Samsung Electronics launched the entry-level Galaxy J1 smartphone in India earlier this year. The device comes with entry-level specifications including a 4.3-inch screen, which is rather small by today’s standards. The handset has already seen a variant called the Galaxy J1 Ace, which was launched at a later date. Now, latest reports seem to indicate that the South Korean consumer technology company is prepping to launch an even more affordable version of the device, if concurrent lings on GFXbench, Zauba, and Spreadtrum databases are to be believed. The handset in question is believed to be called the Galaxy J1 Mini, and it comes with the model number SM-J105F. While it will supposedly sport the ‘Mini’ moniker, leaked specifications on the GFXBench database seem to indicate that Samsung will not reduce the screen real estate on the upcoming device, as compared to the Galaxy J1.
The listing on India’s import / export tracking website, Zauba, however, seems to suggest that the device will have only a 4-inch screen, which probably makes more sense given the ‘Mini’ moniker, so it still remains to be seen which way the cookie crumbles in the end. What is interesting however, is that the upcoming smartphone will actually come with slightly bumped up hardware in most other departments, as compared to the entry-level Galaxy J1, if the leaks are to be believed. Apart from GFXBench and Zauba, the device has also been spotted on Spreadtrum’s own website, as can be seen from the second image below. As for the Zauba listing, it also reveals an import price of Rs. 3,368 ($51), but that’s before taxes and distributor, wholesaler and retailer markups, so an 80 percent premium over that is probably expected at the retail level.
Coming to a quick look at what all we know about the upcoming smartphone from Samsung on the hardware side of things, according to the listing on the GFXBench database, the device will feature a 4.3-inch display with a resolution of 800 pixels by 480 pixels. The J1 Mini will come with 1 GB of RAM and just 8 GB of storage. As for the processor, the handset is expected to be powered by Spreadtrum’s SC8830 chipset, with a quad-core CPU that’s clocked at a maximum of 1.5 GHz, and the ARM Mali-400 MP2 dual-core GPU. As for the imaging options on the handset, while the rear camera will come with a 5-megapixel sensor, the front camera will only be a 0.3-megapixel unit. There’s no word on the connectivity options, so whether it comes with LTE is still a big question mark, but the handset is believed to run Android 5.1.1 Lollipop out of the box.
