Samsung Galaxy mini 2 review: Little by little

Nice 3MP camera

The Samsung Galaxy mini 2 comes with a 3MP camera and is able to capture photos at a maximum resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels. The lack of an actual shutter key or a flash of any kind is a clear sign that photography isn't taken too seriously.

The camera interface looks familiar with two shortcut bars on each side of the viewfinder. On the right you get the still camera / camcorder switch, virtual shutter key and the gallery shortcut (which is a thumbnail of the last photo taken).

The camera interface

On the left you get the scene and shooting mode buttons, as well as the exposure slider and the settings button.

The image quality of the shots captured with the Galaxy mini 2 is decent for the 3MP league, but that's hardly too great an achievement. Images have a moderate noise levels, and while there's enough resolved detail the colors are off more often than not.

In certain situations where there was movement at medium range the image would get skewed slightly, but for the most part that was a rare occurrence.

Photo quality comparison

The Samsung Galaxy mini 2 can be compared with other 3MP and higher cameraphones in our Photo Compare Tool. The tool's page will give you enough info on how to use it and what to look for.

Samsung Galaxy mini 2 in our Photo Compare Tool

VGA video recording doesn't impress

The video camera interface is identical to the still camera. You get the same customizable panel on the left with four shortcuts.

The video camera interface

Unlike the original Mini, which was capable of QVGA recording at 15fps, the Galaxy mini 2 can shoot 640 x 480 video at 30fps in MP4 format. VGA quality is far from impressive these days, with more and more devices able to do 720p, but at least it's a step above the abysmal QVGA recording of its predecessor.

The videos are smooth but the level of detail isn't impressive. Colors are okay and so is the focus in the video. The Galaxy mini 2 records mono sound with a bitrate of 96Kbps, and we found it to be a little quiet. Check out the sample we uploaded to YouTube:

And here's an untouched VGA@30fps sample (5.8MB) straight from the phone.