Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 review

The Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 comes pre-loaded with the stock Android browser, offering you an easy to use web experience without any unnecessary features.

There's Wi-Fi b/g/n on board so you can hook up to your home, work or coffee house's network, plus the Galaxy Mini 2 has 3G connectivity for data on the go.

Now you need to remember the Galaxy Mini 2 is only running an 800MHz processor and 512MB, so speeds are not going to be lightening quick.

That said the Mini 2 was able to load up the mobile version of TechRadar in four seconds, but when it came to the full version the lack of power started to show.

It took the Galaxy Mini 2 10 seconds to load the full-blown TechRadar homepage in a usable format, but almost a minute to full finish, with the ad banners really causing it some trouble.

Pinch and zoom is available, but it isn't the smoothest of experiences, especially on content heavy sites and more often than not we found ourselves lurching between the levels, instead of smoothly transitioning.

Text reflow has not been included here, which is a bit of a pain as the size of the screen on the Galaxy Mini 2 means you have to pretty much zoom in to anything you're reading, and that means there's lots of sideways scrolling.

Once zoomed in and you've given the Galaxy Mini 2 a second to render the page correctly, text and images appear sharp and clear, meaning you won't need to strain your eyes to read what's on screen, but that sideways scroll really bugged us after a while.

As the Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 runs Android Gingerbread it means that it can still support Flash, which has been discontinued for Jelly Bean, so you can catch up with all the videos on the BBC and check out all those fancy, flash built sites you love.

Flash even comes pre-installed on the Galaxy Mini 2, meaning you can dive straight into the browser and start reaping the rewards right out the box.

Thumbnailed bookmarks are now a mainstay of the Android browser and it's no different on the Galaxy Mini 2, with the simple yet pleasing to the eye system implemented here.

If you're someone who likes to save up a load of pages to read on the train home while out of signal then you're out of luck here, as the Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 does not offer an offline reading mode in its browser – something the Desire C and Xperia U both do.

Overall the Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 offers up an average web browsing experience. While it's not going to blow your socks off with speed, or treat you to vast amounts of space with a big screen, it's a perfectly serviceable solution, ideal for infrequent web visitors.