The aluminum unibody of the HTC One mini is great - it screams "premium" more than the big Galaxy S4, let alone its mini version. And the stereo BoomSound speakers on the front deliver an excellent audio experience, coupled with high-quality audio hardware for the 3.5mm audio jack and Beats audio tuning.
The HTC One mini is one of the very few phones trying to fill the gap of compact high-end phones. And it comes within walking distance of being the super mini, but it doesn't really go the whole way.
Let's start off with what we like. The build of the phone is amazing, easily rivaling current flagships (heck, it even beats quite a few). The screen is beautiful and the BoomSound speakers around it are well appreciated too. Software-wise the One mini is in lockstep with the regular HTC One, another plus. Then there's the LTE connectivity, which is becoming more important as new 4G LTE networks launch across the globe.
But why isn't it available in 32GB flavor? 12 gigs of user available storage will make you feel uncomfortably cramped with 3D games and music and movies quickly piling up, not to mention those Zoe shots or even plain 1080p videos. And going with a lower bin chipset with just 1GB RAM can cause headaches a year from now - those are early 2012 specs. And when you take out the Optical Image Stabilization, that 4MP camera does rather poorly. Some might miss, like NFC, the IR blaster or MHL.
Throw in an UltraPixel camera sensor and the latest Android 4.2.2 with Sense 5 (on par with the just updated regular One) and the feeling that HTC shortchanged the One mini almost subsides.
Advantages
- Premium aluminum unibody
- Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support; 3G with HSPA; LTE
- 4.3" 16M-color 720p Super LCD2 capacitive touchscreen with 342ppi pixel density; Gorilla Glass 3
- Android OS v4.2.2 Jelly Bean with Sense UI 5.0
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 chipset: dual-core 1.4 GHz Krait 300 CPU, 1 GB RAM, Adreno 305 GPU
- 4 MP autofocus "UltraPixel" camera with 1/3'' sensor size, 2µm pixel size; LED flash
- 1080p video recording @ 30fps with HDR mode, continuous autofocus and stereo sound
- HTC Zoe
- 1.6MP front-facing camera, 720p video recording
- Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct and DLNA; Wireless TV out
- GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS
- 16GB of built-in storage
- Bluetooth v4.0
- Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
- Accelerometer and proximity sensor
- Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic
- Front-mounted stereo speakers with BoomSound tech
- Class-leading audio output
- 1,800mAh Li-Po battery
Main disadvantages
- Relatively slow chipset with limited RAM
- 4MP camera has disappointing performance in good lighting conditions
- No optical image stabilization that made the HTC One camera special
- No microSD cards slot, only 12GB user available storage on the 16GB model
- No NFC or MHL
- Non user-replaceable battery
- Poor video and audio codec support out of box
- No IR blaster
