The more I’ve used HTC’s flagship One, the more I’ve liked the phone that many believe is the best Android device on the market. After initial problems with battery life, it’s been improved to become the only really premium Android design available – certainly the only one that feels sullied if you put a case on it. Lovely in the hand, its metal and glass design is complemented by a good camera and a great screen. While Samsung’s Galaxy S4 has far more features, the One’s metal beats its plastic and the Sense software feels coherent. There’s not a lot in it, but HTC is still a real competitor to the South Korean behemoth.
Now, like Samsung, HTC has produced a Mini version of its flagship device. Like the S4 Mini, the One Mini has a slower processor, a 1.4Ghz dual core, less storage at just 16GB and a lower resolution display. But it retains Blinkfeed, the social aggregator that combines all your news and social feeds into one place, the Boomsound speakers, and the ultrapixel camera that takes really excellent photographs, particularly in low light, and offers the ‘Zoe’ mini films. Samsung has cut back more features for its equivalent device.
The screen shrinks from 4.7”xxxxx to 4.3”, but the single biggest change is the shift to a plastic bezel around the edge. That takes away a big chunk of the very premium feel of the HTC One, moving it away from glass and metal and toward much of the material compromises for which Samsung has seen the S4 criticised. But the small form factor feels neat in the hand, comes at a cheaper price and is still almost as good.
An 1,800mAh battery is plenty enough to provide power performance similar to the regular One, in part because that smaller, lower resolution screen and slower processor don’t make as many demands as better components would.
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