Stripping down the spec sheet

The biggest cutbacks in HTC’s budgetary adjustment with the One mini are in the internal specs. You get a dual-core 1.4GHz Snapdragon processor, 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of non-expandable storage. That’s half the cores, half the memory, and half the storage, suggesting that this handset might more aptly have been called the HTC One demi. Nevertheless, change to those components is meaningless to the end user unless it impacts performance, and with the One mini it really doesn’t. There’s no denying that the HTC One has the higher performance ceiling, however in the vast majority of day-to-day tasks the One mini matches it step for step. UI animations are just as fluid, browser performance is identical — even on more complex and content-rich websites like The Verge — and the camera’s capabilities and processing times are indistinguishable.

Other hardware features you’ll find on the One but not on the One mini include NFC, an IR blaster, and optical image stabilization (OIS) for the camera. I don’t believe any of them are of material importance — there are so far few NFC applications that can’t be replicated by more conventional means, the IR blaster was a gimmick from the start, and OIS would only have mattered if the camera was actually any good (more on that later).

HTC has kept the important things unchanged between One models. LTE connectivity and stereo BoomSound speakers are present and accounted for, with excellent connectivity and audio equal to the larger One.

A smaller battery makes a big impact

Up to this point, the HTC One mini’s spec sheet appears to merely be shorter, not lesser, than the One’s. But there is one important area where the company cut back too far: the battery. Stepping down from 2300mAh on the One to 1800mAh on the One mini translates to a palpable diminution in endurance. That’s bad news since the original handset was already average by Android standards. It’s not that the One mini can’t last a full day with judicious use — it can, particularly with HTC’s Power Saver mode enabled — but it made me anxious to recharge it a lot more often than the One ever did.

HTC’s First handset, released in the US with almost identical specs to the One mini, comes with a 10 percent larger battery and lasts quite a bit longer in practice. I’d happily trade the UltraPixel, Beats, and BoomSound branding on the One mini for the extra stamina of the First.