We’ve already seen one new variant of Samsung’s latest flagship in the new Galaxy S5 Active — and now we await its “mini” sibling. According to one leaker, that’s the device you see in the photographs above and below. It looks identical to its big brother, only smaller — as its name accurately suggests — and it borrows a number of its most exciting features, including the Finger Scanner and water-resistant form factor.

We’ve always anticipated the Galaxy S5 mini would follow its predecessor and be a smaller, cheaper, and slightly less exciting version of Samsung’s most recent high-end Galaxy smartphone. And while that appears to be largely the case this time around — based on these images — Samsung has made a number of improvements that are a pleasant surprise.

The photos clearly show the Galaxy S5 mini’s Finger Scanner and heart rate monitor — two flagship features that we weren’t sure would be passed down from the original Galaxy S5. We can also see from the rubber gasket on the inside of its back panel that suggests this device will have a water-resistant form factor.

Samsung’s made lots of upgrades internally, too. According to the tipster who provided these photos to SamMobile, the S5 mini will have a 4.5-inch 720p Super AMOLED display, an unannounced Exynos 3 Quad processor clocked at 1.4GHz, the Mali-400 MP4 GPU, and 1.5GB of RAM. You can also expect 16GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot, and an 8-megapixel camera capable of recording 1080p video.

The Galaxy S5 mini is shaping up to be a decent mid-range device this time around — particularly with its Android 4.4.2 KitKat operating system and Samsung’s latest version of TouchWiz. But it will need to be priced right; expensive midrange devices won’t fly now that you can bag a flagship for $299.

• SourceSamMobile