Samsung seems to be rebooting all its old phones at MWC 2012, and the Galaxy S Advance is no exception - building on the successful Samsung Galaxy S, it's looking to tackle the mid-range market.

The Galaxy S Advance strolls in with a 1GHz dual-core processor, a curved 4-inch WVGA Super AMOLED screen, 5MP rear camera with 720p video recording, a front-facing 1.3MP camera, 8/16GB of internal memory, optional NFC support and Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread.

It's disappointing to see the Galaxy S Advance not running the latest version of Android Ice Cream Sandwich, especially since the specs of the handset should support the operating system.

Gingerbread runs smoothly on the Galaxy S Advance and Samsung has slapped its TouchWiz interface over the top, which makes using the phone easy.

However, don't expect Galaxy S2 speeds, since the Galaxy S Advance lacks the zip of its superior, which is noticable when skipping through the seven home screens and browsing through the apps.

The slightly curved 4-inch screen and body means that the Galaxy S Advance sits nicely in the hand and hugs the side of your face when making and receiving calls.

A little annoyingly, Samsung has placed the 3.5mm headphone jack at the bottom of the Galaxy S Advance. We're not keen on this because it means your phone is upside-down in your pocket – totally ruining the feng-shui of your jeans.

As we've mentioned in other Samsung handset reviews, the stock TouchWiz keyboard isn't the best in terms of layout, and the same rule applies with the Galaxy S Advance. We found ourselves hitting the wrong keys more often than not, so we'd recommend downloading an alternative keyboard from the Android Market.

The Galaxy S Advance we got our hands on had a SIM card in, and we were able to browse the internet over 3G/HSDPA (it kept jumping between the two). We found pages were quite slow to load, but once loaded they were crisp and clear and we were able to zoom and reflow the text without any slowdown.

The camera app took a few seconds to load, and there was a couple of seconds delay between being able to take photos, partly due to the slow auto focus feature. Samsung has also included a single LED flash, tap-to focus and a number of various effects, modes and scenes for you to tweak your photos with.

There is optional NFC technology that can be put in the Galaxy S Advance, but only some countries will get the handset with NFC inside. Samsung is still considering which countries will receive the NFC-enabled Galaxy S Advance, so we're keeping our fingers crossed it will reach the UK.

We were also told that the Galaxy S Advance will be available with either 8GB or 16GB of internal memory, depending on which country it ships to.

Obviously we would like to see the larger of the two memory options, but since the Galaxy S Advance is set for the mid-range market, we wouldn't be surprised to see it ship with just 8GB.

That said, the Galaxy S Advance will come with a microSD card slot to enable you to expand its memory capabilities.

Expect the Galaxy S Advance to be released in UK stores in March with a mid-range price tag. Want to check out its competition? Then take a gander at the HTC One V and LG Optimus L5.

The Galaxy S Advance is certainly an improvement on the original Galaxy S and will boost Samsung's mid-range smartphone portfolio, but with the Galaxy S3 set to be just around the corner, wouldn't a Galaxy S2 Advance have been more appropriate?