Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini Duos GT-i9192 Factory Unlocked International GSM Dual Sim Cell Phone - Retail Packaging - Black

To be fair, this is my first real smart phone. I have never cared to invest the extra money in a phone when all I use it for is an occasional text and less than 300 call minutes a month. I am a heavy laptop user.That being said, I really like this phone. It is not a monster size like many other smart phones and I can still slide it in my pocket like my previous cheap phones. It is pretty easy to use and has made many people envious (at the time when I got it, AT&T did not have it in the US yet.)I have a few basic apps on it and some games as well as a battery intensive launcher and wallpaper. The launcher and wallpaper have made my battery life last about a day to a day and a half at best. That is my on fault and I have frequent long car trips where I have plenty of time to keep charging it. I have not noticed any extreme lag or trouble with apps. Running it beside other peoples regular S4, I don't really notice any performance issues.You will not get the faster 4g on AT&T but I use less than 50mb per month as I am always on WIFI so that is not relevant to me either.

i've owned this phone for more than 6 months now... and so far, it has exceeded all my expectations. coming from a $200 phone, this has been a significant improvement in every way.the good :first of all, i find this phone a great size. the screen is about 20% bigger than the phone it is replacing, but the body of the GT-i9192 is slim enough that, even with a case, it is actually more thin than my previous phone. fits in my pocket, and is nice and light.the phone is mostly made of plastics, so the whole thing is a bit slick for my fingers (another reason for the case), but it does seem to be fine quality... there has been no unexpected wear or anything getting loose or showing any signs of coming apart after 6 months of heavy daily use. i've dropped it twice from pocket height, and there has been no apparent damage (i use a Hyperion case http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CXMWV1O ).as it says in the description, this is an unlocked GSM phone. i have so-far used it in Russia, Ukraine, Greece, France, the UK, Turkey, and India. all with no problems. i work out of Moscow, so all of these travels have just been using a local carrier (MTC) SIM card. the phone gets very good reception, and i haven't had any issues with dropping calls.the battery life is really impressive. with moderate use, i can expect the phone to last 2 days between charges. with heavier use (including internet and listening to music) the phone easily lasts the entire work day.... from 7am to about 11pm. if i know i won't have power available for a while, the phone can be miserly if you turn off all extra features and only use it for texting.the camera is great. i haven't made any prints, but even on my computer most of the pictures look great. the phone is an easy replacement for a cheap point-and-shoot camera. the flash is somewhat helpful for pictures... i am most impressed that the flash can apparently be adjusted automatically by the phone, so that there's at least some chance of the picture not being washed out. the video recording is also quite good. you can actually turn on the flash, using the "assistance light" toggle (what a ridiculous name), and then turn on the video camera.i don't play games on the phone, so i can't vouch for that kind of performance... but it has handled browsing the internet, 3rd party GPS apps, network utilities, viewing .PDF files, and watching movies, all nicely and quickly. i've only had an app crash and reboot the phone once or twice.i have noticed the phone gets quite warm when using it as a WIFI hub for other devices. for several months the GT-i9192 was my only broadband option, i would use the phone as the WIFI hub for my laptop. when i removed the phone from it's rubber case the heat problem was eliminated. if the phone is within 6 feet of connected devices, the internet speed is perfectly acceptable for browsing and email, i cannot say if it would work for streaming videos.the speaker is quite good. i don't use the "speaker phone" feature often, but i do use the phone to listen to music quite regularly. at a reasonable volume it sounds fine. you have to have reasonable expectations for a little tiny speaker in a phone, but at a moderate volume, it sounds perfectly OK for a little background music.the bad :up until a software update (automatically pushed by Samsung) i could not get the aGPS to work at ALL on this phone. i downloaded several different utilities and tried all the steps like clearing the cache and downloading new coordinates, etc etc etc. simply put... nothing helped. i was almost to the point of contacting Samsung about returning the phone, after having found plenty of complaints about defective aGPS on this model.last month the update pushed through, and seems to have fixed the aGPS problem. it will still take a long time to grab the satellites if i am inside any kind of building. but if i am outside it will get a fix in under a minute. i do notice that occasionally the phone will refuse to fix any satellites until i use a utility (GPS Status) to clear the cache and then reboot the phone. then it will work fine for several days.the phone wants to be your nanny and it is a chore to turn the volume up when listening to music. i use this phone as an MP3 player at the gym. and any time i want to turn the volume up beyond half way, i have to acknowledge that i might be making myself deaf.the auto-correct is HORRIBLE. to be fair, this may be entirely the fault of android. but coming from my old phone, whatever version of android was around 2 years ago, this auto-correct is the worst thing to have happened. if i want to add a word to the dictionary i have to click the word once, and THEN, click the word AGAIN after hitting space or whatever punctuation mark i wanted to use. i don't know if it's saving the word into two different dictionaries or what. apparently there is no way of actually seeing or controlling what is going on with the dictionaries, either. this sounds like a small complaint, but it still is a really chaffing issue for me. the only thing that is worse than the auto-correct is my spelling when i turn it off.i HATE that this phone has a USB micro-B connector for charging/docking. there's almost no point in complaining against "progress" in the USB family, but the mini-B was a far superior connector. as you are most likely familiar, micro-B is the current "standard" for android phones, and it offers almost no tactile feedback about orientation until you've fairly well jammed the connector into the phone. at least with the mini-B you could tell right away if you were trying to plug the cable in upside down. every time i try to plug the phone in, in the dark, i have to do it timidly because i don't want to damage the tiny little connector pins inside the mini-B port. everything seems built well enough, but inside the port is a very VERY thin board holding all the connection pins, and i can easily imagine it snapping off. at least it's a standard port, instead of needing any kind of proprietary plug.in conclusion; this phone is great. awesome battery life, awesome camera, the perfect size for my needs, a true dual+active phone. get a case because it's a slippery thing without one, bring back the mini-B USB port!

Some useful information:1. I'm using perfectly in the UK2. In the box there's a label with this description:AMERICAN SIM CARD ONLY: This product is only compatible with SIM-card issued from a mobile operator within the Americas (The North, South and Central Americas and the Caribbean)To use SIM cards from other regions, a cumulative call over five minutes must first be made with the SIM card from American operators. If a SIM card issued from another region is used for activation, the phone may not work. In this case, the device will need to be released at the nearest Samsung service center.3. Luckily I was in the US enough time to try to unlock it following the instructions from the label. I tried with a Verizon SIM card but it didn't work. Then I tried with a T Mobile SIM card and I was able to make and receive phone calls. I did two phone calls of above 6 minutes just to be sure.4. Once in the UK I tested it with two companies already and it worked just fine!Final recommendation:The phone is great but only if you will be in the US or in the Americas (not sure if you can unlock it from SIM cards from other North-Central or South American SIM cards but for what I read in other review you can) to unlock it. Then you can take it from anywhere in the world, or at least it works in Europe!