HTC One Mini product reviews

With the launch of the HTC One Max, HTC made a serious entry into the 'phablet' market. Running with that success, the HTC One Mini has been released... and for a phone it's pretty good... but while it shares some of the best features of the 'One' family, it also suffers from some of the same flaws.

In common with the rest of the 'One' line, this unit shares the industry-leading Android 4.4.2 OS, the compact but powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU (the dual-core 1.4GHz Snapdragon 400 in this case), aluminium case, HTC Boomsound technology and HighDef resolution (720p in this case because of the screen size) this 4.3" beastie is more than just a phone. Add to that some very impressive media recording and playback functionality, impressive sound from the speakers and wireless connectivity to stream video in via Bluetooth and out via DLNA... you have a mini theatre in your pocket too!

One of the flagship features is one that, while very impressive and fully up with today's "connected life, now" mentality, is one that I was quick to get annoyed with and disable... and that's the BlinkFeed screen. Looking like a multimedia montage in Windows8 style, I found it was fairly innocuous while I was within my office WiFi zone, but rapidly started chewing through my mobile data cap which is something I am loathe to accept as 'the price of today's lifestyle.' I'm quite happy NOT knowing the latest gossip about a movie, or the current score in the rugby game, or what's hot in my social media circles. When I am out and about, I have a mission and need as few pointless distractions as possible so I was please to see that deactivating this feature was as simple as holding my finger on the desktop until the 'Screen Manager' popped up, then just tapping the 'BlinkFeed' option to toggle it to 'off'. Big kudos to HTC for not forcing that option on the users.

Packing A 1280x720px resolution into a 4.3" phone screen gives you 341 pixels per inch - better even than many of the high-end Apple products out there including the much-adored (for some strange reason) iPhone 5. These ultra-tiny pixels do a great job of keeping small fonts readable when you are web browsing, and make for crisp images and nice clean viewing of medium-resolution movies, plus of course, crystal clean viewing of HD video files. Pair this with the increible Beats Audio-driven twin front-mounted, internally-amplified speakers, and you have a media playuer of high standard. Download a great multi-format player like VLC Beta and a good music-streamer like Spotify and there's very little you can't watch or listen to.

For sheer grunt, this phone will never win any high praise due to it sporting a dual-core 1.4GHz cpu with 1GB of DDR2 RAM. While this is utterly unaccecptable for a laptop or desktop, it's still pretty good for a phone. With it's big brother Max sporting the quad-core 1.7GHz cpu, this is indeed therunt of the family, but it's a runt that can still hold it's head up against any of the iBullies out there. Yes, there are faster, bigger units out there, but they carry a price tag significantly higher than this and often not enough extra power to justify the price for someone who wants an entry-level phone at the upper end of that scale. This fits nicely into that niche and allows for more accessibility for consumers who want good features at a reasonable price.

For those who, like me, like to have a camera on hand at all times in case of something really amazing/stunning/beautiful coming into view, this unit has one of HTC's "Ultrapixel" cameras. No, that doesn't mean it has a huge megapixel rating - it's only 1.6mp, far smaller than I am happy with - but each pixel sensor is larger, allowing it to capture more light. What this means, I found, is that low-light shots are something really impressive to behold, while full-sun shots tend to be over-exposed. I found that a simple, if ungainly, trick on really bright days is to slip my sunglasses over the lens and then use a high-end photo app to restore a more balanced exposure. It's a lot of work for a good image in the day, but there's virtually no work needed to get some unmatched evening shots... and with a 28mm lens hard-set to F2.0, shooting close-ups on an overcast but dry day is pure bliss!

As for the flaws this unit shares with the other 'One' devices... two of the biggest are the inability to remove and replace the battery, and the aluminium backplate. Unlike the 'Max', this unit does NOT have a removable backplate. This is not really a matter of concern except in cases where you drop it on an uneven surface and it gets significantly dented. You can't just order a replacement, or panel-beat it back into shape... and like the knights of old, heavily dented metal shell usually means dented innards... and this can be very bad news indeed. The inability to swap out the battery is annoying for me, as someone who likes to have a spare battery charged and ready on hand, but because this handset uses the USB plug for data and charging, there's any number of decent powerbanks available these days at good prices, so that issue can be covered without too much drama.

Overall, this is a phone I would seriously consider buying if my budget ever allowed. It comes ready for 4G out of the box, has Bluetooth 4.0 and 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi so will give you maximum data speeds under a wide range of conditions, has an internal compass and full GPS, plus a pre-installed suite of software that will satisfy the needs of most people, including some very cute HTC-specific media apps like Zoe - which really has to be experienced to be understood. The embedded 1800mAh LiPo battery gives you around 13 hours talk time and around 3 weeks stand-by... but of course some apps are going to chew through that battery a lot faster if they require a lot of grunt or use your wireless a lot.