Gadgetory

HTC's 2014 flagship the one m8 is a beautifully crafted android smartphone but it sure is big so for those who put a premium on pocket space or pocket change HTC has crafted a smaller alternative that brings the wanna mates design language to the midsize category but the landscape of mini smartphones is dotted with disappointment so is this just another compromise in disguise let's find out together i'm michael fisher with pocket now and this is our video review of the HTC One mini - if you're like us carrying the one mini - we'll make you feel like you're getting away with something not since Sony's Xperia z1 compact have we encountered such a high-end feel in a mid-sized phone the one mini twos casing is 70% aluminium available in three colors with a plastic border that looks much better here than it did on last year's One mini we like the design here even more than the flagship m8 it's simpler cleaner but no less luxurious it's light without being chintzy thin but still gripple for our average hands it's the perfect size for one-handed use if you're an iPhone user considering the leap to Android this thing is going to get your attention if there's a handicap with the build its the buttons the volume rocker sits naturally under the thumb but the power standby key is still located up top which is still pretty awkward on a device as tall as this none of the keys has terribly good travel or feedback that said our Hardware here is pre-release so that may change in the production version the specs though are set in stone and here we see the 1 mini 2s mid-range fruits more clearly its heartbeat comes from a Snapdragon 400 system on a chip backed up by an acceptable gig of ram and 16 gigs of on-board storage with about 10 of those user accessible fortunately there's microSD expansion here for up to 128 gigs of music movies and other media or you can stream the same over HSPA or LTE in certain markets or dual band 8 or 2.11 a BGN everywhere Wi-Fi is available you'll watch that media on a 4 point 5-inch Super LCD - that's quite vibrant when it wants to be but everything from the viewing angles to the Milky gray blacks to the 720p resolution is straight-up middle-of-the-road making up for that average spec sheet is an above-average software experience Android is getting so good that 4.4.2 doesn't need crazy hardware to run well but it's surprising how nicely HTC's Sense 6 runs a top it here the day-to-day experience is as fluid as you can find on most flag ships and HTC's modern flair is a welcome reprieve from the sameness of stock KitKat you get a lot of added utility from sense customizations during our testing the HTC Browser came in handy when chrome couldn't handle a live video feed and the consistent visual cues across all the core apps unified the whole experience making the mini to seem like something more than just another Android phone while we'd still like more options for accent colors particularly in blinkfeed using the software is as much a pleasure here as it is on the one m8 and that's high praise sadly we can't say the same for the 13 megapixel camera if you're interested in how this shooter measures up to the m8 s ultra pixel camera we go into more detail on our Mini 2 vs m8 comparison video and in a dedicated photo shoot out at pocket now linked in the description taken by itself the 1 Mini 2 s camera is well the best word is probably adequate pictures in good lighting or fine the camera defaults to 9.6 megapixels if you want to preserve the wide aspect ratio but you can manually crank it up to 13 megapixels if you want and you'll get all the added zoom ability that extra resolution provides but colors on the whole fall on the BLA side they're less vibrant than in real life with brightly lit areas tending to overexpose and both problems are exacerbated by the too aggressive HDR mode and the propensity of HTC's exposure controls to dramatically overcompensate when using tab to focus low light shooting is flat-out bad even in dedicated night mode which seems to have little or no effect on the dim noisy and results none of this should be a surprise unless you Revere resolution above all else this is after all the same exact camera as found in HTC's decidedly mid-range desire 816 it is possible to take good photos with the one menu too but while it's fun to try thanks to the excellent feature-packed viewfinder software it's not easy that's true of the 5 megapixel front face as well no matter how fun the eye enhancer is all this holds true for video as well be advised though that most of these samples are 720p the default out of the box setting our full review at pocket now features a proper video sample reel in full resolution the launch of HTC's new Zowie app this summer will help compensate for this cameras shortcomings like the outstanding viewfinder and gallery features already do but on the whole we are just not impressed by this shooters results we are impressed pretty much everywhere else HTC has of course brought back boom sound whose software brings an added OMPH to playback through earbuds on the hardware front the front firing speakers aren't quite as throaty as the bigger chambers on the One m8 but their worlds better than anything else on the market that's evident in both media playback and gaming which the one mini two also handles with aplomb while the more intense graphics of some titles aren't always available gameplay is quite smooth with very few if any frame drops are skipped we've only been able to crash a game once and only by running it immediately after another memory intensive title otherwise it's been smooth sailing and for respectable spans - we've been able to consistently get a full day's usage out of the phone and even with heavy use including streaming HD video over 3G for an hour we were able to break eight hours before powering down how about the phone well two weeks of testing on a TTS HSPA network in both New York City and Greater Boston haven't turned up any problems with reception and call quality is terrific on both ends in earpiece and loudspeaker modes we're not able to test LTE performance as the one mini two lacks the proper 4G bands for the u.s. we expect that to change if and when the One mini two makes it to American shores the one mini two will launch in Europe the Middle East Asia and North Asia in June and HTC tells us it'll be available for about 360 pounds that's significantly cheaper than the 530 pounds three is asking for the One m8 at full retail and the One mini two will also obviously come in significantly cheaper up front with a contract still there's no getting around it if you consider that the aforementioned Xperia z1 compact is selling for about the same price with a markedly better camera faster hardware and waterproofing to boot the One mini two certainly feels overpriced HTC just doesn't bring enough with this smartphone to overcome that significant imbalance but it is an aluminum cloud smartphone with a super premium feel fresh responsive Android build and best-in-class onboard audio HTC sought to bring the One m8 experience to a midsize device and in large part it's exceeded if you're a person of specific tastes and nothing else will do and you're willing to splurge a little you're not likely to be disappointed be sure to check out our HTC One mini vs. HTC One m8 video here on YouTube and our full written review at pocket now linked in the description below also don't miss Adam lanes photo comparison between samples from the One m8 and the 1 mini 2 if you want a closer look at how the pictures between these devices vary until next time this has been michael fisher with PocketNow thank you for watching and we'll see you on the next one you