HTC One Mini is official

Following the infographic from  days ago, HTC released yet another teaser before the launch of One mini smartphone. A photo capturing the device's corner on HTC UK's official Twitter profile comes with a word that the little brother of the Taiwanese flagship will break cover on July 18. The sneak peak of the HTC One mini fell right in line with the numerous leaks from the past. The smartphone sports the same design as the "regular" One, save for the featured polycarbonate around its edges.  HTC One mini has went official, and as tradition dictates, HTC  released a promo video on YouTube to mark the occasion.

The HTC One mini looks just like a minuaturized version of the HTC One flagship, all the way down to its aluminum body and UltraPixel camera (even if the Optical Image Stabilization has been stripped). The One mini features a 4.3″ S-LCD2 display of 720p resolution, dual-core 1.4GHz Krait CPU, Adreno 305 GPU and 1 GB of RAM. There’s 16GB of non-expandable internal memory, all powered by a 1800 mAh battery. It has been living in the rumor mill for a while now, but today HTC finally announced the One mini. It shares its design and many of its features with its bigger brother the One and sports a unibody aluminum body. That includes the HTC BoomSound technology, complete with dual frontal stereo speakers. The HTC One mini is built around 4.3" display of 720p resolution resulting in a density of 341 pixels per inch. The screen itself is of the S-LCD2 variety and is protected from scratches by a Corning Gorilla Glass 3. Under the hood of the HTC One Mini there's a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 chipset with 1.4GHz dual-core Krait 300 CPU, Adreno 305 and 1GB of RAM. The internal memory is 16GB and sadly, there isn't a microSD card slot for expanding it.The HTC One mini  runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean with HTC' Sense 5 UI icing on top. It gets treated to HTC's BlinkFeed and Beats Audio technology as well. At the back of the HTC One mini resides the same 4MP UltraPixel camera found on the HTC One. The only difference between them is the lack of optical image stabilization on the One mini. You still get HTC's ImageChip 2 and a BSI sensor of 1/3" size, though. The camera is capable of shooting 1080p videos with HDR and the LED flash next to it uses five levels of luminance (Smart Flash). HTC's Zoe is available as well, along with slow motion video recording with variable speed playback. The front-facing camera is 1.6MP and sports a BSI sensor that can shoot 720p videos. Measuring 132 x 63.2 x 9.25 the HTC One mini weighs 122 grams. The battery that powers it is an 1,800mAh Li-polymer unit and according to the HTC estimates is good for up to 13.2 hours of 3G talk time and 692 hours of 3G stand-by. Connectivity is covered with LTE, Bluetooth 4.0 with aptX enabled, Wi-FI a/b/g/n with DLNA and GPS + GLONASS. HTC has provided a range of sensors, too - there's a gyro, accelerometer, proximity and ambient light sensors. The HTC One mini will be available in grey (Glacial Silver) and black (Stealth Black) for select markets starting from August for an estimated €449.

Global rollout and availability will begin from September. UK carriers are lining up to announce they will carry the new HTC One mini and we already have preliminary launch dates and pricing for the diminutive smartphone.  By the looks of it, the UK will be among the select markets to get the One mini in August, ahead of the global rollout in September. O2 tweeted that the HTC One mini is coming soon (but gave no concrete dates). Carphone Warehouse does have more details – the handset is listed at £380 SIM-free, it starts at £27 a month with a 2-year contract on O2. Site MobileFun is also listing the mini SIM-free at €445, which works out to the same price in British pounds. Availability is set for next month. Vodafone has put up a blog post promising the One mini in August as well, though there's no pricing info from that carrier. EE will carry the new phone too, and it will allow it to flex its 4G LTE muscles. Besides a positive nod, EE didn’t give away anything else - no price or launch date. Clove UK has a page for the HTC One mini, as does Phones4U.