The much rumoured and teased HTC One Mini smartphone has been officially unveiled by the company. It's easy to find it on HTC's home page in the UK where it features in position one of the rotating feature carousel at the top of the page. Also you can go straight to the HTC One Mini microsite here.
We all know what an HTC One mini smartphone should be, a tastefully condensed HTC One, but now we can look at exactly what HTC has cut or preserved from the original to make this smaller version of its popular flagship Android phone.
HTC One Mini official specifications
- CPU: Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 400, dual-core, 1.4GHz
- Platform: Android with HTC Sense™, HTC BlinkFeed™
- SIM card type: micro SIM
- Network: 2G/ 2.5G – GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, 3G/ 3.5G – UMTS/ HSPA: 850/900/1900/2100 MHz with HSPA+ up to 42 Mbps
- Memory: Total storage: 16 GB, available capacity varies
- RAM: 1GB DDR2
- GPS: Internal GPS antenna + GLONASS, Digital compass
- Sensors: Gyro sensor, Accelerometer, Proximity sensor, Ambient light sensor
- Connectivity: 3.5 mm stereo audio jack, Bluetooth® 4.0 with aptX™ enabled, Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n, DLNA® for wirelessly streaming media from the phone to a compatible TV or computer, HTC Connect™
- Sound enhancement: HTC BoomSound™, Dual frontal stereo speakers with built-in amplifiers, Studio-quality sound with Beats Audio™, Sense Voice
- Camera: HTC UltraPixel Camera, BSI sensor, Pixel size 2.0 µm, Sensor size 1/3" (0.85 cm), Dedicated HTC ImageChip 2, F2.0 aperture and 28 mm lens, Smart Flash: Five levels of flash automatically set by distance to subject, 1080p Full HD video recording with HDR Video, Front Camera: 1.6 MP with BSI sensor, Front Camera: 720p video recording, HTC Zoe™ with Sequence Shot, Always Smile and Object Removal, Gallery with Video Highlights and HTC Share, Continuous shooting and VideoPic, Slow motion video recording with variable speed playback
- Multimedia: Audio supported formats: Playback: .aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma (Windows Media Audio 9), Recording: .amr, Video supported formats: Playback: .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv (Windows Media Video 9), .avi (MP4 ASP and MP3), Recording: .mp4
- Battery: Embedded rechargeable Li-polymer battery, Capacity: 1800 mAh, Talk time: Up to 13.27 hours for WCDMA, Up to 20.72 hours for GSM, Standby time: Up to 692 hours for WCDMA, Up to 500 hours for GSM
So perusing the official specs above, you can see that HTC has cut down the Mini in more ways than just its stature. To give us "convenient single-hand operation" HTC has graced the HTC One Mini with a 720p 4.3-inch screen. The new smartphone's size is 132 x 63.2 x 9.25 mm and it weighs in at 122g. A noticeable design change on the Mini is the plastic frame that runs around the screen.
Looking at the changes to the internals the Mini has had a power plant shrink, the 1.4GHz dual-core Snapdragon 400 paired with 1GB of RAM is quite a cut from its larger sibling. The main camera is the same Ultrapixel effort but the front camera has been cut down to 1.6 megapixels. Also present on the One but missing on the One Mini are NFC and IR Blaster functions. The software on the Mini will give you the HTC One experience as it comes with Sense, BlinkFeed and Zoe and actually comes with Android 4.2.2 straight from the box.
You can see HTC's official video embedded above, it's not that informative. However I've noticed the guys at AndroidCentral have had a good hands-on with the new HTC One Mini and compared it to its big brother and other contemporary smartphones. They conclude that HTC hasn't cut too much from the One in making the Mini and it still offers enough of the core One experience to feel premium. The 4.3-inch screen is still a very good panel and the build quality is good.
The HTC One Mini will be sold "two price points below" the larger HTC One, but that's all we have on pricing. This new smartphone will be made available worldwide in August.
