By Talk about the HTC One Mini 2 at AndroidForums.com
HTC has officially doled out the red carpet for the Mini version of their 2014 flagship HTC One M8. It’s being called the HTC One Mini 2 as rumors previously suggested, and it doesn’t up the ante much but it does provide a compelling enough experience for fans of smaller phones to take notice.
Under the hood will be a 4.5-inch 720p HD display, and that’ll have its pixels pushed by a Snapdragon 400 quad-core chipset and 1GB of RAM. Camera specs seem quite interesting as well, with the rear shooter coming in at 13 megapixels and the front shooter at 5 megapixels. Internal storage of 16GB should be enough to get you through your phone’s life cycle, though HTC has plopped in a microSD card slot for those who might need more storage for multimedia and documents.
Other choice specs include NFC, WiFi N, Bluetooth, 4G LTE, GPS, and a 2,100mAh battery rated for around 16 hours of talk time on 3G. Software wise, we’re looking at Android 4.4 KitKat with HTC’s Sense 6 on top, which has proven to be a very slick combo on the original HTC One M8.
One thing we were wondering about with this year’s model was its size — the original HTC One wasn’t much bigger than its mini counterpart, which kind of defeated the purpose. Unfortunately we’re getting more of the same here: the devices only sit a mere few millimeters apart when you put them side by side.
Regardless, if you are dead set on getting a phone with a 4.5-inch display for whatever reason you could definitely do a lot worse than the HTC One Mini 2. Let us know if you’ll be passing on the more mature sibling (read our review of the HTC One M8) to pick this one up instead. The HTC One mini 2 will be available in EMEA and North Asia in Gunmetal Gray, Glacial Silver and Amber Gold starting June 2014.
This phone has 13 megapixels? I know megapixels aren’t everything, but still!! I will never understand HTC’s ultra pixel strategy when the iPhone’s low light performance is comparable to the HTC One M8.
No it’s not. The Ultra Pixel is a wonderful technology. HTC is working to improve it. Their next phone the HTC Prime is suppose to have 5 ultra pixels which is equivelant to 8mp. The camera should be awesome, and my HTC One M8 takes beautiful shots.
His power level isn’t even over 9000 yet. Don’t worry about him.
My Z2 takes even better shots.
attention all phone manufactures: if you are going to copy a phone and call it a mini, please try to copy the specs of the big brother as closely as possible and put them in a smaller chasis. otherwise, you are releasing just another phone with mediocre specs.
I get your frustration, however they do not want to compete against themselves also. That’s why the mini line is a lower spec phone, however that doesn’t mean it’s not worth having. Moto X for example was one of the best phones last year.
OEMs seem to be making mini lines to use up older components.
Mini-Me wasn’t as powerful as Dr. Evil.
But then the mini phones would cost the same, or more than their larger counterparts, and while I would pay it, most people wouldn’t.
I would pay it too. I think there are two markets. Some people like big powerful phones and some people like small powerful phones. Just ask apple how many people like small powerful phones. Choice is healthy for Android.
I so want a “mini” 4.3 or 4.5 with high end specs. Please do it. This looks nice though. Specs similar to the Moto G. Hope it’s around the same price as the G.
Xperia Z1 Compact? Although it’s quite a bit pricier than the Moto G, it’s better specced…
The Droid Mini is exactly that. Same specs as high
end Moto X (including 2GB ram… More than any other “mini” out there except for the Sony mentioned above.
I hate that companies can’t give comparable specs to smaller phones. However, it’s partly due to consumers. We’re conditioned to think that bigger is better. When we walk into a carrier store, we want to see $199 on contract for the flagship phone, and not more than $99 on contract for the mini version. We’re so short-sighted, on average, that we expect a phone half as good to be half the price.
And if the Mini were to have the same specs as the flagship device, it would have a similar BOM (slightly smaller), but higher engineering costs due to trying to fit the same components into a smaller shell. Same specs or not, people don’t want to see $199 for the M8 and $199-$249 for the mini variant.
OEMs pull this crap because the average consumer is dumb as a stump. And when someone does finally get it right (Motorola, Moto X), people still complain and refuse to buy it. The Moto X is a perfect example because tech-geeks like myself (INCLUDING myself) originally dismissed it due to the dual-core CPU. Guess what? Apparently when you put in 4-cores into a smaller shell (like a smart-phone), that’s not a good thing. Even with the HTC One M7 and Galaxy S4 set to cheat, err, “optimize” performance during benchmarks, the Moto X was able to edge out both in many benchmarks. Why? Thermal throttling. Four cores get hotter than 2, and smartphones are aggressive at down-clocking to reduce heat. If Motorola really does go 5.2″ and quad-core in the Moto X+1, as some rumor, that would be truly disappointing.
So, when people complain about poor specs on mid-sized devices compared to their flagships, we have only ourselves to blame. We are all such dumb sheep when taken as a whole.
I agree with a lot of what you say but The size of the flagship devices are dictated by the screens they choose to put in them. They are not stuffing in high spec components and finding they have a big phone so may as well smack a big screen on the front. this means they can build a smaller phone with at least almost the same specs as the larger device. Sony did it with their Mini Experia Z1. A slightly smaller battery is the only necessary compromise needed in a smaller phone which makes room for all the other components and when the screen is smaller then the battery doesn’t need to be as large anyway. I see no real reason why the mini versions can’t have almost the same spec aside from battery and screen res but then be charged at the same price as the larger versions.
