Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini officially announced

Rumors of a smaller version of the Galaxy S3 have been floating around for a while now. Recently, Samsung officially confirmed the Galaxy S3 Mini existed, but they were short on the details. All we knew for sure was that the new smartphone had just a 4-inch screen. At today’s press event, Samsung let the rest of the details out of the bag.

Here are the specs – as far as we know them – for the newest member of the Galaxy family:

• A dual-core 1GHz processor
• an 800 x 400 super AMOLED display
• VGA front cam, 5MP back cam
• HSPA bands 14.4/5.76 900/1900/2100
• EDGE/GPRS 850/900/1800/1900 bands
• Bluetooth 4.0, NFC
• 8GB and 16GB onboard memory
• microSD expansion
• 1500 mAh battery
• 4.8 inches by 2.5 inches by 0.39-inch
• weighs 3.9 ounces
• runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean out of the box

As you probably noticed, there is no LTE mentioned. What does that mean? LTE is pretty common even on some of the lower-end handsets in the U.S. market. Considering this is a mid-range device, it is very possible that the phone isn’t coming to the North American market anytime soon.

The Galaxy S3 Mini has reasonably decent hardware, but it certainly doesn’t have the muscle power of its bigger brother. For those that were hoping for an exact match of the power found in the Galaxy S3, you might be a little disappointed. Keep in mind, this still blows away many of the entry-level Android devices in the 4-inch range and is a welcome addition for those that want a smaller phone that has dual-core power and NFC.

There is no word on which markets will get the Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini. The pricing is also remains a mystery. Are you still interested in Samsung’s smaller S3 variant or are you looking for something with a bit more power underneath the hood?