It will be a July debut for the Galaxy S4 Mini, Samsung's scaled-down version of the flagship Galaxy S4, setting a direct collision course with Apple's iPhone 5S and likely the iPhone 6.

New reports from Samsung-centric blog site SamMobile have indicated that the S4 Mini launch date was moved to Week 29, which is a schedule that falls on the mid-part of third quarter this year or July.

No specific reasons were cited for the delay though it is possible that the earlier reports of late April rollout for the mid-range device was actually a diversion to cloak its actual release date, which Samsung has now set for late July.

Now within the same time frame, another major smartphone is expected to attract consumers' attention. If analysts were right, Apple will unbox the iPhone 5S and its low-cost version in the following month.

There is also a slight chance that Apple will heed the popular clamour for the iPhone 6. That paints two scenarios: Either the iPhone 5S will be ditched altogether or the tech titan will opt for a three-gadget release - paving the way for the 3.5-inch budget iPhone, the 4-inch iPhone 5S and the 4.8-inch iPhone 6 to slug it out with rival Android and Windows mobile phones.

The spotlight, however, is trained at the moment on the S4 Mini, which analysts said is a device release meant to complement the expected record sales to be generate by its bigger brother - the Galaxy S4 that Samsung is issuing in three CPU flavours, in Snapdragon 800 chip at speed of 1.9GHz and in 8-core Exynos Octa 5 at two breakneck speed.

According to SamMobile, the S4 Mini is coming out in four variants with all the versions sporting a 4.3-inch qHD Super AMOLED plus a decent main snapper with 8MP sensor. It will run on JellyBean 4.2.2 and will likely showcase much of the Smart features introduced by Samsung during the GS4. It will run on JellyBean 4.2.2 and will likely showcase much of the Smart features introduced by Samsung during the GS4 unveiling on March.

The smaller GS4 is also expected in dual-SIM editions for selected markets with all country of destinations possibly getting the S4 Mini make with LTE radio signal.

Unlocked, the Galaxy S4 Mini should retail between $400 and $600 but on carrier subsidy it can be had for as low as $99 or even free, reports said.