It really depends on how you are going to use it, I only use mine to occasionally send a text or for an emergency. On my elk hunt I was out in the field for 15 days and used it to text once every day, I had it turned on for 15 min each time and I had over half of the battery still left at the end of the trip. I almost forgot, I got weather updates 3 or 4 times as well so using it this way the battery life isn't an issue. IMO the biggest con of the mini is if your phone goes out, you will not have fun typing a text message. You can send preset texts easily but I have found that presets are fairly generic and limited in their effectiveness, presets do however let people know that you are okay.
On my January deer hunt last year I was using my phone to get video and pic from my spotting scope so I had the phone out of its safety case, I ended up dropping my slippery case less phone and it landed perfectly on a rock making my screen go black and the phone unusable for anything, so IMO the biggest con of the mini is if you break your phone.