The small but powerful HTC One Mini announced
HTC will have held all the hi-tech community in suspense a few days ago as the Taiwanese giant presented the HTC One Mini. As its name suggests it is the little brother of the HTC One presented in Barcelona at MWC this year.
Design and technical specifications
The HTC One Mini is not nearly as mini as its name suggests and will be available in two colours, Glacial Silver and Stealth Black. There is no obvious difference between the HTC One Mini and the HTC One. We thus find the legendary hull, full in aluminium and perforated with tiny holes in the front at the top and bottom, behind which are located the BoomSound speakers, with Beats Audio technology. The touchscreen is not also as small as the name suggests, and is delimited by black borders on each side.
The main difference is probably buttons located on either side of the device and which permit to adjust the volume that are slightly more pronounced. At the rear, the LED flash is located above the camera now. The dimensions and weight are evident in relation to its name, so the whole should not exceed 9.3 mm thick and weigh 122g.
HTC has aligned a range of high-end components. The smartphone is equipped with a Dual-Core CPU, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 400, clocked at 1.4 GHz, and Adreno 305 GPU. All powered by 1GB of RAM. Screen side, it offers a honourable 720p Super HD LCD 2 instead of the 1080p Super HD LCD 3. However, the screen features a 4.3 inches diagonal, reinforced with Gorilla Glass 3. Storage side, we will be entitled to 16 GB of space, but no microSD slot.
The rear camera has a 4 megapixel camera with UltraPixel technology. However, we note that there is no optical image stabilization. Side autonomy, there is a battery of 1700 mAh. Naturally we found Android Jelly Bean 4.2.2.
Features and innovations
The focus is on three functions. HTC Boomsound, HTC BlinkFeed and HTC Zoe. Boomsound uses Beats Audio technology, and offers a listening experience more enjoyable for the user, with the two speakers located on the front of the unit. BlinkFeed, brings together all the news on the smartphone in a single place.
Thus, the user can easily see all notifications and all the events without having to go through different services. Finally, Zoe propose editing functions for pictures and short clips, for example, capture a video clip 3s before a photo. Finally, the Sense overlay software has been improved, and given a more contemporary feel.
Conclusion
On paper, the HTC One Mini seems to meet the different needs of users, compactness, ease of use, and a descent battery. It will be available by the end of September. Those interested will have to wait until and then prepare some € 449 that it will cost the unit.
Would you buy the HTC One Mini? Or is the reduced specifications and size a deal breaker compared to the HTC One? Let us know your thoughts below.
