Two trends are becoming more and more prevalent with Samsung’s (005930) smartphones as time moves on: They’re getting bigger and they’re getting more popular. Despite the success seen by “phablets” like the Galaxy Note and Galaxy S III, however, Samsung has seemingly acknowledged that some users prefer a flagship handset in a more manageable package. The company has now confirmed that it plans to launch a smaller Galaxy smartphone dubbed the Galaxy S III Mini, and the device will be unveiled during a press conference in Europe on Thursday, October 11th. “We’ll unveil the 4 inch Galaxy S III Mini in Germany on October 11th,” a company spokesperson told Engadget. Earlier rumors suggested that the new handset will be much like the current Galaxy S III smartphone but it will feature a smaller 4-inch display, placing it in direct competition with Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone 5.
UPDATE: An image of the Galaxy S III has now been published by MobileGeeks alongside preliminary specs, which follow below.
Rumored specs include a 4-inch Super AMOLED display with 800 x 480-pixel resolution, a 1GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, a 5-megapixel camera and a 399-Euro price tag excluding taxes and subsidies.
