We had high hopes for Samsung at next week’s Mobile World Congress event, but the company confirmed that there would be no press conference held to announce new products. Instead, the Korean manufacturer has decided to announce some new phones ahead of the show, namely the Galaxy Mini 2 and the Galaxy Ace 2.
The two new phones are each a sequel to a very popular budget Android smartphone from Samsung. We’ve seen both before, of course, but now they’re official and set to make their way to stores. Make no mistake though, the Galaxy Ace 2 that Samsung has just announced is a different phone to the Galaxy Ace Plus.
Continuing with the trend set by the first models, the Galaxy Ace 2 is the more powerful of the two, and also the pricier. It has a fairly nippy 800MHz Dual-Core processor, 3.8-inch touchscreen, 4GB of internal storage and 14.4Mbps HSDPA connectivity for decent mobile browsing speeds. Imaging has also been improved thanks to a 5-Megapixel autofocus rear camera with flash and a front-facing VGA camera for video calling. It looks pretty stylish, too, with rounded corners, a gloss black front and a subtle chrome trim.
The even more budget-friendly Galaxy Mini 2 is more compact and colourful, with a range of different coloured battery doors available – so far we’ve seen bright yellow and terracotta orange colours pictured. The Mini 2 features a 3.27-inch TFT touchscreen, 800MHz processor, 3-Megapixel rear camera, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity as well as 7.2Mbps mobile data connectivity speeds.
Both smartphones run Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), with Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface overlaid, along with some Samsung apps such as ChatON, the cross-platform instant messaging service.
Europe is the first destination for these phones, with the Galaxy Ace 2 first coming to the UK in April, and the Mini 2 first launching in France next month. A global rollout will begin shortly after each phone launches, so don’t worry!
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