Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini

[james_tigerwoods]

Does anyone have an S4 mini? I quite fancy taking O2 up on their offer of an S4 mini with a 10" Tab 3 as an upgrade to my S3 (I quite fancy a Tablet and I'd put Cyanogenmod 11 straight on it too)

Is it any good? More importantly, how is the battery life?

JTW

[mattrosersv]

My experience is that it is carp.

Mainly due to rubbish battery life (does not last a full day of moderate use - charged full this morn and now have 35% having made no phone calls and with GPS and Bluetooth off combined with my inability to hit the right key on the tiny keyboard meaning writing emails/texts is painful - I never had this issue with my old iphones.

I never wanted a pocket busting phone hence this choice, but will go for one of the bigger Android next time.

Matt

[james_tigerwoods]

Hmm, not thought about the keyboard size...

12 hour battery life though? I'm used to it - I'll get about that from my S3. Maybe a full day.... Maybe not....

[davek_964]

I know that S3 mini was a big step down from S3 - I think the only thing they really had in common was the name. So I think I'd be wary of assuming an S4 mini was an upgrade from an S3.

[ZesPak]

davek_964 said:

I know that S3 mini was a big step down from S3 - I think the only thing they really had in common was the name. So I think I'd be wary of assuming an S4 mini was an upgrade from an S3.

This.

The Mini series hasn't got anything going for it but the "S" moniker imho. Very poor (or very clever, depending on your angle) branding decision on Samsungs' part.

The Moto G is a tad bigger but deffo the superior phone imho.

http://www.phonearena.com/phones/size#/phones/size...

[james_tigerwoods]

Scratch the S4 mini plan then...

So should I go for an S5 or a HTC One?

Opinions welcome..

[paranoid airbag]

mattrosersv said:

My experience is that it is carp.

Mainly due to rubbish battery life (does not last a full day of moderate use - charged full this morn and now have 35% having made no phone calls and with GPS and Bluetooth off combined with my inability to hit the right key on the tiny keyboard meaning writing emails/texts is painful - I never had this issue with my old iphones.

I never wanted a pocket busting phone hence this choice, but will go for one of the bigger Android next time.

Matt

I usually get one and a half/two days' usage from mine (on cyanogenmod 10.2.1), never turn GPS or bluetooth off, and once went camping for 4 days, without being particularly careful about when I used maps (OSM maps - data held locally) or the camera, with over half the life left.

That said I usually don't have mobile data enabled, wifi only unless I need it, and don't have many PinTweetBookedIn type apps running - so pretty much the only thing that wakes the phone up (apart from me) are the email apps. IME it's usually the screen and pulling data from a remote server that takes juice.

I struggle to think of a phone I'd rather have, but then again I like the (relatively) small size, SD slot, removable battery and found it quite easy to put CM on.
If those don't matter to you, there are better/cheaper options - e.g. Moto G (which I believe has some of those features now anyway).