Battery
The Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini has a 2100mAh battery, which is a reasonable size for a mid-range phone. We haven't had a chance to put it through its paces yet but we're cautiously optimistic that it will fare well, particularly with the help of Samsung's Ultra Power Saving mode.
The Galaxy S4 Mini has a smaller 1900 mAh power pack, but then it has a smaller screen to power, fewer pixels and just a dual-core processor. In practice we found that it easily lasted a day or more, so it's got a decent amount of life, but for the time being it's hard to say just how well the Galaxy S5 Mini will compare.
Connectivity
Both the Galaxy S5 Mini and the Galaxy S4 Mini support Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G, Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC and they're even both equipped with IR blasters so it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that they're fully loaded with connectivity options.
On the storage front the Galaxy S5 Mini has 16GB built in, while the Galaxy S4 Mini has just 8GB. However both phones also have a microSD card slot with support for cards of up to 64GB.
Extra features
This section is necessary purely for the Galaxy S5 Mini's sake, as we could hardly fail to mention its fingerprint scanner and heart rate monitor.
These are exactly what they sound like, and will presumably be every bit as useful/gimmicky as they were on the Galaxy S5.
Whether they're a significant selling point is debatable, but the S5 Mini has them, while the S4 Mini doesn't, and it shows that Samsung sees the S5 Mini as a real brother to the S5, where the Galaxy S3 Mini from a couple of years ago was just a re-badged budget phone - hats off, Samsung.
Price
Samsung hasn't yet confirmed how much the Galaxy S5 Mini will sell for but we're wagering that it will be around £350-£400 SIM free.
That's a whole lot more than the Galaxy S4 Mini which can currently be picked up for around £250 without a contract. But then the Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini is a newer, and almost certainly better, phone, so it might just be worth the extra outlay.
Early verdict
The Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini looks to be a marked improvement on the Galaxy S4 Mini in a number of ways, from its larger, higher resolution screen, to its dust and water resistant build, its quad-core processor, its extra storage and its fingerprint scanner and heart rate monitor.
Of course it's also likely to be a lot more expensive and not everything's been upgraded compared to the S4 Mini. Both phones are plastic, they both have similar cameras and the same selection of connectivity options.
The Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini is certainly the better phone but whether it's £100-£150 better could be debatable - but you know what we're all about here, so the best review and versus verdicts will be appearing here on TechRadar in the next month or so - stay tuned!
- Samsung's been making mini's since the Galaxy S3 Mini.
