Samsung Galaxy S4 mini officially unveiled

Samsung has taken the surprising route of announcing the phone-we-all-knew-about Galaxy S4 mini ahead of the expected launch event in June.

The new S4 mini packs a number of top end features in a diminutive package, with things like S Translate, Group Play and an upgraded camera system. However, it does away with a lot of the 'innnovation' so Smart Scroll and friends don't seem to have got a look in (which, if you read our review, is a good thing).

In terms of hardware it's as expected: a Super AMOLED qHD (960 x 540) 4.3-inch screen sits on top of a polycarbonate phone (coming in White Frost and Black Mist... or white and black) with dimensions of 124.6 x 61.3 x 8.94mm. It's going to be super light too, with a weight of just 107g.

All the speeds

Coming in both 4G and 3G flavours, the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini will have a dual core processor clocked at 1.7GHz, although the South Korean brand hasn't confirmed whether this will be the expected Snapdragon 400 or an older S4 chip – the former would really help the phone whip along through the arduous tasks thrust on it by a modern smartphone user. Or a parent prodding at the new phone bought by their offspring.

Samsung has delivered a strong nod to the recent 'Internal Memory-Gate' (working title) of the Galaxy S4 by noting that while the S4 mini only comes with 8GB of storage, 5GB of that is user accessible and 'may change after a software upgrade'. It does have microSD slot capable of reading cards up to 64GB, and 1.5GB of RAM doesn't sound to shabby at all.

Android 4.2.2 is adorning this little number, so you'll be getting all the fancy menu systems and layouts offered to the S4 proper, and an 8MP camera on the rear should be enough to keep you snapping happily too.

It's a mini adventure

Is it better than the Galaxy S3 mini, which we weren't overly impressed by? In like for like terms, of course it is, with nearly everything upgraded. However, the clarity of the screen is the same as the predecessor, something we had an issue with, and we can't help but wonder if Samsung has done enough to the phone to make sure that the dual core processor can handle all the new elements that Samsung us throwing in.

The good news is we'll have our answer in the not-too-distant future, with the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini on show at the 20 June event in London. We sadly don't have a release date just yet, nor anything approaching a price, but we're going to make it up: The Samsung Galaxy S4 will be available from July 5 and will start at £329 for the 3G version.

If that's right, you owe us a cake.