Samsung just announced its Galaxy S4 Mini smartphone on Thursday, May 30, detailing the specs and features of the mini version of its current flagship.

Despite wide expectations that Samsung would unveil its Galaxy S4 Mini at its June 20 media event, which teased Android and Windows Phone announcements, the company went ahead and pulled the wraps off its newest Mini smartphone.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini is the smaller, more compact version of the company's best-selling smartphone and current flagship.

"The GALAXY S4 mini delivers the superior performance, intuitive ease-of-use and sleek design of the GALAXY S4 in a highly portable, chic and compact design, making it an ideal companion for everyday life," boasts the press release.

"We appreciate such unprecedented demands for the GALAXY S4 that we aimed to provide users with life companion for a fuller, richer, and simpler life. And now, we want to give people more choices with GALAXY S4 mini, similar look & feel of GALAXY S4 for more compact and practical usages," explains JK Shin, CEO and President of IT & Mobile Communication Division at Samsung Electronics. "The new GALAXY S4 mini provides consumers with a new way to enjoy the flagship GALAXY S4 experience."

The Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini comes a little more than a month after Samsung unleashed its new Galaxy flagship smartphone. The smaller version comes as a mid-range Android smartphone sporting a 4.3-inch qHD Super AMOLED display with 16:9 aspect ratio. Under the hood, the handset packs a dual-core processor clocked at 1.7GHz and 1.5GB of RAM. The Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini has 8GB of internal storage capacity, though only 5GB will actually be available to the user. The company does note, however, that the handset will also sport a micro SD card slot for expandable memory up to 64GB.

Other specs and features of the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini include a 1,900 mAh battery, which is significantly less powerful than the 2,600 mAh battery found in the original Galaxy S4. On the other hand, the Mini version also has a smaller display and less powerful processor, which means the battery may not be much of an issue in terms of going through the day on a full charge.

The Galaxy S4 Mini also features an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 1.9-megapixel front-facing shooter, as well as a slew of camera features exclusive to new Samsung devices. Such exclusive camera features include "Sound & Shot," which allows users to record up to nine seconds of audio alongside a still image. Panorama Shot is also available for creating ultra wide-angle perspectives.

When it comes to operating system, the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini runs on the latest version of Android, i.e. Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, with TouchWiz on top. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, 4G LTE and NFC (only for the LTE version).

The smartphone will be available in two color options: White Frost and Black Mist. Samsung did not offer any details on pricing and availability yet, but it will officially launch the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini at its "Premiere 2013" event in London on June 20.