Review

Monday 26 May 2014 15.42

The HTC One mini 2 looks a lot like its bigger brother

By Will Goodbody, Science & Technology Correspondent

As the size of premium smartphones increases, so too does the tendency of their manufacturers to fill the void left behind in the sub-5' space, by making scaled down models of the full versions.

And, of course, sticking the word 'mini' after the name.

Samsung is doing it, Sony is doing it and HTC is doing it.

Its latest offering, available here from 1 July, is the HTC One mini 2 - a condensed version of its new flagship HTC One M8.

The word 'mini' is, in this case, a little misleading. It is smaller than its big daddy - but at 137.4 x 65 x 10.6mm, it is actually larger than the iPhone 5S (that said Apple is rumoured to have a much larger iPhone in development).

The mini looks a lot like its father, with an attractive metal-clad body and curved back giving it a necessary premium look and solid feel - though it is a little heavier and chunkier than the opposition, and has more visible plastic than the M8.

The display is 4.5' and the resolution has been scaled down from Full HD 1080p, to 720p.

That said, it is bright, sharp, with good viewing angles, and is likely to be perfectly adequate for most.

The mini also has dual-frontal BoomSound speakers which deliver reasonably rich quality audio, for a smartphone.

Inside, there are also some reductions in spec compared to the M8, with the HTC One mini 2 running on a smaller quad-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon 400 processor and 1GB of RAM.

Again, this might effect a small cohort who run power-hungry games or other heavy duty apps, but most will find it quick enough to run the Android Kit Kat operating system with HTC's wrap around Sense 6 interface on top both efficiently and smoothly.

There's 16GB of memory built in, but that can be expanded up to 128GB using the microSD slot.

Battery life is quite good, giving around two days with normal to heavy use, and there's more available if power saving options are switched on.

The main camera is a respectable 13MP, although it lacks the second Duo Camera lens, and some of the post-snap editing and processing features of its full-scale parent.

That said, it takes pretty decent photos and also shoots 1080p video. On the front is a 5MP lens which has a built in self-timer for what HTC claims are guaranteed high-quality selfies.

So in summary, the HTC One mini 2 is a credible alternative for those who don't want to or cannot afford the grown up version, or a different, similarly priced and spec'd smartphone.

Though it lacks some of the features of the full version of the handset, it certainly packs enough punch to be a strong contender in this particular segment of the market.

That said, with a SIM free price of €379-399, it would want to.

The HTC One mini 2 will be available in Ireland in Glacial Silver and Gunmetal Gray from July 1st 2014 on Vodafone, O2, Three and from Carphone Warehouse.