from my experience, no matter what brand you get or how much you pay, smaller hookahs just dont perform well. you said that you want it to "smoke well", but if its small, there won't be a very large chamber for the smoke to build, so you'll get thin smoke or harsh smoke (the latter attributed to pulling for the tobacco to burn, instead of letting the hookah do its job. this usually happens when you have the former, because no one wants thin smoke, so you pull harder).

i guess my question to you would be what is "mini" in your mind? i've seen 1ft hookahs to 12ft hookahs.