My Droid Mini, nearing a year old, has better specs than this new HTC mini.
i could be wrong but doesnt your droid mini have a smaller battery, less MP in the camera on both sides, and a weaker processor?
Same X8 system (dual core Snapdragon 1.7ghz), 10MP camera. I didn’t check the front facing, but they seem to be near identical in overall specs (battery size and screen size being the obvious differences).
EDIT: Comparing the Droid Mini and Droid MAXX.
EDIT 2: Sorry, my comparison had nothing to do with the post that I replied to.
ah i was comparing the droid mini to the One mini, since he said his droid mini had better specs. This is what i see : Droid Mini: dual core s4, 10mp camera, 2,000battery, vs HTC mini: with quad core s400, 13 mp camera, and 2100 battery.
But i HTC mini 2 will be going up against Droid mini 2, so this comparison doesnt really matter, i was just saying let’s not exaggerate things.
I’m not a camera expert, so I don’t know how those two cameras compare, but as always, there’s more than just megapixels at play here. However, I am a CPU nut. The CPU in the Droid Mini is FAR faster than the one in the HTC One Mini 2.
Snapdragon is a SOC, not a CPU. A CPU is part of that SOC. In this case, the Snapdragon in the Droid Mini is using the Krait MP-Core, which at 3.3 DMIPS/cycle and 1.7ghz means 5,610 DMIPS/core and 11,220 total.
The One M8 Mini 2 uses a quad-core Cortex A7, which at 1.2ghz and 1.9 DMIPs/cycle is 2,280 DMIPS/core and 9,120 total. Think of this as raw horsepower for the CPU. It’s not going to tell you which CPU is fastest in every task, just as HP doesn’t tell you what car will have the fastest 0-60 or quarter mile. But it’s a good indicator. Also, per-core numbers are more important than total numbers due to limitations with multitasking and thermal throttling. Bottom line is that, per core, the Droid Mini is 2.5x more powerful than the M8 Mini 2. Given the aforementioned limitations with multitasking and thermal throttling, there is no real-world scenario where the Mini 2 would keep up with the Droid Mini.
Not trying to be a jerk, and I sincerely apologize if I come across that way, but these two phones are worlds apart in CPU performance.
nope not a jerk, you clearly know more than i in this department. lol. I didnt realize the 400 was a7 i thought it was using the same krait 300’s. Or rather, the quad core version of the same dual core that the mini has. But it does bode me to question why all of the newer mid level phones are using the 400 series as opposed to the ones used in the droid mini. Is it just cheaper?
Only difference in specs is screen size, and, yes, battery is smaller. Camera (front and rear) is identical to Moto X. But the mini has LCD, not amoled screen, so battery life is about the same.
The whole AMoled to LCD battery savings thing i minimal at best. I’ve seen plenty of LCD phones produce better or equal battery life than an amoled competitor with equal or small battery capacities. And vice versa. I think screen type is one of the lessor impact factors on battery life.
Where does the moto x come into play? I thought we were comparing droid mini to the htc mini?
I brought up the Droid Mini/Moto X as an example of a “mini” phone that has same processing and camera specs as the flagship from the same manufacturer. Others are complaining about “mini” versions of higher end phones coming with lower end specs. At the time of release, the Droid Mini wasn’t about $100 less than the other Droid or Moto X phones… Making it a great bargain for little or no compromise on performance.
Woops… Meant to say that the Droid Mini WAS about $100 to $200 less in price on contract than its larger sister phones.
ok thats fine, i was just responding to the statement “droid mini has better specs than htc one mini”
Sure 4-cores doesn’t necessarily mean faster, just look at the Apple A7 it smokes almost any quad core device. The Moto X is a beast and I’m with you on the sequel, I hope they don’t change the dimensions or processor. A dual core based on the 801/805 would be fine.
This isn’t a mini phone… this is bigger than the Moto X in every dimension, LxWxH!
its not a mini Moto X, its a mini HTC One which we can all say is pretty freaking tall… Just like a mini Note would still be larger than the iphone 6.
I guess you got me on that one. But other than the camera i see no reason to buy this phone over the Moto X unless you just like htc phones.
More on that point I see no reason to buy any Android phone over the Moto X, except maybe the Nexus 5 (which doesn’t support all carriers).
I would almost rather have this than the M8.
So, no 2GB, no Snapdragon 600. Why should ANYONE buy this instead of the first One?
Why is it that NO manufacturer gets the ‘small’ phone segment besides SONY? This phone is only marginally better than the new MOTO G based on the camera and likely the chipset and the MOTO G will probably set you back half the cost of whatever HTC wants for this crippled ONE 2 device :/
Rehashed M7 hmmm..
Too tall, too narrow, too big of a space wasted to showcase HTC brand!!!
HTC already said there is a bunch of electronics behind that HTC band below the navigation keys. Stuff that they couldn’t fit behind the two boomsound speakers.
Finally HTC realized sensor size has a bigger impact in image quality than pixel size.
I’m all for a 4.5-4.7″ phone, I think it’s a perfect balance between a decent size screen and one-handed use. But the first thing HTC should be working on is shrinking the bezel not just the screen.