Our friends over at AT&T have sent us the HTC One Mini for us to review. This is the younger brother or sister to the HTC One, but then again it is around the same size of the Moto X. This makes it easier to hold in one hand and to operate it at the same time with that hand. The price is more affordable at $99.99 with a 2-year contract. Let’s dive into our full review of the AT&T HTC One Mini!
Design
The HTC One Mini continues the great design of the HTC One. You still get a aluminum design, but the polycarbonate plastic makes up a larger portion of the build. The white polycarbonate is thicker around the sides of the device and portions of the back. This makes the HTC One Mini lose some of the super high end feeling we used to get from the original device. You still have aluminum on the back and both above and below the display. The device is still quite thin at 0.36-inches and is light at 4.5-ounces. You can get it in your choice of either black or white, our unit that we tested was white.
Above the display you will find the BoomSound speaker, a 1.6 megapixel camera, and some sensors. Below the display you have the other BoomSound speaker, HTC logo, a back button, and a home button. You will find the headphone jack and power/sleep button on the top of the device. You can charge your device via micro USB port on the bottom. The SIM card slot is on the left hand side and the volume rocker is on the right hand side. The back of the device is home to the Beats Audio logo, AT&T logo, HTC logo, and the UltraPixel camera with an LED flash.
Hardware
The HTC One and the HTC One Mini have the same nice UltraPixel camera. It performs really well in low light conditions, thanks to its special design that allows it to take much more light. It has some really nice features in it as well, like a Panorama Sweep, HDR, Scene Modes, Effects, and much more! In fact you can shot with the effects on and adjust them while taking the photo. The UltraPixel Camera has a BSI Sensor, a 1/3-inch sensor size, a HTC ImageChip 2, 28 mm lens, F2.0 aperture, and Optical Image Stabilization. It still has VideoPic, Continuous Shooting SmartFlash, but they are adding HDR Video and HTC Zoe. The front facing 1.6 megapixel camera comes in handy for capturing selfies and video chatting on the go.
The fast quad core processor found in the HTC One is no where to be found. You get a 1.4GHz dual core processor with 1GB of RAM. It is not as fast as the HTC One, but still performs well. Graphics were good as well and it performed well with games. If you are running many large applications all at once, you may see a reduction in the speed.
A 4.3-inch 720pHD display with a 340 pixels per inch is very nice. The screen is still quite sharp and images look very life-like. Colors are usually vibrant and reading tex comes in at a very sharp tone. I am very impressed with the display on the HTC One Mini for a device in the low to mid range category.
The HTC One Mini for AT&T does have a LTE chip inside, this way it can take full advantage of AT&T’s 4G networks! As you may know AT&T does not only have a 4G LTE network, but it has an extensive backhaul thank’s to their 4G HSPA+ network. AT&T is continuing to roll out their 4G LTE network and is planning on expanding to a number of new cities in the summer. In the meantime if you don’t have 4G LTE from AT&T just yet, you may be running on their 4G HSPA+ network. While it may not be 4G LTE fast, it is certainly faster than 3G and will provide a nice network experience. Browsing the web was very fast and streaming HD YouTube videos happened quite quickly.
Software
The AT&T HTC One Mini is running the same Android 4.2.2 with HTC Sense 5 that is found on the HTC One. HTC BlinkFeed is one of the biggest software features of Sense 5 and the HTC One Mini. It brings all of your favorite content, that you care about and want to read, right to your home screen. In fact it turns you home screen basically into a news feed. You will see your entire feed, you can read the entire article, watch the video, listen to it, view the photos, and then share it with your friends. You can add your Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and many other accounts into your feed. They have partnered with many different media organizations like ESPN, AP, and around 1400 other media sources as well.
Pre-loaded on the HTC One Mini from AT&T you will find Code Scanner, Drive Mode, Family Map, Locker, Naviagtor, Ready2Go, Smart Wi-Fi, Device Help, Games, Messages, myAT&T, Wi-Fi Hotspot, YP, Power, and Usage. The Google App Suite and Google Play Suite are on board. Other applications you will find out of the box are Facebook, Twitter, Calendar, Gallery, Contacts, Mail, Camera, Music, Watch, YouTube, TuneIn Radio, FM Radio, Amazon Kindle, Mobile TV, KeyVPN, Tasks, Notes, Calculator, Voice Recorder, Stocks, and many others.
Bottom Line
Those looking for a smaller more pocket friendly variant of the HTC One, will be very happy with the One Mini. At a price of $99.99 with a 2-year contract, it becomes more affordable as well. You will enjoy the awesome features of HTC Zoe, as it will let you capture the moments of your life. I am very happy HTC decided to keep the same UltraPixel camera on the Mini. While the design is less high end, it still beats out most of the other designs on the market. Only a 720p screen, but colors are still vibrant and text is quite sharp. BoomSound is here again and it will exponentially increase your enjoyment of watching a video on your smartphone. If you are looking for a mid range smartphone with a nice design, be sure to take a look at the AT&T HTC One Mini. For More Information On The AT&T HTC One Min, Please Click Here. We would like to thank AT&T for providing us with a copy of the “AT&T HTC One Mini”.
