The latest HTC smartphone is not exactly “mini”, but
condenses the best bits of the 5-star flagship One M8 into a smaller, more
manageable package.
Despite its questionable name, the HTC One mini 2 replaces
last year’s One mini and continues the Taiwanese company’s focus on metal phone
bodies with solid build quality, which won it a GSMA Global Mobile award for
best smartphone in 2013, and critical acclaim for the larger HTC One M8.
The One mini 2 is designed to fill the demand for a smaller
premium phone. It's a good looking Android smartphone, but not as big as the
current crop of 5in-plus flagship smartphones like the One M8, Samsung Galaxy
S5 and Sony Xperia Z2.
The One, just shrunk
When HTC calls this the “mini” HTC One it’s not kidding. It
looks like a slightly smaller version of the Taiwanese manufacturer’s new One
M8 smartphone, which is definitely a good thing.
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It may look the same, but it doesn’t quite feel the same.
HTC has had to use cheaper manufacturing processes to produce the body, which
although it is clad in metal, isn’t one solid piece of aluminium and therefore
doesn’t feel quite as nice. It still feels premium, though, which marks it
above quite a few of its mid-range competition.
The curved back fits in the hand nicely, and it is still
very solidly built with no flex or give in the body. It weighs 137g, and is
10.6mm thick, which makes it thicker than and slightly heavier than the iPhone
5C or Sony Xperia Z1 Compact – two of its rivals.
The 4.5in screen is hardly “mini” but it does mean the
device is significantly smaller than the larger 5in HTC One M8. The One mini 2
is 9mm shorter and over 5mm narrower which makes it much easier to hold and use
with one hand.
The screen is bright and pin sharp despite being only 720p
(compared to the 1080p of the One M8), which makes it match Apple’s iPhone 5C
on pixel density, with good viewing angles making sharing video and photos with
others easier.
HTC’s signature Boom Sound speakers bracket the screen, and
while slightly smaller than those fitted on the One M8 are much louder and
clearer than most other smartphones and make watching YouTube videos a joy.
Specifications
Screen: 4.5in 720p LCD
Processor: 1.2 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400
RAM: 1GB of RAM
Storage: 16GB with a microSD card slot for expansion
Operating system: Android 4.4.2 “KitKat”
Camera: 13-megapixel rear camera, 5MP front-facing camera
Connectivity: LTE, Wi-Fi (n/ac), NFC, Bluetooth 4.0 with BLE
and GPS
Dimensions: 137.4 x 65 x 10.6mm
Weight: 137g
The One mini 2 is a smaller, lower cost phone than its
bigger brother, but that doesn't mean its slow or sluggish.
Its quad-core
Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor is a step down in raw horsepower from the One
M8’s beefier Snapdragon 801, but in general use you simply won’t notice the
difference.
The phone feels
fast and responsive, with apps launching quickly, simple games running smoothly
and with enough power to handle everyday tasks like emailing, browsing and
watching Netflix without a hiccup.
Some graphically
intensive games will not run quite as well on the One mini 2 as they would on
some of the more powerful phones, but gaming is generally not the focus for
smaller Android phones.
It is
significantly faster and smoother than almost any phone from two years ago,
making it an upgrade you really will notice.
The One mini 2 has 16GB of storage built in with a micro SD
card slot for adding up to an extra 128GB, although that space cannot be used
to store apps.
HTC like to pride itself on solid battery life for its
smartphones and the One mini 2 is no exception. The company claims the same
all-day battery life as the One M8; my testing saw the phone last over a day
and half of heavy usage with emails arriving all the time, about 20 texts sent
and received, 2 hours of browsing, a bit of mapping and listening to music over
Bluetooth.
Most people should get two days of useful usage out of the
One mini 2 between charges, and that’s without activating any of the power
saving features, which can add days of standby time – a very useful feature if
you need a phone to last on extended trips away from a power source.
Small useful tweaks
HTC creates a version of Android called “Sense”, customizing
experience on top of the core Android software. For the most part the changes
are minor cosmetic differences, which will still be familiar to anyone who has
used Android in the past.
The One mini 2 uses exactly the same version of Android as
the One M8. HTC’s quick settings buttons under the notification draw are
particularly useful, with many more than normally available on standard Android
and covering almost any most-used setting.
Among the small tweaks, the most obvious addition is HTC’s
social news aggregate app, Blink Feed. It is stored on the very left pane of
the home screen, and pulls posts from your social media accounts, information
from your calendar and some of the built-in apps, as well as news and
entertainment from a plethora of sources of your choosing.
Blink Feed is essentially a slick version of Flip board that
isn't available across multiple devices; one of those features users will
either take to and find useful, or instantly find a burden. Thankfully users
can remove Blink Feed from their home screens entirely.
Camera
The One mini 2 has a decent, traditional 13-megapixel main
camera, instead of the HTC One M8’s 4 Ultra pixel Duo Camera. It is capable of
producing solid but not outstanding photos with good detail and color.
They images are arguably clearer than those produced by the
One M8’s DuoCamera, but the low light performance is not quite as good and it
cannot perform any fancy focus-after-capture effects.
Selfie-cam
A 5-megapixel “selfie” camera is mounted on the front of the
phone with a wide aperture lens that is capable of capturing great shots. Even
if they aren’t that great on shooting, HTC’s built a load of fancy photo
editing effects into its gallery app that can do automatic “make up” modes or
enlarge and enhance a subject’s eyes, narrow their chin and smooth their skin.
They’re easy to use and often things that would take the average user quite a
bit of time in front of an image editor like Photoshop to achieve.
The impressive front-facing camera also makes Android’s
built-in Face Unlock feature work very well, unlocking the smartphone by
recognising the user’s face and handling the difficult lighting conditions
generally found while trying to use the phone on the move or outdoors.
The One mini 2 won’t be available until the end of May and
official pricing wasn’t available. It is expected to cost around £300 without a
contract, and should be free on most contracts with mobile phone operators. It
will be available in three colors.
Verdict
The HTC One mini 2 takes the best features of the top rated
One M8 and condenses it into a smaller, more manageable frame.
The metal body feels great in the hand, while the screen
looks just as crisp and the speakers are just as loud. It is easy to fit in the
pocket and use one-handed, while the all-day battery life means you don’t have
to worry about recharging it during the day.
The battery saving features mean the One mini 2 will easily
last a long weekend away, and the camera is good enough to mean you can leave
the point-and-shoot camera at home. The selfie camera is impressive, and the
wide-angle and high resolution pic make it easier to take better group pictures
of friends and family.
The only small down side is that its slower processor and
only 1GB of RAM (where most premium smartphones have at least 2GB), may hamper
its performance in graphically intensive games and makes it less future proofed
over two years.
If you’re looking for a well-made, smaller android phone
then the HTC One mini 2 is arguably one of the best. It would make a solid
upgrade from smartphones bought around two years ago, while not being truly
hand stretching like most of the other premium smartphones with 5in or larger
screens.
Pros: Metal body, decent camera, solid battery life, pocket
able size, good screen
Cons: Slower processor, 1GB of RAM, relatively thick, screen
may be a bit small for some
