Samsung’s Galaxy S5 Mini: Everything you need to know

Samsung’s Galaxy S5 is getting a smaller sibling, the Galaxy S5 Mini, the smartphone maker announced today. Here’s the skinny on the Samsung’s compact new device.

The Galaxy S5 Mini has a feature-set similar to Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S5 phone, including the S5′s fingerprint scanner, heart rate sensor, water- and dust-resistant casing, a Micro SD slot, and the ability to sync up with Samsung wearable devices like the Gear Fit.

But Samsung sacrificed some of the S5′s power to cut the Android phone’s cost and pack the Mini’s innards behind its 4.5-inch screen.

The S5 Mini boasts an unspecified quad-core 1.4 GHz processor, 1.5 GB of RAM, and a 1,280 x 720-pixel AMOLED display. The device has 16 GB of internal storage — though you can boost that with a Micro SD card — and a 2,100 mAh battery.

The flagship S5 phone, meanwhile, has a more powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor, 2 GB of RAM, and a 5.1-inch, 1920 x 1080-pixel AMOLED screen. Samsung also slashed the back-facing camera quality from 16 MP (in the S5) to 8 MP (in the S5 Mini), though the Mini’s 2.1 MP front-facing shooter is actually a tad better than the S5′s.

This isn’t the first Mini phone from Samsung, which previously released the Galaxy S4 Mini for around $400.

Samsung’s Mini phone serves as “a fairly easy way for [Samsung] to extend its flagship product, but also cut down on the cost,” Ryan Reith, IDC’s research director for mobile devices, told VentureBeat.

Based on past Mini performance and limited geographic distribution, Reith doesn’t expect the S5 Mini to drive a huge amount of sales for Samsung — not that he thinks its Mini strategy is a bad one.

“There is still a portion of people that don’t feel comfortable using a 5- or 5.5-inch device, although that will probably continue to decline,” he said. For now, “That chunk of the market is looking for something smaller.”

The Galaxy S5 Mini will be available in four colors — black, white, blue, and gold — when it goes on sale in Russia in early July. Samsung plans to bring the device to future regions sometime after the Russian launch. It has yet to announce a price point for the new device.