Samsung Galaxy Mini S5570 Preview: First Look

Trivial 3MP camera

Equipped with a boring 3 megapixel fixed-focus camera at the back, the Samsung Galaxy Mini S5570 can take photos with a maximum resolution of 2048x1536 pixels. Unfortunately there’s neither flash nor a shutter key to help the basic camera.

Despite the camera’s shortcomings, the user interface that comes along with it is touch-friendly and has great built-in features such as smile shot, preset scenes on-screen guidelines and panorama mode.

Camera user interface • Camera settings

For a 3MP snapper, the camera on the Samsung Galaxy Mini S5570 is decent. Noise levels are low and there’s a decent amount of detail in the photos (though the work of the noise reduction algorithm is visible in the trees and foliage).

The photos usually turn out with pleasing colors and contrast. Here are several photo samples, so you can judge for yourself.

Samsung Galaxy Mini S5570 camera samples

The Galaxy Mini S5570 offers video recording too, and although it’s only QVGA at 15fps, so we wouldn’t use it for anything other than MMS. The video recorder’s UI looks similar to the camera’s interface.

Video recorder • Video recorder settings

Here’s a video sample of the Samsung Galaxy Mini S5570 at 15fps.

Decent browser, but no Flash

The browser is the basic Android one and is amongst the best available. It’s fast, feature-packed and stable.

We appreciated multitouch with the pinch to zoom functionality especially in the web browser where the text is impossible to read at 100% or even 200% zoom.

The web browser • Web browser options

The Galaxy Mini S5570 browser supports text reflow – a moment after adjusting the zoom level, columns of text adjust to fit the screen width.

Copying text • Landscape view • Page options

Despite that the Galaxy Mini runs the Flash-capable Android Froyo, there is no Flash support in the web browser. The situation is quite similar with that of the Galaxy Ace, the Galaxy 551, and the LG Optimus One – the phone’s processor doesn’t support the Adobe Flash plugin.

First impressions

Although the Samsung Galaxy Mini S5570 we have is an early pre-production sample, it was very stable during the tests and we didn’t find any faults with it.

The overall look and feel of the device is very good and the build quality is actually pretty solid. The Galaxy Mini S5570 is definitely a looker and if green is your color, you will definitely find it attractive.

The software optimization of Android 2.2 Froyo UI greatly helps the phone’s mediocre processor to get the job done, and we could even play some decent games on it.

Featuring great connectivity options including GPS, Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 and 3G, the Samsung Galaxy Mini S5570 won’t leave you disconnected.

What was honestly a great disappointment was the low screen resolution on the otherwise big 3.2” capacitive touchscreen. We understand that Samsung had to keep the price down, but this just ruins the whole Android experience for us. The other serious flaw with it is that it doesn’t support one of Froyo’s key selling points – the Adobe Flash plugin.

Other than those, the Samsung Galaxy Mini S5570 is a good entry smartphone (for a hopefully reasonable price) and we recon it would appeal to young people who look for cheap, but versatile handset.