HTC’s shrunken One Mini coming for under $500

We’re big fans of HTC’s aluminium-clad One smartphone, and while we like the 4.7 inch screen, you might prefer it to be smaller, which is why HTC has announced that its little brother – the One Mini – will be coming to Australia very shortly.

Announced across the world in July, the pint-sized equivalent of HTC’s popular One handset for this year will be making its way to Australia soon, with Telstra and Vodafone being the telcos taking this one to shelves.

Designed in the image of its brother, the One Mini is more or less what the name says: a miniature version of its 4G big brother, the One from earlier in the year.

“With the HTC One mini, we are offering an impressive, compact smartphone that provides a super-fast, highly personal mobile experience at a great price,” said Garry McGregor Sales Director for HTC in Australia and New Zealand.

“Similar to our flagship product, the HTC One, this device offers a powerful all-round experience with all the key features that makes it a premium addition to the best smartphone family.”

The specs have changed from where they are on the One, but not from when HTC initially announced the One Mini a month ago, and will feature a Snapdragon 400 dual-core processor clocked at 1.4GHz, 16GB storage, 1GB RAM, Bluetooth 4.0 with AptX, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n, DLNA, GPS, support for 4G LTE, and a 1800mAh battery.

Some of the HTC improvements we first saw on the One are here, despite the changed specifications, including HTC’s Ultrapixel camera with HTC Zoe for editing images taken on the fly, Beats Audio for sound playback, and HTC’s BoomSound which includes two frontal speakers for louder sound out of the handset itself.

All of this sits under a 4.3 inch screen running the 720p HD resolution, showing a slightly higher than Retina pixel density of 341ppi, but not quite at where the regular HTC One sits with 468 pixels per inch.

HTC’s metal body comes with it, an aluminium unibody chassis like its brother, too.

As for which telcos will receive it, well that comes down to Telstra and Vodafone, with Telstra grabbing it first from September 17 and available in silver, while Vodafone will see it from early October.

An outright price will be available from Telstra stores, with the HTC One Mini costing $480 from September 17.

HTC's One Mini in silver (called "Glacial Silver") will be available from Telstra only.