Earlier this week, AT&T decided to pull an old cat out of the bag in the form of the Galaxy S3 mini, which the carrier has, for reasons that are unfathomable to us, decided to offer to consumers looking for a new entry-level phone. Well, it turns out the AT&T variant just isn't the same old S3 mini that's been in the market since last year – it has a newer, faster processor, and a larger battery.
The processor is now a Snapdragon Play MSM8930, and LTE support is the most likely reason for the upgrade. There's probably another reason as well – the international S3 mini used a NovaThor processor, made by ST-Ericsson, a joint venture between Ericsson and STMicroelectronics. Then in late 2012, STMicroelectronics decided to leave the venture, and since then the NovaThor line of chipsets has pretty much been a line with no future, so it would have been a poor decision to continue using that chipset while releasing the S3 mini so late in 2013.
The inclusion of LTE connectivity likely resulted in an increase in battery capacity as well (from 1,500mAh to 2,000mAh), so for just $0.99 on a two-year contract and with a faster processor and larger battery, well, it looks like the Galaxy S3 mini is still a fairly good deal.
You can pre-order the Galaxy S3 mini from AT&T, and expect to get it around September 27th.
