The long rumored Galaxy S4 mini, which was formally announced earlier today, has just been given a pretty through preview by the guys at GSM Arena. I don’t how they scored a prototype, but I’m not going to ask any questions, I’m just going to link to their piece.

While I’m on the subject of the GS4 mini, I’d like to point out a few things. First, let’s compare it to the two year old Galaxy II. Remember that big boy? It was the flagship device of its day. The GS4 mini has the same size screen, but it has a higher resolution. It also has a dual core processor, but it’s clocked at 1.7 GHz versus 1.2 GHz in the GS2. Both phones have an 8 megapixel camera, though the GS2 does have an extra 512 MB of RAM.

But you know what’s really crazy? The GS4 mini is 0.7 mm shorter, 4.8 mm narrower, and while it’s barely half a millimeter thicker, the battery does hold an extra 250 mAh. That’s what I call progress.

Also, comparing the GS4 mini to the iPhone 5, the GS4 mini is 0.8 mm taller and 2.7 mm wider, which practically makes them the same size, yet one has a 4.0 inch screen while the other has a 4.3 inch screen. This has me super excited about future iPhones since they’ll simply have to be bigger.

Update: I stand corrected! The GS2 has 1 GB of RAM, not 2 GB of RAM. In that case, the GS4 mini has more RAM, not less RAM, making it that much more of an upgrade.