While the main focus of the tech press is on the battle between the HTC One Mini’s larger brother, the HTC One, and the Samsung Galaxy S4, there’s an equally important rivalry between the smaller versions of these flagship phones. In this contest, between the HTC One Mini and the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini, HTC has pulled out on top. Rather than quickly throwing together a phone to capitalise on the ‘Mini’ trend, HTC has spent time focusing on creating a brilliant device that will still be a great phone years from now. And despite creating such an amazing phone, the price tag is significantly more budget friendly, with the phone around £200 less than its bigger brother.
Display
HTC has been generous to us with the display on the HTC One and included a 720p HD resolution screen with a pixel density higher than even the iPhone 5s. This makes the screen perfect for watching movies and catchup television shows on – especially as HTC has also put in great audio — more on that later. The screen is protected by the latest Corning Gorilla Glass meaning that is has great scratch resistance. The display is 4.3 inches, which isn’t as Mini as it might seem – by contract the latest iPhone is only 4 inches.
Performance
All smaller versions of flagship smartphones take a hit to the speed at the same time that their screens are shrunk. The HTC One Mini is no exception, but it still feels remarkably snappy and has no problems performing any task – whether it’s playing 3D games or browsing the web with multiple tabs open. HTC uses a chipset from the industry leaders Qualcomm for this phone — the Snapdragon 400 dual-core 1.4 GHz processor. Plus there’s an Adreno 305 GPU helping you get brilliant graphics, combined with 1 GB of RAM, all of which work together to ensure this phone has amazing speed and performance. Storage is set at 16 GB, which is better than many phones although sadly there’s no way of expanding this. The battery will get you through a full day and is rated at 1800 mAh, which HTC claims will give you 13 hours and 20 minutes talk time on 3G. Not bad.
Camera
HTC makes brilliant cameras, and the camera in the HTC One Mini — nicknamed Zoe — is no exception. It utilises HTC’s UltraPixel technology to give you far better snaps than the 4 megapixels would suggest. Search popular photo sharing sites such as Flickr for photos taken with the camera to get examples of its capabilities. There’s also a LED flash, which is great for nighttime shots — an area where HTC’s cameras really excel. It’s capable of taking Full HD 1080p video, which is better quality than you’ll even be able to see on the display! The forward facing camera can also take 720p video and also shoots photos a 1.6 megapixels.
Audio
Audio isn’t a category we review on many phones, but HTC have included so many brilliant audio features that this has to be mentioned. As with other HTC Phones the partnership with Dr. Dre means that we have Beats Audio sound enhancement. This improves sound quality no matter what brand of earphones or headphones you opt for. Plus there’s stereo speakers combined with HTC’s BoomSound amplifiers. This makes the phone the perfect option for watching movies in bed with your partner, giving you both amazing sound and HD quality visuals.
Wrapping Up
It’s hard to go wrong with the HTC One Mini. There’s so much in this little package, and the price tag is within the range of more people than the larger HTC One. The metallic design, available in both black and silver, gives this an edge over its competitors, and the phone is 4G ready plus has all the connectivity that you’d expect. This really is a premium device in a smaller packet and comes highly recommended.
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