Grudge Match: HTC One mini vs Samsung Galaxy S4 mini

Samsung launched the little brother of its flagship, the Samsung S4 Mini, earlier this year. While Samsung was out of the gate early, HTC’s One mini was the more eagerly awaited of the two ‘mini’ smartphones. HTC found some success with the One and now the smaller version of the flagship has hit some stores in India. While the flagships of both companies come with strong specs sheets, it remains to be seen if the mini versions hold up just as well as their big brothers. Let’s have a quick look at the two phones before putting them in the ring for a face-off.

Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
Officially announced in May, the optional dual-SIM smartphone is a heavily trimmed version of the powerful Galaxy S4. Be that as it may, the specifications that the S4 mini brings to the table are considerable. Display wise, the smartphone comes with a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED display and a qHD resolution of 960 x 540 pixels, which will give a pixel density of 256 ppi. The display also comes with Corning Gorilla Glass protection. Under the hood, the smartphone is powered by a 1.7GHz Snapdragon 400 dual-core processor. The smartphone comes equipped with Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean OS out of the box, but adds TouchWiz interface on top of it. In terms of storage, the smartphone provides 8GB of internal memory, which can be expanded up to 64GB via a microSD card port. The S4 mini comes with 1.5GB of RAM, which is ample for providing a good response time. The phone seems pretty light, measuring 124.6 x 61.3 x 8.9 mm and weighing in at 107 g. In terms of optics, the smartphone comes with an 8-megapixel primary camera along with LED flash as well as a 1.9 megapixel front shooter.

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The mini version of Samsung’s flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S4 mini

HTC One mini
The official little brother to HTC’s flagship One smartphone, the One mini trims some of the features but should bring along the same design language. There has been some trimming in the specifications sections, but probably not enough for users to get overtly displeased. Starting with the display, the One mini will come with a 4.3-inch Super LCD2 capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 720 x 1280 and pixel density of 342 ppi. The display comes with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. Internally, the smartphone comes with a 1.4GHz Dual-core Snapdragon 400 processor. The model will come to the market with Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean OS out of the box, but adds the patent HTC Sense 5 UI on top as well. Storage is taken care of with a whopping internal memory of 16GB, but there is no microSD card slot, which may be a problem. The smartphone comes with 1GB of RAM, which may be a bit low. The One mini measures 132 x 63.2 x 9.3 mm and weighs in at 122 g. In terms of optics, the smartphone comes with a 4 megapixel primary camera with Ultrapixel technology along with LED flash and autofocus, as well as a 1.9 megapixel front shooter.

The HTC One mini looks just like big brother…

Take a quick look at the comparison chart below:

Comparision Table

The verdict
While the Galaxy S4 mini seems to have better specifications, usability-wise, the HTC One mini may win out. From what can be seen, the display of the latter is much better than the former. And the aluminum unibody of the former is far better, aesthetically speaking, than the S4 mini. However, the unibody could possibly work against the One mini, as the backpanel cannot be removed. The biggest point against HTC’s mini offering may be the non-removable 1800 mAh battery, though.

In terms of user interface, the Sense 5 UI featured is almost the same as the UI found on HTC’s flagship One smartphone. TouchWiz, on the other hand, has been stripped down considerably in Samsung’s mini offering. While the megapixel count on the S4 mini is better, the One mini comes with the same imaging processor chip as the HTC One, which is very good for low-light shots.

Overall, the S4 mini scores heavily over the One mini in terms of specs alone, and now it has the upper hand in terms of pricing too. The One mini’s Rs 30,000-plus price could just make it a harder pill to swallow than the Samsung offering.