HTC One mini review: Meet Junior

Synthetic benchmarks

The HTC One mini uses the Snapdragon 400 chipset which has grown in popularity lately. It has two Krait 300 cores clocked lower than usual at 1.4GHz and Adreno 305, along with 1GB of RAM.

Krait 300 should perform okay even at 1.4GHz against the Krait 200 cores at 1.5GHz as some older phones have. We wish the clock speed was at 1.7GHz like it is in most dual- and quad-core versions of Krait 300, but still. What we're really concerned about is the limited amount of RAM, but synthetic benchmarks don't really show how RAM capacity affects usage.

Single-core performance is on the level of the Snapdragon S4 Pro-powered ex-flagships. Multithreaded performance is more of a mixed bag, beating quad-core Cortex-A9 phones in Linpack but lagging behind them in Geekbench 2.

Benchmark Pi

Lower is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  130
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  132
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  132
• LG Optimus G Pro
  147
• HTC One
  151
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  166
• Sony Xperia Z
  264
• HTC Butterfly
  266
• Oppo Find 5
  267
• HTC One X+
  280
• LG Optimus G
  285
• HTC One mini
  293
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  305
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  330
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  350
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  359
• Nexus 4
  431

Linpack

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  818
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  791
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  788
• LG Optimus G Pro
  743
• HTC One
  646
• Sony Xperia Z
  630
• HTC Butterfly
  624
• LG Optimus G
  608
• Oppo Find 5
  593
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  413
• HTC One mini
  320
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  214.3
• Nexus 4
  213.5
• HTC One X+
  177.7
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  175.5
• HTC One X
  160.9
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  141.5

Geekbench 2

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  3324
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  3227
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  3046
• LG Optimus G Pro
  3040
• HTC One
  2708
• Sony Xperia Z
  2173
• HTC Butterfly
  2143
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  1937
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1845
• LG Optimus G
  1723
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  1661
• iPhone 5
  1601
• HTC One mini
  1417

Overall performance is in a similar situation - AnTuTu puts the HTC One mini at the bottom, while Quadrant pushes it above last year's flagships, but still near the bottom when new phones are considered.

AnTuTu

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  26275
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  24716
• HTC One
  22678
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  21363
• Sony Xperia Z
  20794
• LG Optimus G Pro
  20056
• HTC Butterfly
  19513
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  15547
• Oppo Find 5
  15167
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  14518
• HTC One mini
  11434

Quadrant

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  12446
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  12376
• LG Optimus G Pro
  12105
• HTC One
  11746
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  11346
• Sony Xperia Z
  8075
• HTC One X+
  7632
• LG Optimus G
  7439
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  7153
• Oppo Find 5
  7111
• HTC One mini
  6048
• HTC One X
  5952
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  5916
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  5450
• Nexus 4
  4567

GLBenchmark was run at 1080p offscreen mode to measure raw GPU performance, which seems to be above what Tegra 3 managed last year and close to the Mali-400 of the same generation. Still, comparing it to the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini (which uses the same chipset) shows the GPU was downclocked too.

GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  43
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  41
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  41
• HTC One
  37
• Oppo Find 5
  32
• Google Nexus 4
  32
• Sony Xperia Z
  31
• Sony Xperia ZL
  31
• Sony Xperia SP
  31
• Apple iPhone 5
  30
• LG Optimus G Pro
  30
• LG Optimus G
  21
• Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3
  17
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  17
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  17
• HTC One mini
  15
• HTC One X
  11

GLBenchmark 2.7 T-Rex (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  17.1
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  17.1
• Apple iPad 4
  16.8
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  16
• Google Nexus 10
  13.9
• LG Optimus G
  13.9
• Sony Xperia Z
  13.5
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  13
• Sony Xperia ZL
  12.8
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  6.4
• Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3
  6.3
• HTC One mini
  5.6
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  4.9

Considering the HTC One mini has a 720p screen, Epic Citadel shows more realistic numbers. The Galaxy Mega 6.3 has a dual-core Krait 300 at 1.7GHz and Adreno 305 with a 720p screen (unlike the qHD screen of the Galaxy S4 mini) but the Epic Citadel framerate is basically even, so the difference in clockspeed doesn't translate into a huge real-world performance (not yet any way, heavier games will change that).

Epic Citadel

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  59.8
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  57.5
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  57.1
• HTC One
  56.4
• HTC One mini
  56
• Sony Xperia Z
  55.6
• Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3
  55.5
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  54.7
• LG Optimus G Pro
  54.2
• Nexus 4
  53.9
• Asus Padfone 2
  53.4
• LG Optimus G
  52.6
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  41.3
• Oppo Find 5
  38.6

By the way, Adreno 305 supports OpenGL ES 3.0, which was recently added to Android (with 4.3) and that promised improved graphics, so there's room for improvement.

JavaScript performance of the HTC One mini browser is close enough to that of the HTC One, that it nearly doesn't matter (JS doesn't care for multi-core CPUs much). However, BrowserMark 2 and Vellamo show scores that can compete with the current flagships (the One mini has to render pages at 720p, less than half the pixels of a 1080p screen).

SunSpider

Lower is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  804
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  810
• Samsung Ativ S
  891
• Apple iPhone 5
  915
• Nokia Lumia 920
  910
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  972
• HTC One X+
  1001
• LG Optimus G Pro
  1011
• Motorola RAZR i XT890
  1059
• HTC One
  1124
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  1185
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  1196
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1192
• HTC One mini
  1237
• Sony Xperia Z
  1336
• LG Optimus G
  1353
• HTC Butterfly
  1433
• Nexus 4
  1971
• Oppo Find 5
  2045

BrowserMark 2

Higher is better

• LG Optimus G
  2555
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  2438
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  2338
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  2314
• HTC One
  2262
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  2170
• HTC One mini
  2164
• Sony Xperia ZL
  2107
• Sony Xperia Z
  2093
• LG Optimus G Pro
  1801
• Oppo Find 5
  1797
• Nexus 4
  1794
• Nokia Lumia 920
  1774
• Google Nexus 10
  1773
• HTC Butterfly
  1475
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1247

Vellamo

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  2418
• HTC One
  2382
• HTC One mini
  2252
• Sony Xperia Z
  2189
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  2078
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  2060
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  2056
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  2019
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  1936
• HTC Butterfly
  1866
• Oppo Find 5
  1658
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1641
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  1568
• LG Optimus G
  1522
• Nexus 4
  1310

We mentioned that none of these benchmarks really measure the effects of the relatively low amount of available RAM. That's because you only notice it when running multiple apps and switching between them. That said, the One mini performed okay most of the time - it's not as snappy as its daddy, but there are no annoying slowdowns as far as we could tell in the limited time we had with it.