Samsung Officially Unveils Galaxy S5 Mini At Rs 26,499: Is it Worth Your Wallet?

While smartphone makers come and go, there are a few names that have already become a sort of a household name in the native smartphone market. Samsung easily fits that bill and now the company has officially taken the veils off its new Galaxy S5 Mini.

Samsung officially unveiled its original Galaxy S5 handset at this year's MWC event held in Barcelona, Spain. While the handset offered some more than decent specs at that time, its overall pricing remained the only wall between the handset and users. However, the mini variant of the handset now looks to remove any such barriers.

Commenting on the launch, Mr. Asim Warsi, V.P, Marketing, Mobile & IT at Samsung India, "We at Samsung believe in bringing meaningful innovation to our customers. And the best inspiration for innovation comes from none other than our customers. The Galaxy S5 Mini is yet another manifestation of the philosophy of people inspired innovation that drives Samsung products."

"This stylish smartphone is the perfect combination of performance and power in a conveniently compact design. Effortlessly smart and intuitively simple, the Galaxy S5 Mini empowers your life, helping take care of your well-being."

The new Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini will be available in India from September 10, 2014 at a best buy price of Rs. 26,499 via Flipkart. The handset will also be offered in 4 trendy colours - charcoal Black, shimmery White, electric Blue and copper Gold.

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Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini: Highlighted Specifications
The newly unveiled Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini comes with a 4.5-inch HD Super AMOLED display with display resolution of 720 x 1280, with 328ppi. In terms of looks, however, you won't find much difference since it looks more or less like its elder sibling.

The new handset comes running the brand new Android 4.4 KitKat OS and is powered by a more than decent Cortex-A7 quad core 1.4 GHz processor. The handset offers 1.5GB of RAM. And while the handset internally offers up to 16GB of storage, it can be further expanded to another 64GB via a microSD slot.

The Galaxy S5 Mini sports a 8MP (1/4.0") rear camera with auto focus and LED Flash. Apart from that, on the front, you will also find a 2.1MP FHD snapper for all your selfie and video chatting needs.

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As you may, there are a few downgrades on this device compared to what we saw with the original Galaxy S5 handset. However, Samsung has still retained the fingerprint sensor and heart rate monitor for the handset. The smartphone is IP67 certified, making it water and dust resistant to an extent, and has Galaxy S5's Ultra Power Saving mode.

Apart from that, connectivity features of the smartphone include 2G, 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, microUSB 2.0 and NFC. The handset also comes with Samsung's proprietary TouchWiz UI on top. It also comes with a 2,100mAh battery unit inside.

Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini: Potential Rivals
While we wait to see how the smartphone does in the native market in the long run, it has to be said that the handset will not pass through without a bit of competition from others with similar kind of specs.

In fact, the handset faces quite the threat from within its camp (judging by the specs) in the form of the Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Galaxy S3 and the Galaxy S4 mini. Apart from that, expect the popular Nexus 5 and the Sony-made Xperia Z1 Compact handsets to also give it a bit of a hard time in the long run.

Samsung Strikes Exclusive Deal with Flipkart for Galaxy S5 Mini
While all the excitement surrounding the new Galaxy S5 Mini is yet to subside, the South Korean tech heavyweight has also announced that it will strike an exclusive partnership with popular online retailer Flipkart for the launch of the new handset.

"Today Flipkart is not only the leading destination for smartphones in India, but also the partner of choice for exclusive online brand associations. When a leading smartphone manufacturer like Samsung decides to launch their flagship Galaxy S5 Mini exclusively with Flipkart, it is a reinforcement of our proven track record of being market leaders when it comes to selection, customer reach and satisfaction," says Michael Adnani, VP - Retail and Head - Brand Alliances, Flipkart.

But that's not all. Flipkart is also giving away some launch day offers for customers purchasing the Galaxy S5 Mini. These includes 25 lucky customers getting 100% cash back (via lucky draw), free Seinheiser HD180 headphones worth Rs. 999 and free pre-selected eBooks worth Rs. 2000.