On Thursday morning, Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S3 Mini, a new smartphone that’s smaller than the original S3. The new phone is poised to directly compete with the iPhone 5.
The specifications for the new gadget include WVGA Super AMOLED display, Dual Core 1GHz chipset, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system, 5MP camera with LED Flash and VGA front, MPEG-4 video camera with 720p, FM radio, WiFi, NFC, GPS navigation, Bluetooth, 8GB of Ram, and a microSD card slot.
Unfortunately, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94) missed a few marks on the Galaxy S3 Mini, as it has no 4G LTE capabilities, a dual core processor, and lower quality cameras. It’s kind of hard to imagine how they could imagine this smartphone directly competing with the new iPhone 5, especially considering they already have a few phones that are better competitors, namely the Galaxy S3. The only thing these phones really have in common is the size. But will the smaller size make up for the lack of features?
Avi Greengart, analyst for Current Analysis, said “Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has proven quite conclusively that tens of millions of people are happy to have a device they can wrap their hands around. It doesn’t mean they don’t want powerful processors or high megapixel cameras.”
If the Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini proves to be a seller, there may be a new breed of smartphones on the horizon. I think the actual success of the phone will depend on several factors. Number 1, will there be a demand for a smaller Android smartphone? Number 2, what will be the pricing strategy for the new phone? If it costs as much or a little more than the iPhone 5, consumers may find Apple’s sixth generation smartphone a better deal. If they decide to price it at a more moderate level, consumers could find it to be a real value.
