{"id":2086,"date":"2014-01-07T15:08:28","date_gmt":"2014-01-07T05:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/?p=2086"},"modified":"2014-01-11T11:14:14","modified_gmt":"2014-01-11T01:14:14","slug":"review-samsung-galaxy-s4-mini","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/reviews\/review-samsung-galaxy-s4-mini\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini fascinated me from the moment I met it.<\/span> As tacky as it is, I was immediately charmed by faux-wooden box it came in. The phone ships with decent in-ear headphones, and the shiny plastic shell felt great in the hand.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the home button was stiff and looked easily-breakable, the back case a little too hollow, and the device was covered in weird sticky plastic film that took days for me to pick at and peel off.<\/p>\n

And so began my experience with the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini, loving and hating it every second of it.<\/p>\n

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Despite the early teething problems, I really loved the feel of this handset. The rounded plastic shell is light but not slippery in the hand. It feels like a newer, more polished version of the iPhone circa 3G\/3GS.<\/p>\n

After a week or so, the home button finally loosened up, and it felt great to play with. The in-ear headphones were surprisingly decent, with volume rocker and play\/pause switch — a rarity in Android phones.<\/p>\n

The screen was beautiful and bright, and while not-quite-retina, it is still crisp enough — pixels are only noticeable on the very smallest and thinnest fonts. The Mini supports 4G — so you\u2019re not giving up speed for size here.<\/p>\n

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Most importantly for this review, the S4 Mini feels mini! The screen is still 4.3 inches, same as the HTC One mini, but it just feels smaller<\/em>. I don\u2019t really know why, the device is bigger boned than the HTC, but there you are. In fact, this would be the best mini phone so far if the software matched the hardware\u2026<\/p>\n

Camera<\/h1>\n

The camera sucks. You can use it to take snapshots of receipts for your accountant, maybe, but you\u2019re never going to capture memories with this thing.<\/p>\n

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Software<\/h1>\n

When people talk about bloat-ware and \u201cheavy interfaces\u201d on Android, they\u2019re generally talking about Samsung\u2019s Touchwiz. Touchwiz over Jellybean is akin to the restoration of Ecce Homo<\/a>.\u00a0A noble effort, but by no means an improvement.<\/p>\n

To be fair though, at least they\u2019re slowly getting better. Touchwiz on my first Samsung (Galaxy S2) was truly hideous, whereas here on the S4 mini, it\u2019s just mildly unpleasant.<\/p>\n

The Mail app is no longer dark themed by default, adding welcomed readability to email. The default Calendar has a look that\u2019d make Scott Forstall proud, or litigious. Even the browser and keyboard are ok these days. It\u2019s all competent, but better still, most of it is avoidable.<\/p>\n

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Being Android, most apps and even the keyboard are replaceable by Google\u2019s own apps: Hangouts, Calendar, Chrome etc. The awful clock widget can and should be swapped for Timely (now a Google product and free).<\/p>\n

Samsung even encourage you to swap launchers by making their awful dock of awful apps uneditable – a special treat for Australian customers. So take them up on the offer and use something like Nova Launcher<\/a> for a more Stock Android experience, or experiment with Aviate<\/a> or Themer<\/a> for an overall new look. Within minutes you can banish the Touchwiz look to just the settings and notifications bar.<\/p>\n

To be fair to Samsung, I tend to tweak most Android phones, as I did with the Sony Xperia Mini and the HTC One mini before this.<\/p>\n

For most phones, tweaks are just for the fun of tinkering. With a Samsung device, it\u2019s mandatory.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a curious thing that Samsung remains the world\u2019s most popular Android maker while making the world\u2019s worst version of Android. Touchwiz is the Kyle and Jackie O of Android skins.<\/p>\n

I know I\u2019ve laboured the point about crappy software, but sadly, I\u2019m not done yet.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0Galaxy Freak-out<\/h1>\n

I could live with blue and green (should never be seen) menus and settings. I could live with the hideous dialer and mostly avoidable apps. But I couldn\u2019t handle the constant software freak outs, reboots and crashes on the device.<\/p>\n

Daily, the phone would randomly freak out – there\u2019s no other way of describing it.<\/p>\n