  • Anonymous
  • 7Xd
  • 08 Oct 2023

Buncha nerds fighting it out in the comments

    The Galaxy S10e would be the last small flahsip they made. It looks cute but i wouldn't personally use it...

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      • Anonymous
      • 0xU
      • 08 Oct 2023

      Anonymous, 08 Oct 2023People that want phones like iphone 13 mini/xperia XZ1 alwa... moreLast time i bought Samsung was when they were first to release a quad core. Never owned the iPhone. Over the past 11 yeas i've owned 4 phones, 1 was a Nokia(2018) and a mistake. The other 3 were either on the bleeding edge(i9300(2012)) or powerful enough while being bang per buck (kenzo pro(2016) and beryllium(2020)). Only reason why i'd want to upgrade now is a crappy battery upgrade(4ah -> 5ah ) where i messed up the main speakers quality on the F1.
      Normal people don't upgrade every few years, heck they upgrade once a decade if they can. If phone manufacturers fail to provide a product at a time and for a certain price with certain spec with a margin of error then that product is a failure. iPhone is an anomaly, mostly because it is not an internet phone, but more of a marketing phone.

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        • Anonymous
        • 0p}
        • 08 Oct 2023

        ShubhamDeshmukh, 08 Oct 2023The Verge editor venting her frustration on big phones. ht... morePeople that want phones like iphone 13 mini/xperia XZ1 always find excuses to justify why they did not buy them when available.

        Even 14+ sold more than 13 mini, buy far.
        All xperia compact were outsold by larger variant, much more in case of XZ1c/XZ2c.

        Complain mini phones lack cam system of giant phones.
        Complain mini phones lack same cooling of larger phones.
        Complain mini phones have lower ppi screens.

        Basically they want phone like iphone 13 mini but want it to come with cam system of Vivo X90 Pro+, cooling of RoG 6 Pro, 480ppi/10bit/2400 nits/165Hz screen and power hungry flagship SoCs. Claim brands can put all this inside but do not want to do it.

        Just like the "no jack , no buy", "no micro sd ,no buy". Still buy samsung and apple because they do not want midranges. But keep trolling.

          Anonymous, 08 Oct 2023then fix it and only use that forever, boomerIt doesn't need fixing, I'll probably give it to a penniless runt like you.

            The Verge editor venting her frustration on big phones.
            https://youtu.be/mrepi7s66Jg?&t=310

              Werent the mini series essentially just rebaged galaxy ace phones but more expensive? I think the only old small phone series that gave flagship quality was the xperia compact series, gave basically the same specs as the larger version just smaller screen and battery with a less aggressive drop in resolution.

                I don't know if people's hands are still getting bigger.

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                  • Anonymous
                  • X@K
                  • 08 Oct 2023

                  Sammy0, 08 Oct 2023I loved the S4 mini; in fact, it's the smartphone that... morethen fix it and only use that forever, boomer

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                    • Anonymous
                    • 0{g
                    • 08 Oct 2023

                    The S23 is far from the smallest Samsung smartphone ever, the S minis were all smaller than it, even the S5 mini. And while the chipsets aren't the greatest by today's standards, they weren't nearly as bad as you make it sound in the article by the standards of their time. The Exynos 3470 in the S5 mini was probably the biggest disappointment, but that was probably the only choice that made the battery life acceptable, 2100mAh because of the small form factor were quite a constraint.
                    In my opinion the S minis were still worthy of the S in their name, especially the S5 mini with its water protection and removable battery, of which only the former returned in the A-series. I don't know why this article is so negative about the S mini series, and it honestly sounds like the writer never used one during its era.

                      Hexus.Adm, 08 Oct 2023No, old Android versions had less junk running in the backg... moreI was there man, I used S3, Htc one s and plenty of Old android flagship before KitKat, they lagged a lot, even device with 2GB ram had close to zero free ram.

                      Dalvik in old android devices were not smooth, to Solve that Google Had to introduce project butter aka Android Runtime and from KitKat you could choose Dalvik or Art and slowly they remove Dalvik and all apps used Art.

