We have been hearing rumors of the HTC One Mini for awhile, and we even got a look at leaked photos a couple days ago.. But today the company unveiled the model for real, and it seems to be everything you would expect.
The original HTC One had a 4.7 inch display and a high resolution of 1080 pixels. It ran a quad-core Snapdragon 600 chip processor, and had a decent interface that was very similar to the Windows Phone displays, as it had large box menus rather than the traditional icons.
With the HTC One Mini, you are getting a lot of the same design and features, with a couple of differences. The screen has been shrunk down to 4.3 inches, and the display resolution is now 720 pixels. While this will have a few drawbacks for those who like mobile streaming video content, it is less of a change than you might have guessed for a Mini model.
Perhaps the biggest downgrade comes from the processor. The Mini will have a dual-core Snapdragon 400, just 1.4 Ghz. Not bad, but a serious jump down from the CPU speed of its predecessor. Plus, it will have 1 GB of RAM instead of two.
Usability is also going to be a bit impacted. It runs Android Jellybean 4.2, which is fine. But it also comes with the company’s patented Sense 5.0. Many people have been critical of Sense in the past, and so will find no relief here.
Other features include a 4MP camera which is going to be in a fairly basic form. No image stabilization or anything beyond the most basic filters, but with multi-flash settings to allow you to customize for time of day and indoor/outdoor. If your concern is having a higher functioning camera on your mini device, you might be better off with the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini.
All in all, this is kind of a lackluster release from HTC. The original One was a decent product, but nothing that special. The Mini is even less so, taking away some of the features that made the One good in the first place. The slower processor, less RAM and the often controversial performance of their Sense UI is going to be a detractor for many.
However, the cost alone might be enough to bring consumers around. Already projections are being seen that price the HTC One Mini as low as $90, making it viable competition on a market filled with $600 phones.
Source: Engadget