HTC One mini

HTC ONE MINI REVIEW

The HTC One mini is beautiful Android smartphone that offers near-perfect performance. The HTC One's excellent build quality is dented only marginally by a slight tendency to run hot during our tests. Here's PC Advisor's HTC One review. Updated, 30 September 2013. It's worth pointing out that the HTC One mini full-HD display won a lot of accolades and even was considered one of the best displays in the premium segment. The HTC One mini features a 4.3-inch Super LCD 2 display that sports a resolution of 720x1280 pixels and pixel density of 341ppi. The company has also used Corning Gorilla Glass 3 on the device, making it stronger, and more scratch-resistant. The Super LCD 2 display doesn't gives the fullest colours or the deepest blacks like AMOLED displays do, but it is a bright panel at nearly all times. Colours on the One mini are quite vibrant nevertheless, and consistently reproduced well. The viewing angles were never a problem. The display is not very reflective, and sunlight-legibility was acceptable. Reading text on the device was always crisp and clear against white backgrounds. Typing on the 4.3-inch display of the One mini would be imprecise for large-handed people, though we assume that there's nothing that Swype can't fix. Other changes are evident as well. The flash moves above the camera lens from the side, and the Mini's power button gets a different finish (since the Mini lacks the infrared beam to control the TV.) The volume rocker also splits into two distinct parts that stand out a little more from the surface; I actually prefer this to the One's shallow, ridged bar, though the buttons still weren't quite as easy for me to find with my thumb at first. You just have to know they're there. While the Mini uses the same main camera as the One -- with a 4-megapixel "UltraPixel" sensor with an LED flash and 1080p HD video recording -- the front-facing camera drops from 2.1 megapixels with 1080p HD recording to 1.6 megapixels with 720p HD video capture. Beyond these tiny adjustments, the handset's port placement and dual speaker grille proportions remain the same. You'll plug the Micro-USB into the bottom of the phone and the headset jack into the top. As with the One, there's no microSD card slot for extra storage, so you'll need to make do with the Mini's 16GB. When it comes to software, the Mini is happily up-to-date with Android 4.2.2 topped with HTC's Sense 5.0 interface. Yes, BlinkFeed commands the main home screen by default with social networks, news outlets, and other content you set up. You can't turn off BlinkFeed in the settings, but you can shunt it to a secondary or tertiary screen. I don't mind it in as a second screen, myself, but I join my colleague Brian Bennett in wishing I could smoothly scroll through items in the feed rather than jump from group to group. HTC's BoomSound speakers lie beneath micro-drilled holes both above and below the screen, bringing plenty of oomph, as advertised. Prolonged listening through the smartphone won't grate on the ears, although the sound quality isn't quite as bass-rich as the One. HTC also snuck in a single LED notification light into the top speaker -- one of the more refined ways we've seen light-up reminders integrated into smartphone design. The not-quite-standard Android button layout remains, with a HTC logo separating back and home keys. As it's running Android 4.2.2, however, HTC now offers you the option to switch some of the menu button functionality to the home key, launching Google Now with a swipe and accessing the options menu within apps. There's a dual-core, 1.4GHz Snapdragon 400 processor (another component that made an appearance in the HTC First), along with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of built-in storage. Given that the One mini is completely sealed, there's no opportunity to expand storage through a microSD card, but it's a pretty respectable chunk of storage for a phone below the flagship level. Smaller phone, smaller screen and yes, smaller battery. At 1,800mAh, we wondered where that would place the device when it came to lasting out the day. In our video looping test, with brightness at 50 percent and social networks polling at 15-minute intervals, we got just over six hours. It's a bit disappointing, frankly. While it's a half-hour less than the full-sized HTC One mini managed, we were hoping that a drop in resolution and screen size would translate to battery savings. Even during more casual use, we'd have to plug it in after around 10 hours' use. Be prepared to have a charger close at hand. HTC's One Mini has a striking design, Android 4.2.2, terrific external speakers, and a strong midtier feature set.

SPECIFICATION & FEATURES

HTC ONE MINI PRICE

Price in USA $500

Price in UK £351

Price in EURO €373

Price in PAK Rs.56,000

Price in INDIA Rs.32,192