                        Anonymous, 08 Oct 2023S10e was larger than s7S10e - 142.2 x 69.9 x 7.9 mm - 5.8 inch screen
                        S7 - 142.4 x 69.6 x 7.9 mm - 5.1 inch screen

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                          • Anonymous
                          • 3SI
                          • 08 Oct 2023

                          Anonymous, 08 Oct 2023„Anyway, the much newer SoC of SE3 did not help compared to... moreHere is an example at 5:57

                          https://youtu.be/h6m9medgP2A?feature=shared

                          The battery life in web browsing is very similar. But the gaming endurance is much longer (in terms of percentage) on the iPhone 14 Pro Max with the newer, more efficient chip compared to iPhone 13 Pro Max. That is because the chip consumes much more power while gaming and because of that, is a much larger part of the energy consumption of the entire phone. And because apps and websites get heavier with time, this effect spills over to even those usages. Back when the iPhone 8 came out, it sometimes had even slightly shorter endurance than iPhone 7. But nowadays, with all the heavy apps and websites and operating systems (iOS 15 and 16 now versus iOS 10 and 11 at release), iPhone 8 easily lasts 40% longer than iPhone 7 if you don’t just do WhatsApp and playback of downloaded movies.

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                            • Anonymous
                            • 3SI
                            • 08 Oct 2023

                            Anonymous, 08 Oct 2023Iphone SE and other are much smaller than phones ppl here f... more„Anyway, the much newer SoC of SE3 did not help compared to old chips.“

                            Again wrong. SE2 is reported to have SoT between 4-5 hours. SE3 has 6-8 hours according to users.

                            „8g2 inside Z3 compact, would not making it last 25-30% more“

                            Yes it would, and I‘d say 25-30% is rather conservative considering how hot Snapdragon 801 would get from only downloading things from the Play Store. Of course the difference is not as big in WhatsApp but in Web Browsing, Camera and so on, it is. And in gaming, the 8g2 would have a multiple times higher frame rate while still lasting much longer. You can look how Dave2D compared the endurance in the game Pokémon Unite between iPhone generations and the improvement of the newer phones was much bigger in gaming than in web browsing.

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                              • Anonymous
                              • 3SI
                              • 08 Oct 2023

                              Anonymous, 08 Oct 2023No. Iphone SE3 has similar endurance compared to 6, 6... moreWrong. You only look at GSMArena battery test. But these were conducted with a multiple-year difference so they are not comparable. Apps and websites got heavier with each release. Each generation from 6 to 6s to 7 to 8 to SE2 to SE3 has a much more efficient SoC at similar displays and batteries. If you actually compared them right now, with new batteries head to head, you would see every newer one is much better than the older one. Case in point, I used iPhone 7 and SE2 and doing the exact same tasks, SE2 lasts twice as long as iPhone 7, and iPhone 8 is right in the middle between those.This is also the reason why many Androids from 2 years ago perform so poorly nowadays. Their Snapdragon 888 and 8 Gen 1 we’re not efficient from the beginning, and it only gets worse over time. However, they are still much more efficient than for example a Snapdragon 821 or 835 just because they are much more technologically advanced, even if the Samsung 4nm process wasn’t top of the line at release.

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                                • Anonymous
                                • 0p}
                                • 08 Oct 2023

                                taylorswift13, 08 Oct 2023S10e was like a mini S series phone but it was a full flags... moreS10e was larger than s7

                                  My favorites among the small phones is still the Xperia Compact lineup. Unlike the S minis, they still kept the flagship specs.

                                    I loved the S4 mini; in fact, it's the smartphone that lasted the longest for me before I got the urge to replace it. It did everything well for its time and had a great call quality that's better than any Samsung/iPhone I've bought since! I still have it in a drawer somewhere.

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                                      • Hexus.Adm
                                      • PX0
                                      • 08 Oct 2023

                                      Hemedans, 08 Oct 2023Lol no, at that time android was known as lagdroid, even fl... moreNo, old Android versions had less junk running in the background and apps were more memory efficient.

                                      It behaves similarly to Windows, each version consumes a little more resources, and there are increasingly more types of telemetry recording your data.

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                                        • sirol
                                        • pdd
                                        • 08 Oct 2023

                                        Nowadays i use samsung galaxy s4 mini.
                                        Despite it's name is mini, really it is not mini, it is medium size phone. Nowadays almost all phones are extra large, for example Samsung Galaxy A34 is extra large. Some phones are large, for example iphone se 2022, Sony Xperia 10 IV, Asus Zenfone 10. Nowadays there on market is no medium size phones (exept chinese cubot). Mini phones are for example Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini and Posh Micro X S240, they (mini phones) are discontinued many many years ago.

                                        Maybe i will move to iphone se from year 2016, it is last medium size phone with iOS operating system. Or maybe i will move to galaxy flip or similar, when price will go down.

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