The S5 Mini only has a 4.5in screen and a 1,280×720 resolution, but its Super AMOLED display is just as lovely to look at as the S5’s. Our colour calibrator showed it was displaying an outstanding 100 per cent of the sRGB colour gamut, so you can expect colours to look their very best when watching films and videos. Otherwise the camera acts and looks the same. There's a column of shortcuts on the left, the middle two of which are customizable. All settings are collected into a grid of shortcuts so you can access everything easier. We also noticed that Samsung has toned down its oversharpening ways - the images don't look as processed as what we've become used to seeing from Samsung. The bottom has an exposed microUSB port and the main microphone. It's nice to have the microUSB exposed instead of under a flap that you'd need to pry open every time you want to charge your phone but you should be wise to wait until the port is dry before plugging in a charger. Graphics performance was also much lower than the its big brother, as the S5 Mini struggled to get above 20fps in all three of our 3DMark Ice Storm tests. It scored 3,558 in Ice Storm Unlimited, which translates to 19.5fps, and 2,841 in Ice Storm Extreme, which averaged at 15.2fps. The S5, by comparison, maxed out Ice Storm Extreme and scored a huge 18,451 in Ice Storm Unlimited, which equates to more than 60fps. Comparing the S5 Mini to simiarly priced handsets was equally dissapointing with both the Moto X and Nexus 5 clearly outscoring it in every test.

However, unlike the Alpha, the S5 Mini is IP67 certified, which means it’s protected against dust and can survive being dunked in up to a metre of water for 30 minutes. Best of all, Samsung’s managed to do this without covering the microUSB port with a cheap plastic flap, which is something that made charging the original S5 a bit of a pain. DISPLAYInside, the S5 Mini takes a more radical departure from the Qualcomm-powered Galaxy S5 we got in the UK. That handset used a2.5GHz Snapdragon 801 chipset, while the Mini uses one of Samsung’s own quad-core 1.4GHz Exynos 3470 processors instead. While the Exynos 3470 is perfectly fast enough to run Android 4.4.2 and Samsung’s customised TouchWiz interface, the phone’s web browsing performance was much slower than we were expecting. Macro samples came out nice and sharp as well. The Galaxy S5 mini was able to get really close to the subject and captured detailed images. The retail box of the Samsung Galaxy S5 mini is about the size of the phone it has within. Underneath the Galaxy S5 mini lie headphones, a microUSB cable and an A/C adapter. Several leaflets complete the retail box. The smaller size will make a difference, especially if you get the mini right after the bigger Galaxy S5. No, is the short answer. As you’ll see from Katherine’s original review below, the S5 Mini was significantly less powerful than the phone it was based on. Nearly three generations of phone later, that gap is more insurmountable now than it ever was.

Shadow areas weren’t too muddy either and the sky was very well exposed Not only has Samsung translated the design of the Galaxy S5 into its mini variant but the company has also successfully made it feel the same. The materials feel equal in terms of quality and the phone feels equally-comfortable in the hand. The images are detailed and sharp, the camera is fast to focus and save and the photos look great on the phone's HD display or on a PC.

The Galaxy S5 gets shrunk, but smaller isn't always better

And here's an untouched 1080p@30fps (32.4MB) video sample taken straight off the Samsung Galaxy S5 mini to avoid YouTube's compression. Below you can find our pixel-peeping video quality comparison tool where the Samsung Galaxy S5 mini will face the likes of the HTC One mini 2 and the Apple iPhone 5s. We like the design of the Samsung Galaxy S5 mini and the fact that it hasn't moved away from the original. This is the first mini since the Sony Xperia Z1 Compact that does justice to its original. The Galaxy S5 mini and S5 look astonishingly alike and that has carried over to the feel of the device. Controls But there are subtle differences - for starters the size is an obvious one. Secondly, the microUSB port on the bottom of the Samsung Galaxy S5 mini is water resistant and doesn't require a water-repellant flap. The camera lens isn't protruding on the mini as well. The Samsung Galaxy S5 mini comes with an 8MP shooter that can snap at 3265 x 2448 resolution in 4:3 aspect. That's twice as less compared to the Samsung Galaxy S5's mighty 16MP snapper. The photos are in 4:3 ratio as opposed to the 16:9 stills from the big Galaxy S5. You can opt for 16:9 stills on the S5 mini as well, but that would cost you some of the resolution, as the images only come up as 6MP.