Vodafone Bigs-Up the 4G HTC One mini

The HTC One mini is heading to Vodafone to help boost its 4G rollout, as a flagship 4G-ready LTE handset. With the HTC One winning awards left, right and centre, the reduced-size and reduced-cost of the HTC One mini makes it an ideal choice for those that want the abilities of its full-sized HTC One daddy, but for less cash and a smaller foot-print.

HTC's Graham Wheeler explained the thought process behind the design “With the HTC One mini, we really wanted to follow the pillars of design and technology that we have in the HTC One.”

Certainly when it comes to 4G reception antenna design is critical, but there were no compromises when it came to the HTC One mini as Graham explains “It’s using the same ‘Zero Gap’ design, where we integrate the antennas into the metal frame itself. It’s moulded out of one sheet of metal just like the One.” Alongside this the HTC One mini still boasts the excellent stereo Boomsound speakers and low-light excellence of its Ultrapixel technology too.

Vodafone are keen, rightly so, to point out that the HTC One and the HTC One mini differ in very few ways. In fact the key spec areas are the display itself, shifting from that lustrously-large 4.7-inch 1080p display to the mini's 4.3-inch 720p and the processor that's still a rather handy Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 dual-core 1.4GHz affair. It's of course not quite as simple as Vodafone are trying to make out, the HTC One mini has just 1GB of memory, a lower 16GB capacity and a downgraded 720p front camera, but they're easy-to-live-with compromises.

What hasn't been affected at all, is the high-speed 4G LTE capability of the HTC One mini, boasting full 800/1800/2600 tri-band reception. Making it a perfect choice for Vodafone to push with its August 4G network launch.