There have been rumours of an HTC One Mini for months but now HTC have made it official. Many of the top phones these days have at least one thing in common, huge screens. That’s great for watching videos, web browsing and looking at your holiday snaps but it does make them a lot more awkward to hold and sometimes too big to fit in your pocket comfortably. Despite the name the HTC One Mini isn’t really all that small, it has a 4.3-inch screen which does make it considerably smaller than its bigger brother but it’s nowhere near as small as the word ‘mini’ suggests.
Reducing the screen size isn’t the only change HTC have made, rather than a 1080p display as found on the HTC One, the Mini only has a 720p screen. Since the screen is smaller the reduced resolution doesn’t impact the image quality too much. The Mini only has a dual-core processor as opposed to the quad-core found in the One, half the amount of RAM at 1GB and half the internal storage at 16GB. Despite the toned down specs the One Mini is still capable of running all the latest apps and is fast enough for most users.
Many of the important features remain however, like its bigger brother the One Mini is a very attractive phone and although they’re a bit smaller the fantastic BoomSound speakers found on the One are present on the Mini too. The One Mini is also lighter and a bit thinner than the One although it is missing the IR blaster of the One which means there will be no controlling a television using a One Mini. The good news is the 4MP UltraPixel camera of the One has survived so you’ll be able to take some great snaps on the One Mini.
The HTC One Mini should be considerably cheaper than the original One and will start to become available in August with a full global release in September. The One Mini looks like a decent phone but it isn’t really that much smaller than the real HTC One and it isn’t as powerful either. When will manufacturers realise some people want the power of a high-end phone but something that fits in the pocket a bit more easily?